By Delynda Pilon

So far the gun registry legislation instituted by the Liberals in the mid 90s has gone so vastly over budget that it is hard to even compare the proposed costs with the actual costs to date. After the Conservatives began to administer the country with it’s minority government, amnesty was given to owners of rifles and shotguns facing prosecution for failing to register them. That amnesty was extended four times and is now set to expire on May 16, 2011.
Though the registry was allegedly brought in to reduce crime by making guns traceable, several experts in the area have called that objective a failure. Wendell Mills, a local gun expert who has taught numerous people gun safety, has his own opinion on the subject.
He said that though he believes the idea of ensuring no one can own or buy ammunition unless they have a Possession and Acquisition license (PAL) is a good one, other facets of the registry make little sense to him.
“I have never heard anyone complain about PAL,” he said.
However, he added that registering a gun has never saved anyone’s life.
A private members bill in the House of Commons (Bill C-391) to scrap the gun registry passed its first reading but may go no further since Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, said members of his party will be told to vote along party lines on this bill. Generally, with private members bills, MPs are allowed to vote according to their own choices which usually reflect their constituent’s wishes. Without the support of some Liberal and NDP MPs, the bill could not have passed its first reading.
It is unclear whether or not the NDP will follow Ignatieff’s lead.
Instead of voting in favour of Bill C - 391, Ignatieff said the Liberals will eliminate registration fees, eliminate criminal penalties for those with unregistered weapons and simplify the registry process.
“I heard that Michael Ignatieff is going to decriminalize possessing an unregistered firearm, and that there will be no charges, but right now there is amnesty so there are not charges anyway. If the Liberals are forced to vote against this, I think there will be some Liberals who call in sick that day. If 10 don’t show up, the vote will pass,” Mills said, adding many Liberals have constituents who have said that, should their MP support the registry, they will vote for someone else come the next election.
“If we took all the money (from the gun registry budget) we could fix Highway 1 from coast to coast,” Mills added, stating the statistics for deaths caused by motor vehicle collisions are significantly higher than those caused by firearms.
Mills believes that lives could be saved, however, if more significance was placed on the safe use of firearms.
“The most important part of the course I teach is safe gun storage. The emphasis on this is absolutely critical. There are hundreds of injuries, accidental deaths and suicides each year because a firearm wasn’t stored properly. Three hundred lives could be saved each year if firearms were locked in one cabinet and the ammunition was kept separately. It is a statistical fact.”
Mills followed this statement with a few stories about firearm deaths that could have been prevented if the weapons were stored correctly. One included a child killing another child with a handgun kept loaded in a bedroom drawer. Another was a about a young man who broke up with his girlfriend, raced home and killed himself in a moment of passion in the garage where a loaded rifle was kept. If the weapon wasn’t so handy, Mills said the young man might have had a chance to cool off before acting so rashly.The second critical factor he teaches is  goes by the acronym ACPF. A stands for assume every gun is loaded. C stands for control the muzzle at all times. T means keep your finger out of the trigger guard and F means keep the safety on, but never rely on it.
“A is the most important part of that. Statistics show accidental death almost always happens with a gun that is assumed empty.”
Mills said gun safety rather than registry is likely the key to keeping the population safe from firearms, pointing out the outlaws aren’t going to register their weapons anyway. This statement seems to be have been reiterated by the Julian Fantino, who was Toronto’s police chief at the time he said the gun registry didn’t help the Toronto police solve any of the city’s gun related crimes, nor did it deter them.