PARLIAMENT HILL—Firearms dealers and stores will no longer be required by law to maintain logs of the make, model and serial numbers of the rifles and shotguns they sell once a Conservative government bill dismantling the federal long-run registry takes effect, the RCMP says.Confirmation of the state of gun sale records once Bill C-19, the Eliminating the Long-Gun Registry Bill, becomes law, from the office of the RCMP Commissioner of Firearms, through RCMP media relations, contradicts what prominent anti-registry spokesmen and the government were saying as late as this week. This means no reliable or legally required records for tracing long gun sales in case of homicides and other firearm violence related to shotguns and rifles will be available to police once the legislation becomes law.
“The former system through which firearm dealers and retailers recorded sales of firearms became redundant with the coming into force of the Firearms Act on Dec. 1, 1998, because businesses were required to register their firearms with the RCMP's Registrar of Firearms,” RCMP Sgt. Julie Gagnon told The Hill Times in an email Tuesday. “Record-keeping requirements for licensed firearm businesses under the Firearms Licences Regulations were subsequently eliminated.”
The emailed statement to The Hill Times arrived after a turbulent day on Parliament Hill and in Montreal and Quebec City, where hundreds of gun-control advocates gathered to protest the Conservative plan to terminate the federal registry and destroy all its records, as they also held commemorative ceremonies for 14 female engineering students who were shot to death by a rampaging gunman at Montreal’s L’Ecole Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989.
The government was also under pressure on Tuesday by a YouTube video that showed Alberta Conservative MP Rick Hillyer (Lethbridge, Alta.) waving his hands as though he were firing six-shooter pistols when he voted in favour of Bill C-19 as it passed second reading in the Commons last Nov. 1.
On Monday this week, leading gun-registry opponent Tony Bernardo accused the gun-registry’s supporters of misleading the public by claiming no detailed records of rifle and shotgun sales would be present after the registry is dismantled. Under the Firearms Act, both gun dealers, or even individual firearms owners, and gun buyers have been required to report sales and acquisitions, with details down to the serial numbers of the firearms, to the RCMP Registrar of Firearms.
Mr. Bernardo, while accusing registry supporters of using the victims of the Polytechnique massacre as a “pawn” in the debate of Bill C-19, claimed the former “green book” system of dealer records still exists under regulations that compel gun dealers and stores to give access to Chief Firearms Officers at their request, for tracing purposes in homicides and gun crimes.
“I hate to say it, the other side is dancing on the head of a pin,” Mr. Bernardo told The Hill Times. “It doesn’t remove all records, it removes the registry record. The only thing it won’t show is which long guns they have.”
The long-gun registry contains ownership and transfer records on 7.1 million rifles and shotguns, and also the records of a further 600,000 restricted and prohibited firearms, primarily handguns. A registry for handguns, which have been controlled one way or another in Canada since Confederation, with registration mandatory since 1934, will continue after the long-gun registry is eliminated.
The government has never directly admitted detailed transactions of rifles and shotguns will not be maintained in a manner that can help police trace either illegal guns or long guns used in crimes or domestic homicides, where women are most often the victims, from 85 per cent to more than 90 per cent of the time. Testimony at the Commons Public Safety and National Security hearings on Bill C-19 showed that spousal homicide by long gun has declined since the registry was established, and the Coalition for Gun Control argued the registry saves 500 lives each year.
The communications director for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.) did not mention the previous system of detailed tracing records when he responded to Hill Times questions last month.
“Following the implementation of Bill C-19, the requirement to register and obtain a registration certificate for newly acquired non-restricted firearms (i.e., long-guns) will be lifted,” communications director Michael Patton told The Hill Times in an email.
“As a result, individuals and businesses who are a party to the sale/transfer of a long-gun will no longer be required to report the acquisition to the Registrar of Firearms. Gun owners will still be required to undergo a background check, pass a firearms safety training course, and possess a valid firearms licence before being able to acquire and possess firearms."
At the time, Mr. Patton, in response to another question, said: “The Minister has no intention of introducing amendments at this time.”
The government has since voted down proposed opposition amendments to maintain reporting and recording requirements for firearms sales and transfers, and the opposition has served notice of several similar motions once the government brings Bill C-19 up for final debate in the Commons.
Mr. Toews has insisted that no back-door gun registry will exist once Bill C-19 becomes law, and the legislation includes controversial clauses that override record protection provisions of the Privacy Act and the Library and Archives Canada Act to compel the Commissioner of Firearms, a deputy commissioner in the RCMP, to destroy all of the registry’s records contained in at least two vast databases.
The bill also contains a clause that says gun dealers or sellers “may request” confirmation of valid gun acquisition licences from prospective buyers, but another clause compels the Registrar of Firearms to destroy any record of the request, again because of the government’s stated request to prevent any form of registry from being created again.
“The government is being irresponsible,” NDP MP Jack Harris (St. John’s East, Nfld.) told The Hill Times. “Firearms dealers are not required a record of who they sell guns to, and the transfer system that they have initiated, the weakening of those rules, it’s still illegal to sell a firearm to an unlicensed buyer, but no record is required, and the laws as they stand would be virtually unenforceable.”
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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