CANADIAN GUN OWNERS UP IN ARMS OVER REGISTRY REQUIREMENTS

Efforts by the Canadian government to establish a national
firearms registry and licensing programs to track gun owners are
meeting with surprisingly broad resistance -- particularly in the
country's rural, western provinces.

o Under the government's 1995 Firearms Act, all Canadian gun
owners were to be licensed and to have registered their
firearms by Jan. 1.

o Failure to do so was to have resulted in up to five years
in jail.

o But only 5.9 million of Canada's estimated 8 million guns
have been registered -- and only 1.9 million Canadians
have a firearms license, leaving another 200,000 Canadians
without one.

o The Justice Ministry originally estimated that it would
cost 119 million Canadian dollars for licensing and
registering -- but that figure had risen by last spring to
C$688 million, and the final cost could reach C$1 billion,
leaving taxpayers irate.

Eight of 10 of Canada's provincial governments have called for
the firearms program to be scrapped.

Registration opponents have reportedly attempted to sabotage the
program by calling the Firearms Center with frivolous questions
and waiting until the last possible moment to file their
applications -- effectively swamping the system.

Source: Joel Baglole, "Canadians Bristle Over Gun Registry," Wall
Street Journal, January 29, 2003.

I hope they sink that plan..
What is the regulation about handguns? Someone told me that they were not allowed at all. Is this true?

Handguns not allowed in Canada. Although that does't mean they aren't around, but most of them are illegal guns.

The 2 million UN-registered gun owners, are a motley crew.

Some are avid hunters, protesting about the invasion of "their privacy" and leisure time, by the government.

Some are Natives, who have treaty rights to hunt anywhere anytime, and feel that gun registration is an encroachment on that inviolate right.

Other's are country folk, and farmers who feel guns are TOOLS of the trade, to kill wolves and such, and that they are being treated like criminals, by being forced to register them.

And of course, all the gun owners in Canada, whose guns are ILLEGAL, well, they sure don't want to line up and give their names and serial numbers, eh?

Love,
Menolly

(for a wonderful second, i thought this post was entitled:

"canadians not registering puns."

oh well!!

emme)

Emme:

Didja hear about the Englishman who..

Never mind. This is a serious post.

Menolly