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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fresc who wrote (4934)	5/3/2005 10:36:26 PM
From: Gulo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37570

I take it, it's your right to own a hand gun for protection. Correct? Where'd that come from? I was referring to my right to seek medical attention wherever, whenever and from whomever I want. And, for that matter, to help anyone else in any manner that we mutually agree on (as long as the rights of others are respected, etc.). But since you brought it up... No. It's not what I'd call a right in the classical liberal sense, at least not directly. I think it should be a legal right, though, with appropriate restrictions (license the owner, not the gun). Most guns are never intended for protection, at least not in Alberta. I don't know what kind of redneck reactionaries there are out east. ;) Natural rights doctrine usually does, however, hold that one has a right to use lethal force to defend oneself. My beef with the firearms legislation is threefold: 1) It is ineffective and counterproductive. Gun crime has stopped its decades-long decline and will increase again because of the creation of a black market. Civil disobedience is rampant, and the only market for unregistered guns is the black market. That used to apply only to handguns, but is now true of all guns. Now, the database is in the hands of organized crime. We can expect the same trend as in other jurisdictions that have implemented similar legislation. 2) It is absurdly costly. I'm sure you have seen the statistics on this. (e.g., the cost is equivalent to putting a million dollar bounty on all murderers with enough left over to buy all drunk drivers a ride home.) 3) It was implemented in the most anti-democratic fashion imaginable. Along with confiscation without compensation (for the half of all handguns that became illegal), we saw mass criminalization of innocent people for failing to abide by unreasonable paperwork. The protection from unreasonable search and seizure is also damaged. I would much rather have seen a graduated owner licensing system like we now have for driver licenses. Registering guns is not like registering cars because witnesses will not see a license plate hanging off a gun used in a crime. Guns also do not have unique serial numbers, which is one of the reasons the system is so stupidly expensive and ineffective. Also, guns do not use up public infrastructure as cars do. In fact, I got rid of the only gun I admit to owning before the registration requirement came in because registration would have cost me more than the gun was worth and it would have put some police friends in awkward situations if I had kept it. (In the end, one of my two police friends kept at least one of his guns unregistered.) I gave up hunting because of that damn Act. I assume that the gun is still unregistered, although it would be impossible to track anyway. If I do take up hunting again, I'll just borrow a gun from a friend. -g