Gun registry numbers don’t add up

The two sides of the gun control debate can’t even agree on how much money the long-gun registry costs

It’s no wonder that the issue of the long-gun registry is so contentious. A quick survey of op-ed columns today reveals that both sides are playing with wildly different numbers.

A National Post editorial cites a recent poll of rank-and-file police officers that found 92 per cent of our boys in blue want the gun registry to be scrapped. This number is impressive, but as pointed out in several locations this week, and by the person who conducted it, the poll is not at all scientific.

That hasn’t stopped the anti-registry camp from continuing to use it, however, as Kevin Gaudet did again today in the Edmonton Sun. He adds some more numbers to the equation: “The registry has wasted some $2 billion and drains at least $106 million a year more from taxpayers.” That latter figure is a full $100 million bigger than the one the RCMP came up with in a report leaked yesterday, which found the program is humming along at an efficient $3.6 million per year.

An editorial in the Toronto Star says that the fact that police across the country check the registry 14,000 times a day is proof that it’s a useful tool. Registry opponents say the figure is actually 11,000 times a day, and that it’s only that large in the first place because computers automatically check the registry at every traffic stop, jay-walking incident, etc.

The cost of setting up the registry in 2002 was originally estimated at $120 million, and quickly ballooned to $2 billion, which Conservatives have said proves the registry is an overpriced boondoggle. But Peter Wheeler at the Montreal Gazette says the Conservatives’ stance is hypocritical. This “is the same government that spent $1.1 billion on the G8 and G20 summits,” he says, and “wants to spend $9 billion to expand the prison system because of a rise in ‘unreported crime.’”

Ultimately the only numbers that matter are how many votes a bill to kill the registry gets in September, and it all comes down to 12 NDP MPs who haven’t said which way they’ll vote.