Defending Civil Liberties

I disagree. The rural members of the NDP are trying to defend Canadian civil liberties, like they did against Trudeau, rather than maintain the long gun registry. The government really has no rights in the Canadian bedrooms nor rec rooms. So I support the NDP stance of the parliamentary tradition of free votes on private members' bills unlike the whipped vote by the Toronto-based leader of the Liberals to justify the views of Toronto. Iggy is being abusive of his position and has driven the Chretien/Rock formed wedge further into Canadian political scene. I assume that after the next election, the Liberals will once again not have an elected MP west of Winnipeg.

Half loaf is better than no loaf.

I often agree with Bill but not entirely this time. The NDP have many members that never supported the gun registry and these members have never kept it a secret.

The NDP does have a policy of supporting the gun registry and when there is a government bill, the NDP members vote as a block.

This is a private members bill, not a government bill and like it or not, the NDP have always allowed members to vote as they wish on such bills. Sometimes we don't like it.

I support the registry and I believe that Jack Layton has done the right thing here. Word just a few minutes ago from Layton is that he and others have worked hard to convince enough NDP members to vote against C-391.

I have worked in the interior of BC and Saskatchewan. In both places the majority of NDP party members and many of our supporters were against the registry. Just as the party members in the other political parties were.

The MPs from these areas know what their constituents expect. One more thing while I am at it. If the NDP lose rural seats in Northern Ontario, BC and Manitoba who do you think is going to pick the seats up? The Conservatives will.

A majority Harper government in the offering if our rural MPs can't hold on. As Tommy Douglas said, Half loaf is better than no loaf.

Jack Layton wins over enough New Democrats to save gun registry

From your mouth to God's ear, Bill.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/jack-layton-wins-over-enough-new-democrats-to-save-gun-registry/article1707307/

"A majority Harper

"A majority Harper government in the offering if our rural MPs can't hold on."

That, I contend, was the idea all along, and the most likely result as well. So farewall to the registry as a government bill after the next election.

And farewell to Tieleman's credibility. To suggest it is more important for MP's to follow party lines than their constituents wishes is to support the crass partisanship which brought the HST!

The registry is a waste of money.

Firearms acquisition certificates (FAC's) let police know that people had firearms. In fact, to get an FAC (which was the process before the gun registry) people had to go to their local police station to apply. An officer would phone spouses and check to see if the application was OK to issue (I would receive those calls). That system worked just fine.
The new system? The government registered our BB gun as a long gun. Wouldn't know their ***** from page four.
Sorry, Bill, agree to disagree on this; any officer who thinks the gun registry protects them is a fool. Always go in with the thought that someone has firearms. Never think otherwise.

A question....

So....I have a question for all the folks who oppose the gun registry. I have to register my car. Why? I mean, really, why? If I shouldn't have to register my rifle, why on earth should I have to register my car. Why does the Government need to know I own it? Is that just a tax grab or an attempt to invade my privacy? Are my rights being trampled by my license plate?

As long as registering vehicles is deemed appropriate, I think I will err on the side of caution and say we should also rehgister long guns.

Ah, the Endless Crap...

Layton's waffling about this issue befits a conservative family tradition, for sure. :-) And typifies in its endless vacillation and fear of taking a firm, principled stand, what we have, most of us, come to expect from the NDP.

i am a multi gun owner, if still refusing to join, as arrived in the mail today, the NFA (National Firearms Association). And I am rural.

"My God! He's one of those!"

I think the gun registry, certainly in its current manifestation, does not do what it was at least rhetorically hoped it would do by its Liberal framers, post the Montreal Polytechnic massacre crime... stop or control gun crimes in this country, and/or violence against women.

Indeed, it only registers and puts on record those "least" likely to commit gun crimes, at least as "legally" described. (Resisting State/Ruling Class armed violence, is another and separate issue.) Most street violence and other "gun crimes", short of the random lunatic violence, will not be resolved by this Registry, or cannot be stopped anyway in the case of "clever" lunatics (and you might be surprised on that score, as one who has lived and worked with lunatics), as was the Montreal shooter. As for the gangster class, they will operate outside the "rule system" whatever laws you put in place.

But all that said, my guns are registered, and outside of the intrusiveness of the State into this aspect of my life, which is a serious enough issue frankly, it is otherwise not problematic for me. BUT, at the price being paid, you may want to more seriously question its value, especially when it does not, will never, control, prevent the folks you are after in any case. Just us "honest" gun owners.

Violence against women, here no less than in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world, which exists everywhere, is a much larger socio-cultural conditioning issue than any goddamn bureaucratic gun registry is going to resolve. So it will serve other State/Police purposes of a quite different political nature. This you CAN be sure of.

Think about it ye hand wringers.

Okay, so I'm "rural". But the truth is still the truth, even for you metros... I presume. :-)

GUN REGISTRY

I cannot believe that you are suggesting that I withhold funds from the NDP and to also withhold my vote in the next election because I do not agree with the stand Jack Layton has taken on the gun registry.

I believe we, the Canadian Public, need and deserve a gun registry if we are to create a long term to keep our communities safe. I will write NDP MP'S and let them know this.

I believe this is not a good situation for the NDP to be in -- trying to look at the issue from different points -- rural and urban -- . And having to support Mr. Harper is not what we want Mr. Layton to be doing -- but having said that, NO, I WILL NOT WRITE MR, LAYTON AND THREATEN HIM BY TELLING HIM IF HE DOESN'T DO WHAT I WANT, I WILL KEEP MY MONEY AND NOT VOTE FOR THE NDP.

After all, who will stand up for the concerns of ordinary people, for education, for childcare, for social housing and health care. No I am not going to behave like a spoiled brat and issue the 'threat' Jack Layton and NDP do good work. They are wrong on this issue but there's more at stake here.

So,get a vision that includes everyone and not just yourself. And write about the divide that exists between communities supporting a gun registry versus those communities who are not supporting the registry. DO YOUR JOB ANDGET THOSE STORIES TO THE PEOPLE.

Redundancy is government's bread and butter

It is bewildering to see people cheer on the opportunity to pay for even more redundancies; Canada already has the FAC in place. Now does anyone suspect that 1) the government will ever have any idea which criminals are brandishing which firearms, and 2) this will stop even a single death by long-arms?

The government registry has a paramount objective: to prevent us inmate-citizens from getting any lofty ideas that we have some residual power left which can resist against its incessant incursions into our lives. In short, this is a propaganda tactic to further intimidate us all. You know it and I know it, and we can all feel it, even sense it, inside.

So what's to fret about yet another 'steal your money' ploy from the government? Evidently there is an army of faithful fools who enjoy the abuse, wandering about thinking this is a safety concern. Funny how it sounds exactly like another alarm going off to keep the proles fearful, one of the oldest tactics in the propaganda play book. It is a shame, though, to lose the wily Bill Tieleman, who bought it lock, stock and barrel, to the dark side.

Whether this registry goes ahead or not, we all get to pay for it. With that comforting thought, remember that the state owns you -- it registered you at birth.

NDP and guns

Any urban votes the NDP loses over the stande of rural NDP MPs will be miniscule. If there's even two NDP voters in Siksay's riding who care about the gun registry more than any other issue I'll be very surprised.

I see nothing wrong with the party being divided on this issue, we're divided on lots of issues as any Tyee comments thread will show. Its healthy.

Give me MPs who vote the way they think their constituents want them to over the Liberal and Conservative yes-men any time. Liberals don't even disagree with each other on the Tyee, why should any of their MPs show an independent streak?

It ain't pretty...

"The government registry has a paramount objective: to prevent us inmate-citizens from getting any lofty ideas that we have some residual power left which can resist against its incessant incursions into our lives. In short, this is a propaganda tactic to further intimidate us all. You know it and I know it, and we can all feel it, even sense it, inside." samuidave

As one inmate to another, bro... I agree. :-)

That said, given the divergent views of the various factions involved, I agree with Frank... allow a free vote of your members.

Were it to come to a referendum, and I think, in the ideal world, it would, I would vote AGAINST the gun registry... if for no other reason than it leaves unavailable to scrutiny or control, the monopoly of knowledge on who has guns... in the hands of the State and the Police.

I think "one of" the best lines of defence against a fascist State is the people armed. My own view. And I'd rather the State was unable to zero in on us through a registry.

This gun registry, despite the "perhaps" best of intentions, is not going to prevent another Polytechnic. If he can't get a gun legally, he will simply get it illegally, or home manufacture a bomb or deadly gas.

Shit happens. And until some means is found of changing male attitudes toward women. unfortunately, there is going to be violence against women by deranged, neurotic, misogynistic males. ( The same as the greatest killer of children, outside natural causes, is women. And they don't shoot them, but drown them in cars, smother them with pillows or strangle them, abort them and drop them in dumpsters and toilets.)

What humans do to each other, each and every day, is mind boggling.

Let's register all the "tools" that women use to kill their children. An interesting concept that would be about as effective as a gun registry.

Guess who kills more black men in the US, than any other single cause? Black women.

(I've seen the stats. They are out there.)

Life is more complicated than a gun registry. And it ain't pretty.

Doen't give Harper an Easy button.

I'm not a republican / conservative by any means but this is great. It just goes to show how F,ed up our governments are. Stephen Harpers Republican party of Canada is more dangerous then all the long-guns in Canada combined. The Harper right-wing, evangelico, religious right needs to be kept far away from the guns.

Oh groan!

"one of" the best lines of defence against a fascist State is the people armed. My own view. And I'd rather the State was unable to zero in on us through a registry." Groan again. This is the same nonsense one gets from the NRA. Registration will not prevent every abuse of the firearm. Of course not. No more than registering a car prevents an accident. There might be more accidents if cars did not need to be registered and enforcement of motor vehicle regulations would be almost impossible. Surely the proponents of the free and unlimited purchase and use of firearms can come up with a better arguments than these. Is a registry a cure all? Of course not and nobody said it was. It is one of many tools to limit the proliferation of firearms for no real purpose. We are not a society of hunters anymore.

The registery is more dangerous than the guns

The cowboys make many more mistakes than the public is ever made aware of and they are usally able to cover them up. We only hear about a small percentage of the errors, goofs, and full blown mistakes that the police make. We can only guess at how many times homes have been invaded, wives thrown to the floor and handcuffed because someone got the wrong address or even the wrong street. Now lets now give these same, often mistaken cowboys, the long gun registry and help them compound their errors, that way when they break in your door instead of the door of the criminal down the road, they can protect themselves by already having their guns drawn. I am not saying that this will happen, I am saying that it already does happen. Being held at gun point is not fun at any time, especially when some rookie cop is under the impression that you may have a rifle to shoot him with.

I will have to pass on the long gun registry until our policemen can, like the British police, not carry guns.

the fate of complex societies

"Tainter argues that societies collapse when their investments in social complexity reach a point of diminishing marginal returns. According to Tainter, societies become more complex as they try to solve problems. Social complexity can include differentiated social and economic roles, reliance on symbolic and abstract communication, and the existence of a class of information producers and analysts who are not involved in primary resource production. Such complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning resources, or other forms of wealth). When a society confronts a "problem," such as a shortage of or difficulty in gaining access to energy, it tends to create new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Eventually, this cost grows so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures cannot be solved by the acquisition of more territory. At that point, the empire fragments into smaller units."

The registry serves no purpoise for the police.

They can access it as many times a day as they like. The instant they rely on it to say that a suspect does not own a gun is the instant where you can wind up with a dead cop.

Assume everyone is packing. It's the only safe way.

There would probably be a lot less resistance if the damned registration was decriminalized. It doesn't bode well when you take an honest citizen and turn them into a criminal with the stroke of a pen.

THE NDP and The State...

"We are not a society of hunters anymore." Skywalker.

In the west end neighbourhood where you live, perhaps not. :-)

I agree with Jim Van Raxxel:

"Stephen Harpers Republican party of Canada is more dangerous then all the long-guns in Canada combined. The Harper right-wing, evangelico, religious right needs to be kept far away from the guns."

Only to which I would add the Liberals and NDP. Oh, and the so-called Greens.

On the other hand Skywalker, the fall deer hunt IS a big deal out here. I know families, especially in these times, that live all year on the wild meat cache they build up this time of year. (And there is more deer now, because of the opening up of land, than there was when first contact was made with the forked tongue Whiteasses.)

You and Layton, from a long Conservative family traditon himself I understand, may trust a gun registry in the hands of the ruling class State, being part of it and all, and a supporter of it. I don't.

Trusting in guns, trusting in politicians. Your jokeing right?

The state is never going to oppress the electorate simply because they require registration of a firearm. The state will oppress you by stealth through economic means and globalization all the while letting you keep your "pacifier" to give you the illusion that you can fight them off. Just because you have a firearm unregistered doesn't give you power to prevent just becoming a numbered consumer to be exploited by the corporate interests. Hell they'll even sell you the guns.

It is just so much NRA rubbish like "from my cold dead hands". Shheesh

Gun registry diversion

The Cons play their cards so well. Here we are in the middle of a neo-con financial crisis which has condemned millions to unemployment, with Harper decimating what is left of our environment and social programs while spending billions on useless American jet fighters and prisons and here we are wasting our time debating a dysfunctional gun registry. Well done Stehpen!

On Incompetence and Dysfunction...

"The Cons play their cards so well. Here we are in the middle of a neo-con financial crisis which has condemned millions to unemployment, with Harper decimating what is left of our environment and social programs while spending billions on useless American jet fighters and prisons and here we are wasting our time debating a dysfunctional gun registry." boondoggle.

Boondoggle gets it closest to correct. Skywalker is just another social dem handwringer who has walked into the trap.

The only way out of the situation the NDP has stuck their again timid "urbanist" toe into is, to urge that it be a parliament wide "free vote" (sick), after which we will all just have to live with the consequences, for better or worse.

The social dems did a similar thing during the time of the Nazi rise in Germany... refusing to join in an alliance with those to their left to defeat the Nazis. (The social dems have always found it more palatable to themselves, to make alliances to their Right, rather than their Left.)

Folks had to live with that social dem "illusion" consequence as well... putting their social dem faith in the then German bourgeios Bundestag instead, much as they do this ruling class controlled and manipulated Parliamentary system.

The Harperites know that it is likely to be the social dem vote that decides the issue, and that precisely this clash of persepctives within and outside it was going to occur. What the hand wringing social dems in the NDP need to do, to avoid this Devil and the deep blue sea situation they have been put into, is just step back and allow your members to again, "free vote".

No big deal. The Registry is dysfunctional in any case, and a financial boondoggle, utilizing tax dollar resources better needed for the hardpressed medical, unemloyment insurance and other social infrastructure systems.

I think all parliamentary votes should be free votes in any case, decided by the individual members according to their read of the wishes of their constituencies. And let the cards, on this issue, fall where they may.

Yes, well done Harper. The NDP has never been known to be particularly swift or of depth in their analyses in any case.

Bang, bang your dead

So what are the odds the registry dies at the hands of those rootin', tootin' NDP, sun of a guns? 50/50, 60/40 not a chance? And its a showdown at the legislature and it is not certain if the registry is going to come out of it alive. If this was a beauty pageant Layton would be a sure winner for Miss Congeniality award.

Harper's Fox Hole

Mr. Teneycke, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former director of communications, said Wednesday he resigned because his involvement in Sun TV would only “insight” the controversy over the channel, dubbed “Fox News North”.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Kory+Teneycke+quits/3528300/story.html#ixzz0zcEqiXqF
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/News+confident+will+launch+deadline/3288970/story.html

Coyoteman

You made some very valid points and post says its all politics as said Conservatives are looking for a majority and using the gun vote to kill off the Liberals for good.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/09/14/don-martin-tories-thrilled-by-ndps-rumoured-saving-of-the-gun-registry/

Yeah right Harper's election platform.

Imagine Harper going into an election based on "registering guns". Yeah that will get him elected and pigs will fly.

More Non_Voting Public...

"You made some very valid points and post says its all politics as said Conservatives are looking for a majority and using the gun vote to kill off the Liberals for good." wrote morechatter.

No, Harper, in this case, is going to oppose the gun registry because as morechatter suggests, it's all about getting a majority, and he is all about, right now, appealing to his rural rightwing base, and watching the NDP rural vote disintegrate (It having a strong rural base as well.) And, with the Greens at 15%, last National poll I saw very recently, they are just behind the NDP at 16%.

The NDP is in trouble all along the line... for its wimp-ass political analyses and tactics, and everybody is coming to know it. (Even much of its own activist support.)

So there is no doubt what Harper is about, though I am less certain who it is precisely he is trying to kill off. The Liberals are almost entirely urban supported, and lose nothing holding fast to their own initiated gun registry. In my view, it is mostly the NDP that stands to lose, if it doesn't back away from its support for the gun registry. Let it stand or fall on its own merits.

The NDP is in a place, in any case, if it loses that rural support, there is a danger it will go to the Conservatives. Though I find it hard to believe it would be the gun registry alone that would lose this support. So it likely has more to do with a broader range of complaints/issues about the NDP, AND the gun registry is simply the last straw (that broke the camel's back.)

Though, Harper may miscalculate here, to what effect I am as well uncertain.... if the disaffected rural vote simply goes to the sideline wilderness, to contemplate the meaning of life with "yours truly". :-D lol It may simply be that this "non-voting" bloc gets some serious growth here.

The dissatisfaction with all the parties to capitalism is palpable everywhere.

The time to withdraw legitimacy from the bullshit electoral and democrat system is at hand.

Stats question

Bill, you state that in the past decade 16 on duty police officers have been killed by firearms in the last decade of which 14 were by long guns. You do breakdown how many were before the gun registry, and how many after, but it seems to me that the registry didn't serve these officers too well.

I'm wondering when some backbencher is going to come up with the idea of a stapler registry. Someone at the RCMP may be lobbying for it already.

technology registry and technology control

coyoteman said, 'I think "one of" the best lines of defence against a fascist State is the people armed.'

While I understand the sentiment, I believe that thinking that the relevant technology is firearms is many decades outdated. I believe that communications technology, not firearms, are a far more critical thing for people to be armed with and be personally in control of. While there are certain uses of technology that might be unlawful, this should be enforced in the courts and not by taking control over technology away from individual citizens.

Rather than people with this view being so focused on Bill C-391, they should take a closer look at Bill C-32 which is a far greater threat to those who believe in individual citizen control over technology than the registry could ever be.

http://BillC32.ca/5209

On Balance...

"I believe that communications technology, not firearms, are a far more critical thing for people to be armed with and be personally in control of. While there are certain uses of technology that might be unlawful, this should be enforced in the courts and not by taking control over technology away from individual citizens." russellmcormond

First, I will concede that I perhaps overstated the importance of firearms, a tad, in the possession of the mass of the citizenry. I take a firearms into the backcountry with me, as a saddlegun, mainly as a last line protection from the "unexpected" there. And fortunately, I have never yet had to use it, and hope I never do. (Even then, bear spray is my first line of defence... after "making enough noise" that dangerous critters too close to me will know I'm there, so as we can avoid encountering each other, at least too close up and in your face.)

I have a similar attitude to firearms in general, within a class society and a State, with its armed force capacity, dominated by the "other" class (a ruling class) that I do not trust. :-) So just in case, if you don't mind, I think maybe there should be a gun around somewhere, that preferably this State does not know anything about, for the absolute worst "fascist" case scenario, especially in these times. And then hope it never comes about that it is needed.

But essentially I agree with you, that there is a more important line of defence that should be there and gotten through first... a politically astute populace, organized and engaged in constant communication with each other. This is the pepper spray, if you will.

Of the two, both important in their own ways, each for its particular purpose, I would agree, certainly right now, that the pepper spray is the "relativel" more important to hand... though it is not about, readily available, in sufficient mass/quantity at the current time. Regretably. Which makes me nervous. :-)

And we do need "the masses", of at least a critical mass, organized and "aware".... like yesterday. It was not pressing during the brief postwar period of the Social Democratic State, even though it was much created by Liberals in fact. It was a time of relative progress.

Which has ended. And now "The Order" is retrogressing, in a more ominous and threatening way to folks of my working class ilk. It seems that a period of severe economic and social chaos is preparing itself, out of which historically, in capitalism, fascism has often emerged as its last line of defense.

It is time to be communicating, organizing, resisting, and formulating social, economic and political alternatives.

Just don't forget where you left your gun... in the extreme case though. And hopefully, The State doesn't know you have got it, through some kind of Official Registry that earlier handwringing liberals and social dems helped initiate. :-)