Letters to the Editor

Brandon Sun - PRINT EDITION

Gov't tracks firearm owners

By: Uncredited

Monday, Mar. 4, 2013 | Comments: 0

Re: Harper continues to make paper criminals with gun owners.

Just another broken election promise for Stephen Harper? In 2005, the Conservative party approved this policy declaration: That a Conservative government will repeal Canada’s costly gun registry legislation and work with the provinces and territories on cost-effective gun control programs, designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while respecting the rights of law-abiding Canadians to own and use firearms responsibly.

Surprise, surprise, the long gun registry is dead but the rest of C-68 is very alive. The current policy is that every firearm owner must have a valid possession certificate — a Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL) or Possession Only Licence (POL).

This lifetime licensing allows the government to track firearm owners forever. Why does this government so distrust the vast majority of decent non-violent firearm owners, that it wants to identify and track every innocent gun owner forever?

If your firearm possession certificate expires, you have become a paper criminal, according to the current laws. You are in illegal possession of all your firearms without a PAL.

It is estimated that more than 600,000 gun owners are paper criminals. You can be charged, lose your firearms and go to jail for illegally possessing firearms without a valid possession certificate (we have no property rights in Canada).

The goal of any firearm law should be to reduce crime.

Making paper criminals out of law-abiding citizens is wrong. We need to identify, register and track the 176,000 violent criminals who have gone through our courts instead of tracking the eight million innocent peaceful responsible firearm owners. Please contact your MP.

INKY MARK

Dauphin

Former member of Parliament

Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition March 4, 2013

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