Firearms Training

Gun registry admits total failure after $2.7 billion
by Joel McDurmon on Feb 21, 2012

John R. Lott and Gary Mauser report on a national gun registry experiment in Canada in which the government has finally admitted total failure after blowing $2.7 billion:

Despite spending a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a long-gun registry, Canadians never reaped any benefits from the project. The legislation to end the program finally passed the Parliament on Wednesday. Even though the country started registering long guns in 1998, the registry never solved a single murder. Instead it has been an enormous waste of police officers’ time, diverting their efforts from patrolling Canadian streets and doing traditional policing activities. . . .

The statistics are revealing: out of 4,257 homicides from 2003 to 2009, 1,314 were carried out with firearms. In fewer than 10 percent of these cases was the gun even registered, and in only 62 of these registered instances was the gun actually registered to the person committing the crime. Lott and Mauser comment,

To repeat, during these seven years, there were only 62 cases — nine a year — where it was even conceivable that registration made a difference.

But apparently, the registry was not important even in those cases. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chiefs of Police have not yet provided a single example in which tracing was of more than peripheral importance in solving a case.

The problem isn’t just that the $2.7 billion spent on registration over 17 years has produced no arrests, it is that the money could have been used to put more police on the street or pay for more health care or cut taxes. An extra $160 million a year pays for a lot of police or doctors or teachers.

Or, you could stop the spending altogether and shrink the size and scope of the State. One reason governments grow tyrannical and eventually push for greater gun control is that we keep feeding the State and demanding more social problems to be solved by it. Gun rights exist by definition as a last-resort defense against tyranny—and thus gun rights represent the preservation of a small State that fears the citizenry and honors individual rights. You negate this very principle when you demand more State-funded police and social services.

The Welfare and Warfare States are two sides of the same coin. Until conservatives understand this and discipline themselves accordingly, gun control advocates will always have ready access to the very infrastructure they need to advance their agenda: a strong police force, a strong agency of propaganda (“education”), and a strong facade of its necessary existence (benefits like education, health care, safety, etc.). The goal is to minimize the programs permanently and not use the money for something else. Use the money to pay down debts and restore freedom once again.

Madness after girl, 4, draws gun pic at school WORLDNETDAILY

Dad: ‘I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up’

A father has been arrested, strip-searched and hauled in for questioning – all because his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun at school.

“I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Jessie Sansone, 26, told the Waterloo Region Record in Canada. “I was in shock. This is completely insane. My daughter drew a gun on a piece of paper at school.”

Sansone, a Kitchener resident, had arrived at Forest Hill public school to pick up his children when he was called to the principal’s office. Three police officers informed him he was being charged with possession of a firearm. Then he was escorted out of the school, handcuffed and locked in the back of a police car.

According to Sansone, he didn’t learn what had caused the investigation until hours after his arrest. Other officers arrived at his home, where they instructed his wife to come to the police station and took his other three children to Family and Children’s Services to be questioned.

“Nobody was given any explanation,” Sansone’s wife, Stephanie Squires, told the paper. “I didn’t know why he was being arrested. He had absolutely no idea what this was even about. I just kept telling them. ‘You’re making a mistake.’”

Sansone was forced to undergo a full strip search.

The school principal, police and child welfare officials said there would need to be an investigation to determine whether he had a gun in his home that children could find.

Alison Scott, executive director of Family and Children’s Services, told the Record, “From a public safety point of view, any child drawing a picture of guns and saying there’s guns in a home would warrant some further conversation with the parents and child.”

Waterloo Regional Police Inspector Kevin Thaler said Forest Hill public school had complained that “a firearm was in a residence and children had access to it. We had every concern, based on this information, that children were in danger.”

He told the paper the school officials’ concern wasn’t based merely on the girl’s picture. Neaveh, Sansone’s daughter, also purportedly made remarks about the drawing that troubled officials.

When a teacher asked Neaveh who the man in the picture was, she purportedly said, “That’s my daddy’s. He uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters.”

Sansone said several hours after his arrest a detective apologized and informed him that he would be released without charges.

“To be honest with you, I broke down,” Sansone told the Record. “My character got put down so much. I was actually really hurt, like it could happen that easy. How do you recognize a criminal from a father?”

After his release, authorities asked Sansone to sign a document allowing a search of his house. He said he signed it, even though he had the option to decline.

“I just think they blew it out of proportion,” his wife said. “It was for absolutely nothing. They searched our house upside down and found nothing. They had the assumption he owned a firearm.”

She added, “The way everything happened was completely unnecessary, especially since we know the school very well. I don’t understand how they came to that conclusion from a four-year-old’s drawing.”

Alison Scott, executive director of Family and Children’s Services, said the agency was required to investigate after the school reported the incident.

“Our community would have an expectation if comments are made about a gun in a house, we’d be obligated to investigate that to ensure everything is safe,” she said. “In the end, it may not be substantiated. There may be a reasonable explanation for why the child drew that gun. But we have to go on what gets presented to us.”

According to the report, she acknowledged, “I’m sure this was a very stressful thing for the family.”

As for the strip search, Thaler said the procedure was required “for officer safety, because it’s a firearms-related incident.”

He noted, “At the point in the investigation when it was determined it was not a real firearm, the individual was released unconditionally.”