Chiefs’defence of gun registry

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair makes a compelling case for supporting Canada’s long-gun registry: we register vehicles, so why wouldn’t we register something as potentially deadly as rifles and shotguns?

“It is not a matter of ideology. It’s just a matter of public safety,” said Blair, speaking as president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

It should not fall to a police chief to explain that simple distinction between ideology and safety, but with a critical parliamentary vote approaching next month to kill the long-gun registry, Blair felt compelled to do it. In today’s political climate, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper has poisoned every national policy debate with partisanship, experts are no longer to be trusted; inconvenient facts are ignored; and critics are muzzled or sidelined.

Now, Harper’s Conservatives have attacked the association by claiming it does not “speak for Canadian police officers on this issue.”

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