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There are two things I want most to know about the incident that has become known as the High River Gun Grab: Who ordered it? And, how did police know what houses to go into to find guns? I know there are other questions about why Mounties seized guns in the abandoned Alberta town of High River last month during the disastrous spring flooding there, such as under what legal authority did the RCMP "take possession of firearms" (the force's spin-doctored term for seizing) and what did the Alberta provincial government know about the seizure? Did Alberta Justice Minister Jonathan...

As the Obama administration pushes for stronger gun laws in the United States, Canada is moving toward entirely eliminating its controversial gun registry program. Many critics have noted that gun registries place additional burdens on honest citizens looking to own firearms, while opening them up to politically motivated targeting of the kind recently revealed in the United States when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted it had been targeting conservatives for extra scrutiny...

One of the strange things about North Carolina (and there are many) is that Durham County has a firearm registry. It’s banned everywhere else in the state, but the legislature authorized Durham to register firearms. I don’t know if anyone actually registers, but legally  you’re supposed to. Kind of like legally you’re suppose to come to a complete stop at the stop sign, but frequently you don’t. Now a Democrat NC Senator has manged to pass a bill through the House that repeals that registry, ending the only firearm registry in North Carolina. A bill put forward by Sen. Mike Woodard,...

As a prelude to writing these few paragraphs, I went to a Bing search engine and typed in "registry guns". In an instant -- at most one second -- I was told there were over 12 million hits. I was then invited by "Bing" to sort those based on time. Did I prefer all of them, those within the last 24 hours, those within the last week, or only those within the last month. I chose "24 hours" and again, within an instant, I had a list with 227,000 results. So, this raises the simple question of an “unofficial gun...

Remember when the Harper government killed the long gun registry earlier this year, and received tonnes of criticism? Well, they’re trying to fix their wrongs by developing a new rule which will place serial numbers on long guns for tracking. The regulation, which begins on Dec. 1, will make it possible for police to track guns, which will in turn contribute to public safety, a government backgrounder explained to CBC News. They said the reasoning behind the regulation is “to contribute to public safety, by facilitating law enforcement investigations when the markings can be linked to information on the last...

President Obama’s bizarre marriage-theme fund-raising scheme — where he asks couples to request campaign donations from their guests in lieu of wedding gifts — has been a total flop. The desperate initiative, dubbed “the Event Registry,” is being mocked by event planners and couples — and shows how desperate the Obama campaign is to keep up with GOP contender Mitt Romney’s fund-raising. Campaign officials launched the initiative in late June, the same month Obama raised just $71 million compared to Romney’s $100 million. So far, “the Event Registry” has been all but ignored on social-media sites — even though Facebook,...

Shooters up North celebrated a rare gun-rights victory in April, when the Canadian federal government finally euthanized its expensive and useless ‘Long Gun Registry.’ The celebrations were short, however. Eager to appease suburban voters and swinging liberals, Ottowa promptly moved to ban ‘body armour.’ Then PM Stephen Harper’s ‘Conservative’ party has quietly announced that all Canadian gun owners will have to start paying a $60 fee to renew their firearm licenses. It gets better: owners of handguns and other ‘restricted’ firearms (ooh, that sounds evil, doesn’t it?) have to fork over $80 . . . These fees have actually been...

I hold in my hand a very important piece of paper dated at Welland, July 15, 1942 signed by a corporal in the local police force. This piece of paper gave Don Augustine permission to lend two shotguns to Frank Templain for the purpose of hunting. As the heading on the top of the form explained: INDIVIDUAL PERMIT TO SELL, LEND, BARTER, TRANSFER-POSSESSION OR PURCHASE A RIFLE OR SHOTGUN. This form is an example from the original long gun registry that I showed to Liberal organizers when they were promoting the second long gun registry for all Canadians. My point...

The federal government will not go ahead with a proposed rule requiring ammunition to be kept locked up, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Thursday. At present, guns must be locked, but not ammunition. The proposed regulations - to do with storage of explosives - would have required all gun owners to install a locking box or safe in their homes. National Firearms Association president Blair Hagen said gun owners are "very gratified" to hear Toews' pledge, and feel reassured the sweeping regulatory changes will not proceed as published. "After they were published in the Canada Gazette there was a...

Canada recently ditched its hugely expensive highly ineffective federal gun registry. Oh wait. Not yet. But soon. Maybe. Meanwhile, the bureaucrats governing our neighbors to the north are making a move on ammunition. According to vancounversun.com, the good folks at Natural Resources Canada have cooked-up some “proposed” regulations which will require the nation’s gun owners to lock-up their ammo, as they must their guns, subject to unannounced inspection by The Powers That Be. (FYI: as it currently stands ammunition suppliers must clap eyes on a legible copy of the gun owners’ Possession and Acquisition Licence before they can sell them...

QUEBEC—With the clock ticking down on the federal long-gun registry, the Quebec government has taken legal action to save its data. The province announced Tuesday that it has filed a motion in Quebec Superior Court to block the federal government from destroying the registry information. The Quebec government says it wants to maintain its own registry with its share of the records — but can’t do it if the feds destroy the data, as promised, once its anti-registry bill becomes law. Time is running out. The legislation is on the verge of being adopted in the Senate. So Quebec, as...

The Canadian Parliament has repealed the Long Gun Registry, as reported in the National Review by John Lott and Gary Mauser in an article published February 20, 2012 entitled Death of a Long-Gun Registry. The passage of the repeal represents a small victory for gun owners, and a small set back for the gun grabbers. But left in place are all the goofy laws that dictate which weapons one may own. An example is provided in the comments to this over at Sebastian's new blog Shall Not Be Questioned. Lott and Mauser make the point that the Long-Gun Registry cost...

Bunker Hill, IL - Macoupin County Board Chairman and candidate for State Senate in the 48th District Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) today called on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to drop a deeply unpopular proposal that would require gun owners to register their handguns and pay a fee or face felony charges. “I’m against it. Law-abiding gun owners are against it. And 48th District residents are against it,” Manar said of the proposal. “Downstate voters are fed up with Chicago dictating to us what they think is best.” Last week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel demanded that the Illinois General Assembly require...

They didn't win all of the battles but the Conservatives are poised to win the war over the long gun registry. Bill C-19, an act to end the long gun registry, passed one of the final hurdles in the House of Commons Tuesday night after several attempts by the Opposition to amend it. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, angry that debate had been shortened, led the charge along with the NDP, Liberal and Bloc members to make changes. Voting took hours. The Tories, however, have a majority and eventually squashed all of the efforts. "When are we going to have...

Thinkstock/Comstock(WASHINGTON) -- A federal judge has upheld a rule proposed by the ATF to track multiple gun sales in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico in a lawsuit brought by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and two gun dealers in Arizona. Over the summer the ATF announced that it would seek information in those four states on gun purchasers who buy two or more weapons a week for semi-automatic long guns that have a caliber greater than .22 and a detachable magazine. The ATF would require gun dealers to report the sale of multiple rifles with what ATF was calling...

A good explanation of the RCMP seizing private firearms without compensation. A video story.

With the firearms registry on death's door, the RCMP are using what little time remains to reclassify and seize certain scary-looking guns from Canadian firearms owners. Among the guns being seized is a small-calibre varmint rifle called the Armi Jager AP80. Like many non-restricted rifles, it is semi-automatic and fires the .22-calibre bullet, the smallest and weakest used in any long gun. The AP80 has been singled out because it looks too much like the infamous AK-47 assault rifle, although it shares no parts or technical similarities with that infamous battle rifle. On Dec. 20, the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program...

Unlike the rest of Canada, Quebec must think there are dangerous criminals, and even another Marc Lepine, lurking among law-abiding farmers and hunters whose names are in the doomed long-gun registry. If that is the case, those farmers and hunters should be outraged with the Liberal government of Jean Charest. They're being played as pawns. Why, for example, would Quebec Public Safety Minister Robert Dutil announce his government will go to court if the Conservatives use their majority in Parliament to pass legislation abolishing the 16-year-old registry for rifles, shotguns and varmint-hunting pot-shooters? Does he have an empty chamber in...

Quebec is set to take legal action against the federal government to save data from the soon-to-be-abolished long-gun registry, according to reports. The Canadian Press first reported the Quebec government planned to announce the move Tuesday. Radio-Canada's Quebec City bureau has confirmed the report. Robert Dutil, the province's public security minister, will reveal details of the legal suit while accompanied by police brass, police unions, victims' groups and crime experts. The Conservatives have been working for years to end a registry they call wasteful, ineffective, and which they oppose on principle. The legislation to abolish the registry is expected to...

OTTAWA -- A rural-urban split has opened up in the federal NDP leadership race over whether the official Opposition should promise Canadians it will try to reverse the Harper government's pending destruction of the national long-gun registry. Brian Topp, the Montreal-born Toronto union leader considered a front-runner, said as prime minister, he would attempt to revive the program to register all long guns. His only caveat is that an NDP government would need to avoid the litany of errors that resulted in the Liberal program, first projected in 1995 to cost $2 million, ending up with a price tag estimated...