Dear Editor,
Alex Lornie, requesting a Canada-wide registry of boxcutter knives, wrote, "I encourage everyone to write their MP and demand, at the minimum, a large RCMP bureaucracy for coast-to-coast registry of these weapons. which limits the capacity of the handle to two disposable blades with the blades required to be stored separately from the handles." [Boxcutters must be banned!, Jan. 15 Letters, Langley Advance].
He could be presenting this as facetious jest, but he almost sounds sincere.
With the end to the long gun registry boondoggle, after more than $2 billion in taxes were wasted and the way some of the media report that it should be brought back, can one be sure if Lornie was serious or attempting to poke fun?
Already some politicians, after reading Lornie's letter, are commissioning studies on how to draft such feel-good legislation so we can be hailed as world leaders.
But why stop the nanny state from eliminating our freedoms there? Let's have a positive, more inclusive omnibus bill. There is a much larger list of TAS (Tactical Assault Weapons) that need to come under a national registry:
. TAS - Tactical Assault Sticks: I have to plead guilty on that one, as I haven't been locking them up in a cabinet and my grandkids sometimes play with them. I keep a (store bought) spare one under my bed, which closely resembles the shape of a baseball bat.
. TFAS - Tactical Forked Assault Stick: Inherited from my dad, who used it to pitch hay and protect himself from the wolves and bears; I hope nobody accidently pricks themselves while snooping around under my bed.
. BOTS - Break Off Tactical Sticks, also known as the wood pencil.
. KDTAWs - My wife is going to have to fess-up with all those Kitchen Drawer Tactical Assault Weapons. You could carve a turkey with some of those!
. CAWs - Campfire Assault Weapons: axes, barbeque lighters, marshmallow and kabob skewers, steel tent pole spears.
. BOOTS - We will have to register our shoes. Didn't some delinquents boot someone to death in downtown Langley in the last few years?
. FPTAT - Fireplace Tactical Assault Tools: You could do some serious damage, especially with the poker.
. GTATs - Garden Tactical Assault Tools: Can you imagine what a four-pronged spade could do? Don't even look in my workshop!
. ATAR - Airborne Tactical Assault Rocks: Radical weapons of convenience at not so peaceful protests.
. VAW - Vehicle Assault Weapon: Oh wait, those are already registered, so how's that statistically working out lately?
Roland Seguin, Langley