The Blair Witch-hunt Project -- Abuse of Authority?

CSSA ^ | 2009/10/29 | CSSA

[StraitShooter]

Media Release Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Blair Witch-hunt Project -- Abuse of Authority?

Toronto Police Chief Blair's much touted "Project Safe City" is nothing more than a witch-hunt targeting firearms owners, seizing their private property without compensation and describing them as "criminals." Their crime? Allowing their Firearms Licenses to expire.

In his latest "media event," he paraded out a valuable collection of firearms seized from a collector with an expired Firearms License. Using this event as his podium, he proceeded to make very inaccurate comments about the proposed federal Bill C-391 that is scheduled for second reading next week. The Chief stated that the Bill will kill both the registration process and firearms licensing. Either Chief Blair is very uninformed or he is deliberately attempting to mislead the public to drum up support for this white elephant. In any event Chief Blair should not be in a position of power and influence if he doesn’t understand the very law he is sworn to uphold. The Bill, if passed, will end the useless and expensive long-gun registry only, not the licensing provisions.

Here are a few points that must be considered following this latest photo-op.

1 - The police did not get the information from the gun registry. Chief Blair stated the man's license had expired in 2002. That means they got the information from the old FAC system, not the current licensing system.

2 - He states he wants the system so his officers have good information. Remember: of the 10,400 hits per day to the Canada Firearms On-Line system, only 20 deal with registrations of all types. As over 90% of firearms crimes involve illegal handguns, it is safe to assume that over 3/4 of those 20 registration inquiries involve restricted and prohibited firearms. That information will still be there; only non-restricted long guns of the types used commonly by hunters and target shooters, etc., will be taken out of the current registry. All the rest of the information queried on the CFRO comes from the LICENSING system, which will remain in its present form.

3 - This leads to the big question: does Chief Blair really want the long gun registry so he can continue his harassment of paperwork criminals or so the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, of which he is President, can continue to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the CGI Group, a gun registry contractor?

Let's get the facts straight. Bill C-391 only affects the registration of rifles and shotguns. It does not affect handgun registration or the continued licensing of all firearms owners. Indeed, the only reason his "Project Safe City" is so successful is the fact that he is using the licensing database to persecute those who forgot to renew their licenses, a component that is unaffected by C-391.

Chief Blair's project also begs the question -- is this really the appropriate use of scarce police resources? These firearms owners are not and never have been a threat to public safety and neither are the firearms they possess. The public are being misled by claims that these seizures of private property would make Toronto safer. This is nothing more than a transparent attempt to deflect attention from Chief Blair's appalling failure to control the criminal element in his city.

We urge all MPs to end the long-gun registry fiasco and support Bill C-391.

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[Joe Brower]

[StraitShooter]

The CSSA is the Canadian Shooting Sports Association -- it's Canada's "NRA."

[paul51]

Doesn’t matter if they are Canadian or Americans. Gun grabbers are a threat to freedom, liberty and safety wherever they are. They should be removed from office and run out of town.