Quote:
Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll
That's not even close to my attitude. I fully support licensing for firearms owners, the applications weed out the ones who obviously have no business owning firearms and the training courses are a wonderful idea. I'm all for standardized training across the board, I like to know that the guy next to me at the range knows better than to get his finger on the trigger as soon as he picks up a gun. In fact, there is a good chance the ability to challenge the tests is going to be removed, which will make it mandatory for people applying for new licenses to take the full course.
I'd also love to see harsh sentences for people who use a firearm in the commission of a crime.
The current application process can be interpreted as successful since there have been 3,610 refusals from 2009 to present. These individuals never received their PAL or RPAL because of what the RCMP discovered during the vetting process. The safety courses have also been a big influence; of the 1.972 million holders of a valid (R)PAL in Canada, 1.167 million have taken one of the two safety courses or an acceptable alternative (numbers don't include Quebec). Through the courts and the Continuous Eligibility Program (where PAL & RPAL owners are continuously screened against CPIC), 12,900 licenses have been revoked since 2009.
What a lot of people want is for common sense and logic to be used when laws like the Firearms Act are being constructed and when the classification of firearms takes place. There are many laws on the books right now that will never make anyone safer or prevent a firearm from being used in an irresponsible manner. Same goes for the classification system, instead of following a defined set of rules, it is a largely emotional process and some of the guidelines that are in place are questionable.
Then you need to get knives, cars, poisons, fire, clubs and blunt instruments out of houses as well. Statistics Canada reported for 2010 that in all cases of intimate partner violence (spousal or dating violence), less than 1% (0.55%) of all cases involved guns. You'd be better off keeping knives (3.86%), poisons/fire/cars/explosives (5.53%) and blunt objects (1.69%) out of the hands of these people.
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The thing about a gun is it has absolutely no use at all in a contempory civilian setting, it's a toy, no more.
knives, poisons, cars even most blunt objects (ie a hammer) are all essential tools for day to day life.
It's a simple cost benefit analysis, you can't prepare food without a knife, or get to work with a car therefore we have to live with the cost.
Remove every gun in Canada and there is no consequence, you don't even need one to hunt.