A pot smoking law abiding gun registrant

I couldn't be more at odds with the Harper government, even if I purposely set out to do so.

Harper's Safety Minister (another oxymoronic title) Toews, following in the boot steps of his predecessor Stockwell Day, has extended the grace period for registering our rifles for another year. 

Toews claims that the long gun registry costs billions and that RCMP officers, have much more important things to do than harass my farmers and my hunters in my constituency when they have .22 rifles and .303s and shotguns that they use almost as tools.

Of course the facts as reported last night on the CTV National prove the Minister either does not know what he is talking about or is purposely lying to Canadians.

• From CTV and the Auditor General's report the long gun registry only costs $3 million a year to run.

• Law enforcement officers query the gun registry 10,000 times a day

• In 2008, 50% of gun related crimes in rural areas were committed with rifles and shotguns

• 18,000 of the 23,000 guns seized in Canada were rifles.

• 14 of 16 murders of law enforcement officers serving rural Canada were perpetrated with rifles and shotguns

• 74% of police officers state that the registry in beneficial during major operations

• The Police Chiefs Association and senior RCMP support the long gun registry

Although Fantino the current OPP commissioner infamously came out against the gun registry at it's inception, he might want to reconsider it's enforcement with the recent and tragic death an OPP officer last week.

The long gun registry is a rural versus city issue and it isn't just the Harper reformatories who have voted in favor of the private members bill, to end the long gun registry. Rural MPs from all parties have voted in favor of ending the requirement to register your rifle. 

I live in the GTA, the so called center of the universe, according to the cowboy hat crowd, who generally accuse us of being arrogant and self righteous. However when it comes the long gun registry it is rural Canadians that are displaying arrogance and a dangerous self righteousness. 

It was a distraught, former small town mayor who killed a law enforcement office with a rifle, during a shoot out across a rural highway, last week. 

If the long gun registry had been backed and enforced by our government over the last three years instead of pandering to a self righteous group of wannabe cowboys, the officer would have been better aware that this distraught individual owned a long gun and possibly both men might still be alive.

The continuing extensions for registration, besides flaunting the law of the land, is making the long gun registry less effective and is causing lives. The MPs who are voting in favor of this private members bill should be ashamed. As should be the so called law abiding rural long gun owners who haven't registered yet.

On the pot smoking part, I am in the majority according to the latest poll.