* Forwarded (from: netmail) by Roy J. Tellason using timEd 1.10.y2k.



Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 15:29:19 -0700
From: "Derek K. Miller" 
Subject: Crash loses names of Canadian firearms registrants

A database crash now threatens to turn people trying to comply with an
unpopular law into lawbreakers instead.

The Canadian government has been attempting to implement a nationwide
firearms registry for several years now.  What was originally supposed to
cost at most a few million dollars to document every previously
undocumented rifle or shotgun in the country has now ballooned into a $1
billion-plus megaproject that appears not to work.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/firearms_act.html

Even those, like me, who are firmly for Canada's strong gun-control laws
find the way this project has been put together to be laughable (and that's
a charitable assessment). In many rural parts of Canada, a long gun is a
necessity, at least to hunt for food or as protection against potentially
dangerous wildlife (everything from polar bears to moose and wolverines,
depending on where you are) for people living or working in the bush, from
native communities to petroleum exploration teams.

The latest registry mishap to come to light is that the database software,
overloaded before the registration deadline was extended several months
from its original 1 January 2003 date, crashed, and apparently took some
registrants' names with it. No one seems to know how many, and I haven't
been able to track down any details of the kinds of software or platforms
that were in use.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1054726691584_31/

To add to the federal government's trouble, a number of provinces have now
said they will refuse to prosecute people who flout the act by not
registering their guns -- and there are many such scofflaws.

>From the CTV article above:
> The federal Firearms Act and the Criminal Code state that anyone 
> possessing a firearm as defined in Section 2 of the Code must hold a 
> valid firearms registration certificate. The new legislation requires 
> that owners of long-guns such as rifles and shotguns, register their 
> weapons by July 1 or face legal action.
> 
> Critics of the gun registry have argued that the legislation is
> nothing more than a costly waste of time.
>
> The auditor general has projected it could end up costing more than 
> $1 billion by 2005 rather than the net $2 million over 10 years 
> projected when it was established in 1995. And many say people who 
> would use their firearms for violent offences aren't likely to 
> register their guns anyway.

Aside from the direct risks of setting up a database without the bandwidth
or computational headroom for large increases of traffic before a deadline,
lacking proper file journaling, and insufficiently backed up, there is the
additional risk that the predictable failure of such a system will cast
further bad light on a project already suffering from a reputation for
inefficiency and poor planning.

Derek K. Miller - dkmiller{at}pobox.com
  [Also noted by Dan Haggarty.  PGN]

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