How will registering arms reduce the level of criminality? I do not believe it will necessarily. Bill C-68 has a great number of flaws. I really do not believe it will necessarily reduce criminality.
On the other hand registration is not such a bad thing. We register practically everything. Our cars are registered. We are registered when we are born. We are registered when we get married. Every important element and tool of one's life is registered. It is a normal fact of life. The problem is that not registering arms is abnormal. There is a certain abnormality in not registering arms particularly because arms are very dangerous tools. They are weapons.
Normally they are used to harm or kill people. I am not talking about sportsmen who hunt or farmers who use arms to protect themselves from predators. Those are very special cases. How-
ever there are other uses. I am talking about the Saturday night special, the AK-47 and other arms that are ascribed within the atmosphere of violence, protection, rights, liberty and so on. They should certainly be limited.
If registering arms could help reduce the number of arms circulating in Canada, that would be a positive step. I do not think it is harmful to anyone, even collectors who have arms or who love arms, to suggest that their arms should be registered.
As I say there are a lot of flaws in the bill, but there are positive points in the sense that the government is trying to go in the right direction.