We need to go slower with gun rules

With the first deadline rapidly approaching for Ottawa's new Firearms Act, we are about to discover that not everyone in this kinder, gentler portion of North America feels the same way about guns.

As of midnight, Dec. 31, if you own a long gun like a rifle or shotgun and don't have an existing firearms acquisition certificate (FAC), you must have a licence to possess the gun. If you have an FAC, you can wait for it to expire and then get your licence. But by Dec. 31, 2002, all gun owners are required to register every weapon they have.

Now the majority of Canadians will look at that and think "no big deal." They don't own guns and they don't shoot or hunt. They most likely live in towns or cities and don't come in contact with weapons. They see guns on TV or at the movies, or read about them in the newspaper.

I guess I'm fairly typical of this group of people. I've never owned a gun and I've never wanted to. In my teens I once took a firearms course and did some target shooting, but if I never saw a gun for the rest of my life it wouldn't bother me. Frankly, I think we'd all be a lot safer if no one owned guns.

Not because I'm afraid of the people I know who own guns. The gun owners I know are responsible and law-abiding. I have known a couple of hunters who like to combine their activities with alcohol, but as I don't hunt with them, they're no danger to me.

No, my objection to guns is more general than specific. Guns are, by definition, dangerous. Accidents happen, arguments happen, and there's always the criminal element. If there are less guns, it seems to me there must be less of these problems.

But that's easy for me to say, since I don't own a gun and don't want to.

According to the Canadian Firearms Centre, which administers the new Firearms Act, there are 2.2 million Canadians who do own guns and three quarters of them have registered their weapons. Which leads Ottawa to suggest that most gun owners accept the new law.

Which brings us to the first major problem with the new legislation. Those 2.2 million people are the gun owners who Ottawa knows about because they have FACs.

According to the gun lobby, if you include the people who have owned guns before the FAC system came into being in the early 1980s, the number of gun-owning Canadians is more like nine million.

For those in favour of the legislation, that merely proves its value. We need to know where the guns are and who owns them. For those opposed, it's proof positive that we have millions of people quietly and responsibly owning guns. Why do we need more red-tape and legislation for a non-existent problem?

The truth, it seems to me, lies somewhere in between. We need some controls on ownership of lethal weapons, but the controls ought to be based on common sense and not too difficult to administer.

People who don't own guns, like me, need to try to see this from the other side. Regulations might be a pain in the neck, but they are the price you pay for owning a weapon. What bugs many gun owners is the very real prospect of the government changing those regulations at whim and confiscating their property.

Whether you like guns or you don't (and I don't), that's a serious issue. Property rights are not enshrined in our Constitution and we should all be concerned about government policies which ride roughshod over traditional rights.

I'd suggest that, in exchange for the co-operation of gun owners, the Chretien government promise to overhaul the Constitution to recognize property rights - but that isn't going to happen.

The only sensible alternative is to take it slower. Take 10 years to accomplish what the government is trying to do in two. And be honest about the goal. Canada is increasingly an urban country, and cities and guns don't mix well. Tighter controls on firearms are inevitable.

But let's recognize that gun owners have rights and that without their co-operation we're in danger of creating several million felons. All of them armed.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't make me feel one bit safer.