By Ted White, M.P. as appeared in the North Shore News

While most of us in the urban centres have been busying ourselves with other issues, a number of legal challenges have been launched against C-68 by gun owners and some of the Western provinces. That process in itself has brought to light new information and research about the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of costly and cumbersome gun registration programs. However, this is a very emotionally charged issue, and it seems likely that we are in for many more years of legal wrangling before we get to wherever we are going with respect to the wisdom of, or necessity for, the registration of rifles and shotguns.

As mentioned above, interesting new information surfaced during legal challenges and the development of the C-68 regulations. For example, in a 1997 letter to the Department of Justice from the Commissioner of the RCMP, it was revealed that the RCMP investigated 88,162 violent crimes in 1993 but only 73 of those, or 0.08%, involved the use of firearms. In addition, although it has been compulsory to register handguns in Canada since 1934, the Commissioner could not cite a single crime solved because of handgun registration in the past 64 years. Criminals, it seems, NEVER bother to register their guns, and people who go crazy, like Marc Lepine, do not care whether the weapon they are using is registered or not.

Would the money have saved more lives if it was spent on medical research? Almost certainly so, especially in the absence of any actuarial evidence that any sort of gun registration helps prevent crime, or that unregistered rifles and shotguns in Canada pose such a problem as to justify the massive expense to taxpayers which the registry represents.

I know from the complaints I received from firearms dealers within my Riding that the C-68 registration system was chaotic and virtually inoperable for the first few weeks after it began, yet the Government claimed that all was going well and in the first 1,300 sales they processed, close to 7% were rejected for failing background checks. However, all of these "potentially dangerous" people had already been issued Firearms Acquisition Certificates after background checks by the RCMP, so the question arises, why hadn't the RCMP revoked the Certificates and notified all firearms dealers? We did not need to spend $200 million on a registry system in order to block these sales.

Dear Editor, The Province

Self-preservation is the oldest law of nature: flight or fight. Good for you Bill Rose; it’s encouraging to see that there are still people around who believe they have the right, if not the duty to act in self-defense. In spite of the social re-engineering of the Canadian consciousness and the diminishment of Common Law rights, you saw yourself threatened and chose to react appropriately to counter that threat (a knife wielding home invader). You rightly decided not to be the passive victim and are an example to others who do not wish to wait for, or have the time to call the police.

I hope that you are not the last of those who are " not afraid to fight" and I hope your actions will encourage others like you "to fight back". You are an example to all those who refuse to be victimized and deserve public recognition for your mature, natural and still legal response. I hope and suspect that your attacker has learned her lesson and will behave in the future as a responsible, law-abiding citizen.

It is interesting to note that the police said you could keep your handgun if you stored it "safely". I suggest that if it had been stored "safely" it would not have been available when you needed it. What good is a suitable weapon if you can’t get it when you need it? This is a policy of victimization.

The motto of the Boy Scouts was, and I believe still is, "Be Prepared". and the organization had and still has, an excellent record of producing responsible citizens. However, now if a person is "prepared" to defend themselves it is called "premeditation" and presumes some sort of guilt.

May "Old Soldiers (like you Bill Rose) Never Die"

Yours for a fuller life, Rob Heatherington, Director RFOCBC

Thank You To All that have contributed to the Appeal Fund. We have received over 60% of the funds needed to finance the two interventions. If you have not yet contributed, please consider a donation this month. We have not sent individual acknowledgements to contributors in order to save mailing costs. Thank you all again.

Two More Groups Join as Interveners Two late additions to the intervener group (CORFOS) are The Firearms Support Clubs of Niagara (Ont.) and The Responsible Firearms Owners of Ontario. The appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada is expected to be heard in the autumn of 1999.

Informing The Uninformed

The RFOC is currently targeting areas of the province with a flyer outlining how the Firearms Act applies to all citizens of Canada. Our aim is to inform both firearms owners and non-owners that this law erodes their basic civil rights. Sixty-four thousand flyers have been distributed to date. Our plan is to cover the entire province over the ensuing months.

A Quick Look at Canada's Firearms Law

HACS 27^th Annual Two Day Gun Show

633 Poirier Street, Coquitlam

Prince George Antique & Gun Show

Who Are The "Gun Nuts"?

Dr. John. R. Lott Jr. doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would inspire death threats. But he’s received more than his share of them recently, from a seemingly unlikely source. You see, Lott gets death threats from people who hate guns. Lott concluded that an armed citizenry prevents crime and deters criminals - a conclusion summed up in the title of his book, "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" The national news media picked up on Lott’s thesis. And suddenly this obscure professor - who doesn’t even have a gun in his home - found himself the prime target in a nasty political gunfight. But perhaps naively, Lott, who is married and the father of four young boys, never expected the personal hostility he’s received from some individual gun-control advocates. "We started getting death threats at home," said Lott. (Presumably, the death would be effected with a knife or a club.) "People would ask if I had kids, and if they walked home from school. People would cut out articles from newspapers about gun deaths and send them to me, with a note saying, I hope this is you next". ... Not all "gun nuts" are people who own guns.

"More Guns, Less Crime" is available from bookstores. Priced at approximately $35.00

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