That must be it. He must have never sat in a bail hearing and watched the cops, judge, Crown attorney and defence counsel ask the accused if he has a gun. Otherwise, the usually sensible Mr. Martin would never write this:
And there is a paradox that has never been refuted with any common sense satisfaction — that a gun owner who is contemplating criminal activity would never voluntarily register a firearm that could become incriminating evidence.
See, otherwise normal folk who go off the handle and end up in a bail hearing do not "contemplate criminal activity." They get jacked up, do something really stupid and end up before the court. You freak out on the neighbour, decide to drive away from a traffic ticket by taking off over the curb like I witnessed yesterday or push a fight in the house far far too far. Mr. Martin goes so far as to suggest that he knows about a rift between police chiefs and beat cops. Reading the column again, it's like listening to a ten year old explaining the rotation of the planets... or the governance of nations.
The opposition to the registry seems to live in a day dream where crime is something urban, that others do, that is oddly in control of the perpetrator. It also smacks of the same wacky libertarian idea that staggers common sense in relation to the census, that people should not be recorded in public documents. It all may be very well intentioned and sincere but these are not the foundations of good policy. The registry may not be a panacea even if effective to a degree. But making decisions on these sorts of rumours and ideological knee jerkings is just weird. Too bad the opposition seemingly lacks the sense to make these observations.
Comments
Alan - September 23, 2010 10:04 AM
Now, the police are anti-anti-crime.
Columnists and policy wonks who never held a real job now know better than the cops. Bizarre.
David Janes - September 23, 2010 4:38 PM
I don't understand the link you're making - between the registry and someone just flying of the handle and using a gun to settle scores. How does a registry help do anything about that? Or do I lose my (hypothetical) gun if I end up arguing with a meter maid, or my neighbour things I'm chatting on blogs too much?
Alan - September 23, 2010 5:02 PM
If you are brought up on bail for a violent matter, you likely have to agree to a condition to hand over your guns if you want to be released. So, as I have experienced pre-registry, how do you know if the bonehead up on a bail hearing has a gun? And if he lies and is caught, he is incarcerated because he breached a bail condition.
But the real point is, of course, a huge percentage of crimes are not "contemplated" - even by elites. Farmers, hunters, fishermen and all sorts of normal folk who do something stupid, rash and/or in anger get charged. The Tory underlying principle is that "others" who apparently are not "people in the regions" commit crime.
More to the real point - "Among urban and suburban women, the Conservatives were basically dead even with the Liberals at the time of the last election; today, they trail the Liberals by sevent points. By a margin of 65 per cent to 26 per cent, urban and suburban women think keeping the registry makes more sense than scrapping it."
David Janes - September 23, 2010 6:06 PM
But without registry, you can always make it a condition to turn over weapons at bail hearings. But then if you're assuming a reasonably law abiding citizen who would totally declare their firearms, the pattern of events has to be
- commit a crime (rashly I assume)
- not declare that he has guns at the bail hearing, even though he does
- commit a crime with the gun ... at which point we're not really talking rashness anymore
Alan - September 23, 2010 8:02 PM
Yes, the system depends on law abiding citizens who have been arrested. Or the assumption that there are no Mayerthorpes in rural Canada. Or other gun gatherers that the multiple steps in gun acquisition would not identify as having a gun. What about the suicide or murder-suicide situation where the guy is panicky and you are a cop around the house. Nice to know if there are arms in there.
Look, I am all in favour of gun ownership. I eat wild meat. I am in favour of hunting as much as I am dog ownership or car ownership or government lobbyists or any other sort of thing that gets registered for one reason or another. I just don't think "the powers of the state" are out to get me or anyone else. I think this has far more to do with the census waste of time than any hunters or even the confused "right to bear arms" in Canada idea.
Fight the fishing licenses, baby.
David Janes - September 23, 2010 9:04 PM
But cops don't know if there's guns in there.... In fact, it's hard for me to read your arguments as anything but that for confiscation. Yes, I know that that's not what you're arguing, but all the rhetoric is applicable to "why should anyone have a gun at home - it's only reasonably that when they go hunting, they drop down to the depo and check out their gun, their lead free-bullets, and sign to have it back in 72 hours".
The powers of the state aren't out to get you, because you're not interesting and you don't cost them money:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/864623
Alan - September 23, 2010 9:34 PM
I know. That's because of your set of untested principles, your belief system. It's like talking to a Russian about geopolitics or a nun about the afterlife. I am not going to debate it because you're not really in a debate. This is not accusatory or mean but it's the cliff we get to. I have my own alternate untested principles and belief system. I think after 7 and a half years of blogging it's grown up to admit these things. Can't we just admit that?
Alan - September 23, 2010 9:44 PM
Gotcha!
No, really - I do believe that when Canadian police chiefs and police associations back these sort of things I don't really need to go behind them. I just don't see registration as a form of confiscation any more than I see digitized money as confiscation over paper money. It's all a wee bit too paranoid. Sure the damn thing cost too much to set up but that was an IT scam, nothing to do with the subject matter of the damn program.
David Janes - September 24, 2010 6:12 AM
I argue for the sheer joy of it -- experience would have taught me long before now that I'm not really going to change your mind. And not that that bothers me in anyway: I would say the thing that distinguishes my belief system from most in the progressive era is that when it comes to human things, I believe it is possible for rational people to hold wildly differing beliefs about the same subject.
Registered gun confiscation is hardly a paranoid's dream -- and I won't try attention to the long list of things that have to trigger listed above before the expensive registry actually provides a miniscule amount of value. I could search a list of concrete examples of weaon registration followed by confiscation in civiled western nations, but I'm sure you can use Google as well as I.
Back to your earlier point about polls - they shift around all the time. I bet the resentment of people who actually own or have actually seen a gun in their lifetimes is a lot more substantial than that of those who learned about them watching Movie Of The Week.
Alan - September 24, 2010 9:00 AM
Yes, I was an arguer from birth, too, but have found that blogging has actually made me more open minded. I find it more interesting to read about the ideas that I have not encountered.
I don't have a strong belief in this issue - my real beef is how articifical and contrived I find the Tory presentation. The appropriation of sweeping parts of the country to their own makes me nuts. "People of the regions" is the newest nuttiness but you ear it about hunters, the military and, until recently, the police.
David Janes - September 24, 2010 11:27 AM
I have an opinion, but I'm not really caught up in the issue. I'm happy to see it off the letters page.
I don't thing Tory appropriation of the regions is more offensive that glomming on to various tragedies to claim some sort of moral high ground, not to mention the NDP's "they made me vote the opposite of what I want to because that's what they wanted me to do, woe is I"
Alan - September 24, 2010 11:54 AM
Well, except the victims of crime do play a role in the criminal prosecution process as they have an opportunity to speak at a hearing. The fictive "People of the Regions" do not.
Judging NDP MPs according to Tory backbencher standards is a non-issue for me. Jack let them off the leash. Harper has never let any of his caucus presume for a minute that they have the right of independent thought.
Alan - September 24, 2010 2:16 PM
60% of a bungled IT procurement?
David Janes - September 25, 2010 9:19 AM
The regions are fictive now ... how Ontario of you. You sure you don't want to move to Toronto?
Harper's (or Flannigan's) clever realization is that he's never going to get a break from the press, so messaging has to be controlled if he has a chance of winning elections. For example, the day of the gun registry vote, CBC radio was pretty well non-stop anti-gun / victims of gun violence programming. Fair enough: it is what it is.
Anyway, don't blame me: I'm not going to vote for the guy. My only metric - baring some really crazy-ass sh*t - is whether they're going to make spending go up or down.
Alan - September 25, 2010 12:14 PM
Of course "The regions" is a fiction. Cape Breton and urban Alberta stand as one against Toronto? I would accept we are all joined by degrees of discomfort with the CBC.
David Janes - September 25, 2010 8:27 PM
I'll give you this one on points for that last sentence.