More on the Liberal gun ban promise.

Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun again,
Glob and Snail
Toronto (Red) Star
Hamilton Spectator (Pravda)
Pravda again
Small Dead Animals roundup of the relevant Canadian blogs. plus some other papers.

My reading of all this is that everyone paying attention, including the determinedly pro-Martin media like the Globe and the Star, are pretty much disgusted by this announcement.  Some of them don't come right out and say it, but the consensus is this is the cheapest form of scare-the-Toronto-voters-into-voting-Liberal-AGAIN politics.  Of course all the chiefs of police seem to like the idea, and Toronto Mayor "Pinky" Miller is just as happy as all hell.  That's what they get paid for.

But when you examine what Martin actually promised, you get this:  A) the provinces will be allowed to ban handguns if they want.
B) If the provinces ban handguns THEY will be on the hook for the compensation to gun owners, if any, not the Feds.
C)  He's talking about adding 75 RCMP officers.  According to Candace at SDA there's about 1000 empty RCMP slots right now.  After Martin's magnificent effort there will only be 925 empty slots.

This is how this all shakes out.  No gun owner in his right mind is voting Liberal in January anyway.  They are all going Conservative.  The Liberals are screwed in Quebec and screwed in the West as well. 100% Bloc Quebecois and Conservative out West.   If they are going to hold on to power Toronto is where they will do it.

The obvious thing is make a promise that won't cost them anything to do (other than money, but they don't worry about that), that makes it look like they are Doing Something For Toronto, and that plays well in all the right Toronto media places.  A gun ban does all that.  All the urban dorks who have never even seen a gun except at the movies, they go for this stuff like flies to shit.

The problem for Martin this time out is that he's already milked this particular cow to death.  Two billion bucks for a gun registry and Toronto crime goes UP, that cow is starting to stink pretty bad.  So bad that long time Liberal supporters are calling him on it, because he's doing this instead of doing something useful to solve the crime problem.  I'd hazard to guess even the urban dorks are starting to wonder a little bit.

I guess we'll see in January.  Confusion to the Enemy!

The Phantom