Long Gun Democracy

Is this the beginning of the end for the stupid, useless and expensive long gun registry? The Conservative minority has attracted enough support from individual NDP and Liberal members of parliament to win an initial vote on ending the registry. The Liberal and NDP leaders are indignant. They say the Conservatives are driving a wedge between urban and rural Canada. What a strange viewpoint. Shouldn’t our MPs be allowed to think for themselves sometimes rather than following the party line? Isn’t this the purest form of democracy? In the case of the long gun registry, it’s hard to understand how any thinking person could consider it useful. A lot of guns have never been registered, making the whole effort a joke. Plus there’s no evidence that the registry has reduced criminal activity. The country has long had extremely tight registration and regulation of hand guns. That isn’t in dispute, but it’s something the general public doesn’t seem to understand. Up until now, the Conservative minority hasn’t been able to kill the long gun registry, but they have made it as irrelevant as possible. A lot of behind the scenes lobbying must have gone into attracting support from some rural NDP and Liberal MPs, but that’s how politics should work. I’m Kevin Hursh.