The bad dream, which is Canada’s gun law may becoming to an end.  Last Monday the Conservative government tabled legislation, which would effectively remove the requirement to register rifles and shotguns in Canada.  In a minority parliament nothing is guaranteed.  When the fall vote comes we’ll see if enough opposition MP’s join with the Conservatives to pass the changes.

For many of you this must seem all so bizarre.  For most urban Canadians the idea of owing a gun is preposterous.  In fact the thought is “how could you be against gun control?”  On the other hand many Canadians who live in rural or northern areas use a gun as a tool to protect their property or capture their food.  There is not a lot of in between on this.

The two cultures rural and urban don’t have a lot of common on this.  One finds guns repugnant while the other looks at it totally differently.  It is ingrained in our culture.  The Liberal party totally missed that when they brought in the grossly wasteful 1995 gun control law.  It was urban Canada jamming their attitudes down rural Canada’s throat.  What was suppose to cost $2 million ballooned to $1 billion.  The gun law was a total disaster.

I’m sure some of you probably really disagree with me.  So let me tell you a story.  I first was taught to shoot a gun by my grandfather when I was about seven years old.  He had a gun like most farmers at the time to shoot pests like raccoons, foxes or any other varmints that got in the chicken coop.  He let me take target practice with the be be gun.   I don’t think I volunteered for that.  I think he simply thought it time I learn to shoot a gun.

That was a long time ago and it certainly wouldn’t happen today.  That’s just the way things were then.  My grandfather like many of us ate the eggs, chickens pigs and beef cattle out of the barn.  A gun was simply something to protect the family food supply and family property from the assortment of varmints who could cause us harm.  These guns are still used this way through the Canadian north and Canadian farm country.

So when the Liberals came down in 1995 with their gun law nothing could be more intrusive to the rural lifestyle.  When the costs ballooned into the stratosphere it became a big target.  As long as the urban Liberal party governed Canada it wasn’t going to change.  So when Stephen Harper upended Paul Martin the days of the long gun registry were numbered.  Sometimes total political change is the only way to get something changed like that.

It’s funny.  I always found it fascinating how rural Liberals in the previous Liberal administration would fall on the sword for gun control.  Former Ontario Liberal MP’s Rose-Marie Ur and Rex Crawford voted against the Liberal gun control bill.  I’m sure they really believed in what they were doing, but I always found it so strange.  At the same time some of these rural Liberals were voting against their party line on gun control, they supported the dismantling of agricultural stabilization policies that worked in rural Canada.  I always wondered why they deemed “guns” so important over “farm income.”

The bottom line though is that for whatever reason they did.  It was an issue, which spooked many of them.  It’ll be the same way come this fall when the new legislation goes to a vote.  You’ll see rural MP’s from the NDP and Bloc vote for the changes while their political masters boil.

Since 2003 there have been 549 murders in Canada and only two have occurred because of a registered long gun according to the government of Canada.  So in other words, did the gun registry stop the bad guys?

Some will surely point to how the police used the registry and some will point to other law enforcement uses of the registry and defend it.  It’s a tough call.  The Conservatives say they are going to take that billion dollars and reinvest it.  The following is a quote from Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

“This new government will not continue to fund ineffective programs. Instead, we will invest our resources to better protect Canadian families and their communities by putting more police on our streets, strengthening our borders, funding crime prevention programs and initiatives and especially towards crime reduction for youth at risk.”

At this point, it’s hard to disagree with that.  We shall see.  There is a not a lot of middle ground when it comes to “guns” in Canada.  What’s important to realize is that both sides hold their views strongly.  The Liberal gun law wasn’t working properly.  Scrapping it and starting over will surely have its pitfalls too.  Someday we have to get this thing right.