Policing riskier without long-gun registry

As former Chair of Police Services, I agree with the Chief here. Not everyone will register, but if this registry helps our police in any way possible (which many tell me it does), then it should remain.

Policing riskier without long-gun registry: chief
CBC News
Posted: Oct 26, 2011 8:44 PM AT
Last Updated: Oct 26, 2011 8:24 PM AT
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New long-gun registry bill would destroy records
At least one P.E.I. police force says the loss of the controversial national long-gun registry will make the job of policing that much riskier.
The national long-gun registry will likely be scratched. CBC
The bill to scrap the long-gun registry was up for second reading Wednesday in the House of Commons. A similar bill last year was defeated by just two votes. But with a Conservative majority now in Ottawa, it seems clear the days of the registry are numbered.
Summerside Police Chief Dave Poirier said the day the long-gun registry is dumped, the job of policing becomes more dangerous.
Police chiefs across Canada, like Poirier, have always said the registry is a useful tool that helps officers prepare for potentially dangerous situations. Departments access it 17,000 times a day.
"When we get a 911 hang-up call, a domestic [complaint], or an assault, you know, to a residence in Summerside, our dispatchers immediately punch the information into the system," said Poirier.
And it's not just the registry that could go. The current bill before the House would also see all the data that's been collected over the years destroyed, something that concerns gun-control advocates like Jane Ledwell of the P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
"The next time there's a violent incident involving a gun, the victim's families are going to be starting from scratch to look for positive steps from preventing this from happening to other families," said Ledwell.
Conservatives have long decried the gun registry as a waste of taxpayer's money, something that targets law-abiding farmers and hunters, rather than criminals.
On Wednesday, Statistics Canada reported homicides in Canada in 2010 were at their lowest level since the 1960s. Since the long gun registry was introduced, homicides involving long guns have dropped by more than 50 per cent.