|
Written by Steve Mertl, THE CANADIAN PRESS
|
|
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 |
Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day speaks during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, May 26, 2008. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Related Items
No keywords found
VANCOUVER - Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has signed off on a long-delayed requirement for police forces to report all crime guns they seize to the national firearms registry.
Sections of the Public Agents Firearms Regulations that were not implemented will finally come into effect Oct. 31, 10 years after Parliament approved them as part of the 1998 Firearms Act.
The unused sections of the regulations give all law-enforcement agencies a year to report guns they currently hold and 30 days for any newly recovered firearms to the Canadian Firearms Centre, which also handles the federal gun registry.
A notice was sent out sometime in June by chief firearms registrar Jeffrey Brant advising agencies the regulations would take effect this fall.
The implementation date was put back several times over the last five years after bureaucrats made technical revisions.
In an interview with The Canadian Press in early June on the issue of cross-border gun smuggling, Day said he had not yet signed off on the regulations.
"Any regulation that comes up for review, especially one that's been on the books but never implemented for a number of years is always addressed to make sure it's current," Day said at the time.
Senior Canadian police officers have championed the regulations because it finally gives them a tool comparable to the national crime-gun database used by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Ironically, the U.S. agency keeps its own data on American-sourced crime guns seized in Canada based on information shared by Canadian police agencies.
Supt. Geoff Francis, who heads the RCMP's Firearms Support Services Directorate in Mississauga, Ont., said speedy reporting of crime-gun data to a central point is valuable because it could lead to quicker identification of smuggling patterns, which would help pinpoint traffickers.
Police agencies will use a web-based system to report guns seized as part of investigations, found or those turned over to them, and well as the guns their own officers carry.
 |
|
Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 September 2008 )
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
