Canada’s gun owners shouldn’t expect much help from Ottawa
Matt Gurney May 28, 2012 May 28, 2012
Article Link
Gun owners who thought they had a friend in the Conservative government in Ottawa are in for a nasty surprise. It would seem that, having delivered on its promise to scrap the long-gun registry, the federal Tories feel that they’ve paid their dues to Canada’s lawful firearms owners. From here on in, the Conservatives won’t be doing gun owners any favours.
The federal government recently quietly announced that, effective this September, it will begin charging firearms licence holders to renew their licences. The licences are required to possess a firearm, or to purchase ammunition, and must be renewed every five years. As of September, those who hold a licence for restricted or prohibited firearms will need to plunk down $80 for the paperwork. By next May, those seeking to renew a licence for non-restricted firearms — hunting rifles and most shotguns — will have to fork over $60.
This isn’t a lot of money, and will only raise about $15-million in revenue a year. But it’s enough to anger many of Canada’s gun owners, who view any gun control measure with suspicion and dislike. There’s probably a lot of Conservative MPs who would agree with that philosophically … but politics is politics. The Tories felt comfortable scrapping the long-gun registry because it was unpopular with many Canadians, not just gun owners, largely due to its wastefulness. But that doesn’t mean Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to let his party be seen by moderates, particularly urban voters, as pro-gun.
The money raised from the licensing fees supports the federal government’s program of licensing firearms, and also sustains the registries for restricted and prohibited firearms, which were not affected by the recent scrapping of the long-gun registry. The fees were also part of the original licensing system, but have been waived by the Tories since they took office in 2006. The waivers were always intended to be time-limited, and the Tories extended them twice, for political purposes — waiving the fees associated with lawful gun ownership was a gesture intended to placate Canada’s gun owners until such time that the Tories had enough support in Parliament to scrap the long-gun registry.
But that’s done. Gun owners no longer need to register their hunting rifles and shotguns. The Tories are no doubt betting that that will be enough to buy continued support, both financial and electoral, from Canada’s gun owners. They’re probably right. Those who don’t own firearms simply cannot comprehend how utterly reviled the long-gun registry was. It was enough to make single-issue-voters out of many gun owners. They will want to reward the party that ultimately delivered on their promise to kill it.
And the Tories know it. Eliminating the long-gun registry was politically clever — to gun owners, it was interpreted as a dislike of gun control, to everyone else, it was eliminating a wasteful boondoggle. But Canada’s firearms owners still have many legitimate grievances concerning the restrictive, overly broad and at times unclear provisions of the Firearms Act. They want it substantially revised or scrapped altogether.
That won’t happen. While the Conservatives felt comfortable getting rid of the long-gun registry, that’s as far as they’re likely to go. To go much further risks being slammed as being pro-gun, forced to respond defensively after every incident of gun violence anywhere in the country (but particularly in the cities). The Tories are having their cake and eating it too — having scrapped the registry, they can still point to the fact that they still require gun owners to be licenced, and register handguns and military-style rifles. And now, they’re making the gun owners pay the cost of the gun control regime again.
In other words, the Tories are saying we’re not against gun control. We’re all for it. It was simply the registry that we didn’t like.
This will leave the gun owners who cheered the end of the long-gun registry, and hoped for more progress, with a bad taste in their mouth. Some will probably even stop donating or stay home on the next election day. The Tories know this. But they know that having all the gun owners in the country behind them won’t matter if they can’t hold Toronto and its suburbs. It’s smart politics. Canada’s gun owners will just have to content themselves with the fact that the long-gun registry is no more. That’s all they’re likely to get.
end
