Scientia est potentia

After apparently running out of bogus statistics and fallacious arguments to peddle about guns and domestic violence, Elizabeth Mandelman has moved on to another time-honoured anti-gun talking point: suicides. (School shootings is coming next, I can feel it in my bones).

As per her SOP, Elizabeth’s latest entry is full of broken logic and half truths, which I will document and correct here.

First and foremost, the argument presented by Barbara Kane and supported by Elizabeth is almost entirely predicated on the old Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC) system, which predates the Firearms Act. Thus, most of it is utterly irrelevant. This sort of strawman argument is typical of the anti-gun movement. Once again, Elizabeth confuses “the registry” with the Firearms Act and forgets that besides introducing the long gun registry, the Act completely altered the process for obtaining and maintaining a firearms license, and furthermore mandated all persons in possession of firearms to be licensed (previously an FAC was only required for purchasing a firearm). In so doing, Elizabeth attributes all the benefits of  a universal licensing system, which firearms owners almost unanimously support, to “the registry”.

Besides, I’m loath to take Dr. Kane’s comments on “before the registry” seriously, since I highly doubt she was alive over 70 years ago when the handgun registry was introduced. Elizabeth keeps saying the “registry” but she really means “the long-gun registry” or in some cases “the Firearms Act” but making these crucial distinctions would prevent her from co-opting irrelevant arguments to defend a failed program.

So when Elizabeth says:

Dr. Kane made this argument because she found that prior to the registry, when she contacted law enforcement officials with concerns about the safety of one of her patients (or that of their friends and family as a result of the patient), they were unsure of what actions to take and had no way of telling whether the person of concern owned any firearms.

She is completely misrepresenting what the process would be if the long gun registry was axed. Here’s how it works now, and how it would work after:

1. Doctor has credible information that a patient is no longer of sufficient mental capacity to own a firearm safely.
2. Doctor contacts the local police department who refer her to the Chief Firearms Officer.
3. The Chief Firearms Officer will revoke or suspend the patient’s firearms license, and apply to a court for a warrant to search their home and remove any and all firearms.
4. The local police will execute the warrant.

Did you see the long gun registry in there anywhere? No? Neither did I. Of course, since Dr. Kane has so much experience, she already knows this process perfectly well and knows that it depends on firearms licensing, not registration. But despite being a physician, she is more concerned with pushing her personal anti-gun agenda than fulfilling her responsibility to provide accurate information.

The registry does not empower police to confiscate guns from unstable individuals, the ability to suspend or revoke licenses does. The registry does not tell police if a person owns firearms, because it is inaccurate and unreliable, only an actual search of their home can ensure that they do not possess firearms.

Elizabeth talks constantly about using the registry to confiscate guns from dangerous people, but I don’t think she has seen the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) query interface. I have, and I can personally attest that there is no “confiscate guns” button.  You don’t use the registry to confiscate guns, you use police officers with a search warrant that covers all firearms in the possession of a named individual, the issuance of which has absolutely nothing to do with the long gun registry.

Fresh out of misinformation, Dr. Kane now resorts to saying things that don’t even make sense:

In addition, the registry is important in helping law enforcement trace the origins of firearms that may have been acquired illegally, according to Dr. Kane.  During our interview, she spoke of a patient who shot himself using an illegally acquired firearm.  After shooting himself, the patient decided he did not want to die, but was unable to be saved.  This incident occurred before the registry was in place.  As a result, the gun could not be traced.  With the registry, law enforcement would have been more easily able to trace the origins of the firearm.  Without it, however, and lacking information from the victim, they were unable to determine from whom he had acquired it.  With the registry, more accountability exists.

This one almost had me on the floor. Here’s a newsflash for Elizabeth, who claims to know all about Canada’s firearms legislation: you can’t register a gun that has been previously registered. You can only transfer ownership from someone else or register a previously unregistered long gun. So if the person from whom the subject of this story acquired his firearm is a criminal, there won’t be anything about him in the registry because he can’t get a firearms license and thus can’t have guns registered to him. If he isn’t a criminal, then we haven’t made any progress at all.

The “tracing illegal firearms” angle is a common myth pushed by anti-gunners. Of the many ways to get illegal guns – smuggling them into the country; stealing them from a legitimate owner or business; manufacturing them illegally; having an accomplice with no criminal record obtain a firearms license, buy guns legally, and then give them to you – it addresses only the highly implausible fourth option. None of the other guns would be traceable through the registry. Of course it is much easier to blame legal owners than to go after the highly organized and heavily armed smuggling gangs.

Before anyone mentions guns stolen from legal owners, the serial numbers of firearms that are reported stolen have always been recorded and always will be regardless of whether long gun registry is cancelled. A registry of stolen firearms has nothing to do with a registry of legally owned firearms. That fourth option I mentioned aboved – the only scenario the registry can help with – is so rare that despite having had the handgun registry for over half a century, the people who constantly push this angle of the registry can’t even come up with one example of a firearm being successfully traced in this fashion.

It stands to reason that a registry of legally owned firearms cannot give accurate information about illegal firearms, yet gun control advocates like Dr. Kane always make utterly illogical claims that it will. We’ve had the handgun registry for as long as anyone can remember – show me the proof, or shut up.

There is only one reason to register legal guns – in order to confiscate them after the next step in anti-gun playbook (outright bans) has been implemented.

Tell me Elizabeth, if the registry is so great, why do you have to bend the truth so much to defend it?