Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, and fellow witnesses.
My name is Duane Rutledge. I'm a member of the Glasgow Police Service in Nova Scotia. I'm in my thirtieth year of service. I've been a police officer for two-thirds of my life. I have worked general duty, drugs, GIS, major crime, and undercover, and I'm a member of the emergency response team. Presently, I'm a dog handler. Since I was eight years of age, I've handled firearms in either a hunting or a work capacity.
I would like to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to speak on this controversial matter regardless of which side I might stand on. As an average citizen, it confirms my faith in our system to be involved in the making and changing of laws in our country without fear of reprisals or punishment. It's something that's unheard of in most places. For that, I thank the Government of Canada and Canada's people for an open and inclusive justice system.
We are here today to discuss the long-gun registry and why I feel that it has not achieved what it proposed to do. In my view, it is a failure both in protecting citizens and in assisting the police in their efforts to keep communities safe and criminals off the street.
I feel that to understand this we must go back to the start, to how it was presented to Canadians by the government of the day. How it was delivered to the public was one of the biggest issues: that it would make society safer by registering. It was rural against urban and non-owners against owners. Its astronomical cost turned even those who were not gun owners against it.
Initially, it was looked at as a tax on gun owners. Mostly, it targeted rural Canadians.
It's an unreliable system. Some people registered their weapons in this country, some people registered a few weapons in this country, and a lot of people didn't register any. Now we have an underground economy as a result of that.
Also, people who have licences to “possess only” have the ability to possess guns that are not registered to them, the guns of other people. There is no way of tracking that regardless of what system there is, because no one keeps track of those movements.
For the most part, the people this law was targeted at were hunters, sportsmen, collectors, and rural people--basically, honest Canadians, which is most of this country. In my experience, a large number of Canadians did not buy into it on the front end, which has caused the underground economy of weapons. Most importantly, in my experience, criminals will not even participate in the registry.
People who register a gun realize that this does not make it safe for them or for anyone else. Speaking in particular, it is an administrative function. It will not render a gun safe. As for recording the serial number, putting a serial number on it is not adequate to stop a knife or a bat from harming someone.
It's the person with the intent to cause harm who the police are most concerned about. And at the end of the day, in every homicide in this country, the common factor is another human being.
Safe handling and storage, along with education of the public, is the best way to attack this. The most powerful piece of legislation passed in this country in my lifetime was the one that locked up guns and separated ammunition from guns. Also, it was for safe training and for handling the storage of firearms. In my belief, that's what has caused a drop in a lot of things.
On elimination of private ownership, which is on the minds of most gun owners, I don't believe that's the answer, because only the police, the military, and the criminals then would have guns. I recall my initial reaction back in 1996-97 when this proposed gun legislation became public. I admit that I was a little upset at the onset. I was not positive towards it, and I thought that maybe I should speak to people before I came up here because my views have been fairly steady all along.
So I took the time before I came up here to speak to colleagues in my policing community, both those on the federal side--for some of them it has been tried to muzzle them--and local police officers. I've talked to the prosecution service. I've talked to a judge. I've talked to the lady who runs our local transition house. I've talked to people who have criminal records to get a view of how they looked at the system.
I knew how I looked at it and I thought that maybe I was missing something. After my conversation with them, it's very clear. Very few of them believe that it has protected the public. There are a few in those numbers who did believe it was helping. The majority of people I spoke to did not believe that.
In my over 30 years of experience, I've encountered numerous situations involving violence. There are far more involving knives and edged weapons than guns. Shotguns and hunting rifles are not a weapon of choice for most criminals because of their actual size; when they are used, they are cut down to become prohibited weapons.
In the 1930s, handguns were registered, and violence in handguns is still growing today. It seems to be one of the biggest rises in this country, the use of handguns in cities, gangs, and organized crime, and automatic weapons.
In other words, I have no hesitation in saying that in my opinion, the long-gun registry does not help police stop violence or make these communities safer from violence. And there's no evidence that it has ever saved a single life on its own merits.
I am disappointed that this issue has become so political in this country. I've heard the chiefs of police quoted here and also the Canadian association of professional police. To my knowledge, my members, where I'm at, were not polled by the Canadian Police Association for their viewpoint on this. Many people have been, in an attempt to muzzle them from giving their full views on this issue. It's something that's uncalled for in this country. As I said, everyone should have the ability to speak their opinion, regardless of which side you stand on, and when someone says they represent someone, they should represent those people by actually polling them and getting their full views. I know that on the police level that has not been done, regardless of what people have been told, and there has been a fair amount of political pressure put on people to be quiet about this.
My own chief was outspoken about this. He was scheduled to testify here, and now he's not testifying. I spoke to him personally, but as to why he's not here, you would have to speak to him. I know why he's not here. I came, myself, as an individual to represent the people who I've spoken to.
As I said, in my opinion it has not done what it was set out to do. Inflammatory remarks by members of those organizations referring to policemen who disagree with this as anonymous, donut-eating, sitting-in-the-coffeeshop police officers is uncalled for, and there's no need for it, either at this level or at the level of representing the chiefs of police or the Canadian Police Association.
Thank you very much.