Rex Murphy makes a very clear statement on the utter uselessness of the Federal Liberal gun registry. The fact that this program also got caught up in some amazing software contract shuffling to end up costing over a billion dollars is a separate and also mind boggling bit of non-thinkness. There is one point, however, that is seldom heard. The point of the gun registry was not to punish nice farmers with shotguns or stop all bad people and their illegal handguns. It was to control in someway the "seemingly law abiding" at the time they go off their nut.

An illustration. Fall of 1995 or so. Duty counsel in small town Canada does a bail hearing representing man in from the deep boonies accused of roughing up his wife and threatening her with worse. As part of conditions of release, the judge, Crown, cops and defence all agree that a ban on firearms is sensible given the nature of the threat. Then they all turn to the man in question to ask if he has firearms. The grin over the maw of the hungover, scrubby grade eight drop-out is an accusation on the system. "None", he says. And they have to take his word.

If the software leeches had not attached to this program and created a financial boondoggle, the plan was still valid for this purpose. To control handguns, you do like the UK and create, say, a separate ten year sentence for using a handgun during a crime. The nice farmers shotguns should be registered just as they are being registered: guns should be registered concurrent to the licensing of the person for their use. We do it with cars to fight drunk drivers. We do it with cows to fight mad cow. No diff.