Worst Legislation Ever!

On Tuesday November 1st, the Canadian Federal Government, or as it likes to be known, the Harper Government, unveiled the worst piece of legislation in my lifetime and possibly in the history of this, or any other, presumably democratic country!

The purpose of this bill is to eliminate the Long Gun Registry.  Libertarians and anarchists, groups that broadly intersect gun owners, don't like the registry.  This is not surprising as they disapprove of all forms of government information gathering.  If they could get away with driving without driver's licenses or even license plates, the certainly would.  Not only are these 'wretched' forms of government 'interference', they cost money!  That's like a tax!  Nothing is more evil than taxation!

I deride this attitude openly.  John Donne, a 17th century Christian scholar, stated that "no man is an island," yet these people continue to strive for exactly that ideal.  Ask nothing of them for they will do nothing for you.  Not surprisingly, they stick to this philosophy right up to the point where they need something from someone else, like the services of a specialist like a doctor or engineer.  Every society on the planet agrees that man is a social animal but libertarians and anarchists disbelieve.  They would live free of the influence of others -- of civilization.  I say let them, and point to Antarctica as a perfect place for them to set up their new world vision free from interference.  The penguins pretty much keep to themselves.

This same population almost universally supports the Conservatives in every election at every level of government.  A few break off and support fringe parties that move even farther to the political right, which in my opinion is 100% based on ignorance, ideology, selfishness and greed, or alternately insanity.  (I wanted to be more provocative but I couldn't figure out how.)  So, it is no wonder that this government is all too eager to kill the Registry.  They promised to do so in order to win those ideological and one-issue votes and now they're following through.  Of course, the reason they gave for doing this was that it was prohibitively expensive!  What price does one put on piece of mind?  What price does one put on the rational effort for promoting safety?  Governments, particularly conservative governments, promise, lie and renege with alarming regularity but for this issue you better believe they're going to follow through.  'We', and I use that term loosely, gave them a majority government so they can do anything they want.  They pretty much did that ignored all the rules and the interests of the Canadian people with a minority government so expect them to be on their worst behaviour!

Never mind the fact that doing this is in the "best" interest of absolutely no Canadians.  In other words, it ill-serves even the ideologues that most fervently support it.  How and why do I say this?  Every police force and agency in the country has come forward in favour of keeping the Registry.  Chiefs of police tend to be fairly politically conservative -- some even run for office as Conservatives -- but they completely sided against their elected government on this issue.  Quite simply, it helps them do their primary job of protecting citizens.  This is not just theory, it is historical fact.  Clearly, protecting the citizens from the potential of violent, gun-related crime is not a priority for this government.  Protecting them from 'big government' is by far a more real and pressing concern!  Don't you agree?  This is ideology at its very worst!  What's worse is that it is cosmically stupid and can't be rationalized at any level, at least not any more than cutting off your nose to spite your face!

Part of the problem is that extremely dangerous, non-hunting related weapons were tracked in the registry and without it there is absolutely no record keeping at all for these semi-automatic weapons and sniper rifles.  Why Canadians are legally even allowed to own these guns is completely unknown to me.  To not register them is just asinine!  No rational person would even suggest it!

Canada, welcome to the United States...only worse.  Why worse?  Since the implementation of the Long Gun Registry, all of the other forms of record keeping regarding such weapons have been eliminated since they were now redundant.  The Conservatives have absolutely no plans to reintroduce any of these safety methods and precautions.  As far as they're concerned it would defeat the whole secret purpose: reducing the size and scope of 'government interference' and to remove 'limitations' on the 'freedoms' of Canadians.

The only problem with that is that there were no limitations on freedoms and some government functions are absolutely essential!  Eliminate something else!  Surely there has to be something less critical!  As far as freedoms go, no one was ever prevented from obtaining, keeping or using long guns in legal fashions.  That's not for what the Registry was used.  All it does is provide law enforcement with a tool to trace guns used in crimes back to their owners.  Gun owners have a reputation for not reporting gun loss and theft which has in some cases limited the usefulness of the Registry, but the fact remains that most gun crimes are committed by the lawful owners of guns.  This is because, as often as not, gun crimes are crimes of passion, not organized or street crimes and for this the Registry is indispensable.  (Why wouldn't they report lost or stolen guns?  For the same reasons that they don't want their guns traceable -- they despise and distrust all forms of government, even the ones they elect!)

For the small price of smaller government, for the first time in more than four decades, there are no measures for recording or tracking long guns in Canada.  Sorry officer, we just don't care to help you protect the citizenry.  You'll have to solve those crimes without trivially easy to maintain clues.  Presumably, gun owners are immune from crime, unless of course they are committing it.  If crime dares to touch their lives I presume they will simply hunt down the perpetrators, or the ones they think are the perpetrators and shoot them with their untraceable guns.  No need to both the police, after all, they are just an extension of despised and distrusted government.  The inmates are officially running the asylum.

Instead of maintaining this essential crime-fighting tool the Conservatives will do more ideological things to, at least in their minds, compensate.  They'll increase the penalties for crimes committed.  It has been shown that prison terms are not an effective deterrent.  On the other hand, belief in getting caught rather than getting away with it has been shown to be an effective deterrent.  Without the Registry, criminals have more reason to believe they won't be caught, and why not?  It makes perfect sense.  Life terms or even death sentences won't compensate for that loss of deterrent.  Since there will be less deterrent, there will be more crime, but don't worry.  The Conservatives plan to build more prisons for all the additional criminals and their longer sentences.  Frankly, the main thing this accomplishes is that it increases the magnitude of the nightmare of the wrongly accused and convicted.  And surely without the essential crime solving tool that the Registry is, there will be more and more wrongly convicted people as well as more unsolved crimes.  Another win for the people of Canada!  Thank you, Conservatives ideologue morons!

But even this is not enough for the Conservatives.  It is not enough that they change the law now.  They want to make it as close to impossible for Canadians, or their future governments, to change their minds.  They plan on destroying all the already collected gun registration data.  In other words,  they aren't willing to pay one red cent to keep track of the most dangerous personal weapons known to man but they are willing to spend money to ensure that rebuilding or replacing the Registry will cost countless megabucks.   Changing one's mind is the only intelligent thing to do when you get new or better information that indicates that you previously made a mistake.  The Conservatives are building their own insurance policy against future information.  They want their policy to exist regardless of whether it is ultimately proven right or wrong.  In their minds, it is their right to force what could always be a mistake on Canadians in perpetuity.  Claiming with absolute confidence that this is not a mistake is purely ignorant and quite insane.  They call it the clarity of the mad!  Destruction by its very nature is the mark of bullies, villains and small minds.  It is infinitely easier to destroy something than it is to build something.  It is never a good idea to destroy something unless there is a strong, concrete plan to rebuild or replace.  This Government not only has no plan to rebuild or replace, they want to make it nigh onto impossible for anyone else to ever rebuild or replace.  What they are doing is the political equivalent of burning the crops and then salting the earth so nothing will grow there forevermore.  They are doing this to Canadian soil!

It is wrong.  It is corrupt.  IMHO, it is evil.  It empowers criminals, what else would you call it?  And it is entirely typical of the bunch of yahoos that are currently running the country.  Ideology rules and logic is the enemy.  Thought is not valued.  If you are bright you are 'the elite' and to be marginalized.  Remember that tripe from down south?  I'd like to say that we can still hope that they won't do anything else so damaging to Canadian culture and the Canadian people, but we all know they will.  They're just getting started!  They were only elected in May!  We can expect four-and-a-half more years of this downright criminally negligent form of 'leadership'.  May God help us all, or better yet, may God stop the Conservatives or at least force them to see the error of their ways.  A few (say ten?) well-targeted and obvious plagues would come in handy right about now...  (It's a biblical reference.  The conservatives will get it.)