* Forwarded (from: PA-RKBA) by Roy J. Tellason using timEd 1.10.y2k.
* Originally from Joe Pyrdek (1:270/615.77) to All.
* Original dated: Mon Dec 16, 15:04

Organization: Edinboro University of PA
From: Joe Pyrdek 
Subject: PA-RKBA! Canadian Government versus Trust

Received this from a friend who is up in remote Quebec.  Thought that you
may enjoy his view on the Great Boondoggle called the Canadian Gun
Registry.

***

A letter to the editor about this gun registry thing; now that it's down, I
figured a few well placed kicks would help ;-).

(already sent to the Ottawa citizen)

The Minister of Justice needed seventy two million dollars to continue his
crusade to register every gopher gun, deer rifle, and duck gun in the
country. And he went, hat in hand, to the Members of Parliament to get it.

The members of the Canadian Parliament, in a free vote in the House of
Commons, told the Ministry of Justice that they have spent too much money
on this farce of a Gun Registry. They felt so strongly about this, that
they were willing to vote to potentially force an election to change the
entire government of the country if he persisted in his request.

That's not a subtle hint. There's no real chance of misinterpretation. The
feelings are pretty clear. Those men and women that we elected in our
democratic way, the way that Canadian soldiers have fought and died for,
and continue to fight and die for, on our behalf, said it quite plainly.
Our elected MPs want what we told them that *we* want. And what *we* want
is to "stop this foolishness", as my mother would say.

So, the Minister of Justice saw this, and since it was the Will of the
People, he agreed, right? He immediately went to his staff, and announced
that they needed to find another way to keep guns from the hands of
criminals and drug dealers, that this registry idea wasn't working. That's
what he did, right?

Wrong. The Minister of Justice saw this, and decided that if he couldn't
get the money honestly, he was going to steal it from his own people. The
people in charge of Justice; our police, our court system, our prison
system. There's an irony there that I'd laugh at if it wasn't so pitiable.

And how much lunch money is this bully going to extort from the other kids
in his class? Seventy two million dollars worth.

Seventy two million dollars. Nope, that's too big a number to get a feel
for. the Lotto 6/49 has never been that high, as I remember. I need to find
another comparison that has real value. How about fifteen hundred police
officer's salaries for a year, ok, that works. That'll be far too real for
some of us.

That's what Martin Cauchon wants to "re-allocate" to the Firearm
Registry Project-slash-Black Hole of Mirimachi starting today. And not for
a big upgrade of service, just for his "operating costs".
Interestingly, that's about what this project has cost every single year
since it was foisted upon an unsuspecting population in 1995. A bit over a
hundred million per year. Frankly, I can't tell you exactly; my calculator
only displays eight digits, so I can't divide one billion over seven years.
It's two digit spaces short... and that's too tragic to be a joke.

What does that mean to us, the citizens of  Canada? That means Community
Outreach Centers from St.John's Newfoundland to Vancouver British Columbia
will have their budgets cut, and may well be closed.

That means fewer equipment upgrades for the line officers on the streets of
Toronto, fighting criminals who are equipped with the best equipment that
drug money can buy.  That means police officers driving rusting out Crown
Victoria patrol cars for another year, resulting in fewer patrols in
troubled neighborhoods, or officers not making it to the scene of urgent
calls because of "car trouble".  That means fewer computer
upgrades for their "cyber-cops", resulting is a decrease in
effectiveness in countering computer crime and the hunting of child
pornographers and sexual predators on the internet.

And why? Because despite the fact that I, myself, as a licensed gun owner,
submitted to a RCMP background check, despite the fact that I had to seek
the approval of my wife and friends or co-workers to even *apply* for my
gun license (their signatures are required fields on the license
application I completed), despite the fact that I have no criminal history
and have not been divorced, fired, suffered any mental anguish or been
treated by doctors for depression (again, required fields on the
application I filled out), the Ministry of Justice doesn't trust me with an
old twenty gauge shotgun I use to hunt pheasant with my old dog.

Actually, no, that's not correct. They trust *me*. They licensed *me*. On
my application, I provided character references, complete with addresses
and phone numbers that they can call, to ask about me. And I didn't do this
because I was feeling generous. I did it because it is required on the
application. Yep, every licensed gun owner in Canada did the same. So they
have no reason in the world not to trust me or any other licensed gun owner
in the country.

It's the gun they don't trust.

And they're willing to bankrupt the Justice system to try and get it.
 
So, to find out where they can find a piece of pipe with a wooden handle,
which is basically what my shotgun is, they are willing to cut back on
community police services, willing to backlog the court system so that
honest men wait in jail cells to prove their innocence, and that guilty men
are set free because their case took too long to come to court, willing to
let predators lure our children to motels over the internet, and let our
prisons decay to the point that they'll become unsafe to both the free
citizens around them, and the inmates within.

Because the Minister of Justice doesn't trust pipe-on-a-stick.

Somebody needs to contact the mother of Martin Cauchon, our Minister of
Justice. Have her call him, and tell him to "stop all this
foolishness".

Please.

DJ

"Our Rights are not what's wrong in Pennsylvania"

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania guarantees your right
to bear arms in Article 1 Section 21: "The right of Citizens to bear
arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."

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