Why the gun registry isn't the wedge issue it appears to be

Perhaps growing weary of one of this summer's most contentious political debates, commentators are blaming both sides of misrepresenting the long-gun registry.

Next week’s vote on whether or not to keep the long-gun registry is going to be a dead heat. Every Tory is voting to kill it, every Liberal is all voting to keep it, and for all the NDP’s equivocation Jack Layton might as well have strung a tightrope between the towers of the House of Commons.

The popular narrative on the gun registry pits rifle-toting rural Canadians against ivory tower-dwelling urbanites. But that narrative “is the worst kind of wedge politics,” writes the Globe and Mail’s Daniel Paul O’Donnell, “designed to pit Canadians against each other.” Both sides “have been very misleading about the issues involved,” with registry critics saying it is grossly inefficient, and supporters claiming it can save lives. Neither is true, according to O’Donnell. But as rural and urban Canadians are played off each other, the “only winners … are the politicians.”

The Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Stephen Maher agrees that “the truth is somewhere in between” the exaggerated arguments on both sides, but he strikes a rosier tone. This debate “is a splendid example of how our adversarial system functions,” he writes. He also points out a hole in the rhetoric of Conservatives, who label rural NDP MPs who support the registry “hypocrites who are vot¬ing against the wishes of their constituents. On the other hand, every single Tory is voting against the regis¬try, although many of them rep¬resent urban and suburban rid¬ings where most voters would support it.”

Taking aim at leftist commentators who criticize the Conservatives for using the registry as a wedge issue, the National Post’s Lorne Gunter says, “We columnists are wedge peddlers. It’s the nature of our craft. The difference between we columnists on the right and those on the left … is that we rightists know that’s what we’re doing.” Lefties “seem to think their beliefs and ideologies are morally superior” and make them immune to using wedge issues, he writes, not-so-subtly suggesting that it is in fact right wingers who are morally superior.