Lloyd and company really outdid themselves tonight. There was a piece that was supposed to be about the Conservatives extending the amnesty on rifles and shotguns... you know... the Liberals infamous and totally ineffectual 2 billion dollar "Farmer Bob Rifle Registry."
In the midst of a slow montage of various pictures of rifles and shotguns sitting in racks... CTV suddenly cuts to a jarring clip of a man firing an MP5 submachinegun... a restricted weapon used primarily by SWAT Teams around the world.
The obvious implication was that Stephen Harper, who apparently has no respect for human life, was loosing a plague of automatic weapons upon the land.
CTV then followed up this little stunt by showing gun control spokes-bigot Wendy Cukier claiming that long guns were responsible for the majority of gun homicides in Canada... which, I assume, would be a bit of a surprise to family and friends of the majority of Toronto murder victims.
It seems though, that wasn't enough for our friends at CTV.
When I went to their website, the article there had a picture of an AK-47 assault rifle... the weapon of choice worldwide... not for farmers, hunters or target shooters... but third world terrorists.
I suppose I should just be happy they didn't try slip in a shot of a bazooka.
**********
UPDATE: We could try some actual facts
Both the rate of handguns and rifles/shotguns decreased in 2006, while the rate of sawed-off rifles and shotguns doubled from 2005.**********
It also meant that stabbing deaths outnumbered homicides involving firearms. Some 210 victims, just over one-third of the total, were killed by stabbings, 20 more than the number killed by shootings.
In 2006, handguns accounted for 108, or over half, of the 190 victims killed by a firearm. A further 36 victims were killed by a rifle/shotgun, 24 by a (totally illegal and thus not eligible for registration) sawed-off rifle/shotgun and 22 by another or unknown type of firearm.
FROM THE COMMENTS: Via reader James
Actually, the CBC's total cost figure of $2 billion for the entire gun registry "file" amounts to about $685,000 per day, which means they spent the entire initially estimated budget of $2 million, again according to the CBC, every three days, for eight years straight.**********
That's 20,000 man-years, to register 7 million guns. But what do I know, I'm just a software guy, I'll stick to the database system.
Corporations get sued for cost overruns on the order of tens of percent. Assuming my careful $10 million estimate is reasonable, the registry database is not 10 % over. It's not 100 % over. It's not 1,000 % over.
It's 7,500 % over.
LAST WORD: Paging kooky Wendy Cukier
Of Canada's two million licensed gun owners, 111, or 0.00555%, used their firearm to murder someone.*
On the other hand, in 2005, 64% of accused murderers had a prior criminal record, including 6% for homicide.