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[By IAN ROBINSON, CALGARY SUN]
The gun registry — which may be staggering toward an entirely appropriate, ignominious end in September in the House of Commons — is about more than a national firearms policy.
And, just as an aside, are there any words in combination that ought to frighten us more than “national policy?”
OK, when your personal physician says: “You’re going to feel some pressure,” that’s worse, because “pressure” is doctor code for “I’m going to wear you like a hand puppet for a minute or two.”
There’s a reason Kermit the Frog’s voice is so strained.
But I digress.
It’s about more than the shade of our necks, about city versus country, about those who like supermarket meat and those who won’t eat anything that they haven’t shot themselves.
Not to mention those sad, pallid folks who look like Twilight extras wearing the “Meat Is Murder” tees and who’d like to ban steak knives.
It’s about the persistence of bad ideas in defiance of facts.
It’s about isn’t it pretty to think so versus reality and it’s about the tension between the fragile rights of a free people versus the gradual encroachment of government.
As the Tories stealth campaign to kill the registry, under the guise of a private member’s bill, approaches its third vote, we’re beginning to hear some interesting counter-cultural voices on the matter.
Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson — who’ll be attending the Canadian Chiefs of Police convention in Edmonton starting Sunday where, no doubt we’ll hear an impassioned save-the-registry plea — has taken a courageous position against the registry.
While the organization alleged to represent front-line cops, the Canadian Police Association, is an ardent supporter of the registry, another Alberta cop offers an alternative voice.
Edmonton cop Const. Randy Kuntz used a police magazine to survey officers across the country on the issue of the gun registry.
He got 2,631 replies and 2,410 of them said the gun registry is useless as a crime fighting tool.
Further, many of them believed it lulled cops into a false sense of security and was therefore a safety risk.
Kuntz, an officer whose career has included work in intelligence and cold-case homicide, demolishes a number of myths used in support of the gun registry.
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