(This
column was published in the North
Shore News on
Sept. 03, 2003)
Gun control program doesn't add up
By Leo Knight
The aftermath of the Loft Six nightclub massacre in Vancouver has focused attention once more on the failed efforts of the federal government and its gun control program.
Quite apart from the fact that it has frittered away more than a billion dollars on this demonstration of bureaucracy run amok, it hasn't come close to addressing its stated goal.
The following is from its Web site: "A goal of Canada's gun control program is to prevent people who are a danger to themselves or others from accessing firearms."
The headline states, Canada's Gun Control Program: Keeping Firearms Out of the Wrong Hands.
All well and good except it doesn't do that and the Loft Six massacre is merely another example of its failure.
Last week, I asked if the money could have been better spent.
Dozens of readers responded, universally agreeing with the statement and offering suggestions which might actually have an effect.
One letter writer is a firearm wholesaler on the North Shore and has been trained as a registration verifier by the government. He stated that the system was fatally flawed.
But that's not just editorial comment. He explained the reasons in a phone conversation the next day. Apparently, every Ruger firearm in the system is registered incorrectly.
Ruger is America's largest firearms manufacturer. According to its promotional material, "It is the only American firearms manufacturer that produces firearms in all four market segments - rifles, shotguns, pistols, and revolvers."
I don't know how many firearms they sell every year in Canada, but as the largest such company in America, let's assume it is a large number.
Their firearms have a two or three digit prefix followed by a dash, then a sequential number. Apparently the firearms registry system's computer couldn't handle the dash or a space in the serial number. Wholesalers, dealers and purchasers were forced to inaccurately register their weapons.
In some cases, the paperwork would be sent in correct only to have a bureaucrat inaccurately enter the information to conform to the failure in the system.
In some cases, the weapon could be identified over three transactions - from the wholesaler to the retailer to the end user - with three separate identifiers: a dash, a space or nothing at all.
My source asked an RCMP officer involved with the program about this anomaly a couple of years ago and he was told that they arbitrarily removed all the spaces and dashes from serial numbers to save memory.
A billion dollar computer hasn't enough memory to handle spaces and dashes in serial numbers?
As bad as the federal government is in purchasing decisions, it can't be that bad, surely.
I tried to get some questions answered but, as usual with the bureaucracy, it's like trying to get milk from a bull.
I was told by a former registry employee that the original versions of the software had this difficulty, but the newest version, version three, had the problem corrected.
So, if true, that only addresses registrations filed from that point forward and all previously registered Ruger weapons were wrong.
I checked back with the wholesaler.
He said the version he had was 2.3 and he'd had it for at least two years. He said he had received no upgrade in the software package in that time.
With the law being a technical animal, what this means is that a prosecution would not be successful relating to a Ruger firearm because the registered number and the number on the weapon won't match.
But that's just a part of the problem.
The police make system requests, called an FRO (Firearm Registry Online), on a routine basis, for everything from background information when responding to a domestic call to specific information included to obtain a search warrant. Now it seems, the information they use may be flawed.
That's incredibly disturbing.
Now look at it from an investigative point of view. If the police recover a bullet at a homicide scene, for example, the lab can tell them what specific weapon fired the bullet - make, model, description, the whole lot.
Suppose the lab people say they are searching for a .44-calibre, Ruger, semi-automatic pistol, and they knew from a witness it had a stainless steel (shiny) body.
The police will then search for such a weapon and the first stop is the FRO.
Because serial number makeup is a descriptor of the weapon, not just sequential tracking, if the number is incorrectly entered, it won't show on the check.
Equally, what will show is a whole lot of totally innocent people who maybe own a similar weapon that, for example, is gun-metal blue instead of stainless steel.
And remember, all of this deals only with those people who actually tried to obey the law.
That pretty much leaves out all of the criminal class who get their guns from a guy named Guido in the beer parlour.
And Guido gets them from Piggy, the Hells Angel, who takes them in trade along with some cocaine for some Grade A B.C. Bud sold to a guy named Rico in L.A.
Canada's gun control program, which says it is "keeping firearms out of the wrong hands," doesn't even come close to that stated goal.
And apparently it can't even accurately reflect the law-abiding people trying to comply with any degree of accuracy.
Sadly, the police cannot rely on the FRO for data now either, knowing a substantial chunk is inaccurate at best.
Apparently a billion dollars just doesn't get you what it used to.
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