ext_261290 ([identity profile] caspervonb.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] the_siobhan 2006-09-28 08:38 pm (UTC)

>"The data base has a higher than 30% error rate.
>Is that even remotely useful?"

I don't know? I've never heard that there was
such a significant error rate. And what does
error rate mean? What sort of errors?

>"You're not paying so it's not your bailiwick.
>But there's already been a security breach of
>the computer system from what I've heard."

Right. But I live in the same society so it is
my problem just as much as the guy who collects
WW2 guns or the hunter or the gangbanger.

As far as breaches, that should be alleged
security breach. A gun collector got robbed
and speculation ran rampant that it could have
been criminals breaking into the database and
using it as a list of places to rob. Like most
politicized issues, that quickly turned from
"people could do this" into "people are doing
this" among the politicians and newspapers.

That resulted in a serious review of the
system and its security.

The RCMP did come forward later and, after
proper investigation, admited to a few
thousand security breaches. That got the
alarmists going for about 5 minutes until
someone read the statements instead of
jumping the gun (no pun intended).

The RCMP found that there have been no
breaches of the system from the outside.
The idea that criminals were breaking into
the database to get a shopping list of gun
owners was bullshit. What they did find is
that, at times, police forces would access
the database when they didn't really have
any business doing so. Generally to check
if house x they were going into had an
arsenal hiding in the basement.

So, yes, security breaches but not of the
kind put forward by people with agendas.
And, afaik, that is now heavily monitored.

>"And that has what effect upon crime? Can
>you show an impact on crime as due to the
>registry/licensing scheme? Siobhan clearly
>saw people that didn't look like cops to her
>running around at an incident in Toronto.
>Gang Activity the way she described it.
>_Clearly_ the criminal gangs are taking the
>time to abide by the registry."

Well, as I said earlier, it *does* seem to
have an impact on gun crimes and homicide.
With time, we'll see if that's some sort
of cultural fluke.

Saying that criminals will do crime is kind
of a meaningless point. Much like using one
person's experience as demonstrative of the
entire crime situation in canada.

Honestly, I grew up in some pretty poor
neighbourhoods. Gangs and bikers were pretty
common. Very few guns, however. I can probably
count on my fingers the times were guns came
into it.

Certainly, criminals don't care about
registration. But getting guns was a relatively
difficult endeavour. And, even then, they
weren't necessary most of the time because they
knew the other guy didn't have one so why risk
getting caught with it or something going wrong?

May be hard to relate to but, in my experience,
most street criminals don't have guns or access
to them. Doesn't mean they're not out there,
of course, but regulation of guns does seem to
keep it down some.

You should maybe take a look at statscan
to see what the crimes and rates are like
in Canada. You'll quickly see that violent
crimes have not gone up for quite a few years.
I'll grant you that the overall crime rate has
gone up in the last 4 years but you'll see that
this is mostly driven by an increase in
counterfeiting and crimes like disturbing
the peace and mischief.

>"Again, if you miss a week renewing your
>license to drive, the police aren't going
>to show up at your home and take all your
>cars are they?"

Not the same thing. Cars have become
necessary for a lot of people in the
western world. The urban sprawl and need
to commute have seen to that.

When you take someone's car away, you
could very well be taking away their ability
to earn a living. And that does good to no one.
If anything, it would be easy to argue that
this would raise poverty and crime.

>"Confiscation of property for failure to
>comply with administrative paperwork is bullshit. "

I agree, there should probably be another
way of dealing with it. But, currently,
all we have is the bureaucracy's
discretionary powers.

But it certainly does not invalidate
the firearms registration act.

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