Not a thread for idealogues who say "Nothing! it should cost nothing! We shouldn't have to register!" Register or Not is a question for elsewhen. It's just there's been so much bandying of the $2 billion figure, and the first estimates of a hundred or so million seem so far off, I'm trying to figure out "what were they thinking?"
So imagine they put you in a room and said, "Invent the gun registry. A record per each and every gun. A record for each and every owner, with the appropriate gun records connected to each owner. A way of retrieving records by gun—so we can find out who is the owner, and so we can record a change of ownership. A way of retrieving records by owner—so when someon's forbidden to have a gun in future, we can see if they already have one. A way of retrieving by address—so we can have the ETF cops ready if there's a domestic and someone has an arsenal in her basement.
So I figure, after doing it for years the MoT's prices for Driver and Vehicle Licenses make a pretty fair comparison: recording similar amounts of info, similarly retrievable. They run $100 each give or take, so I'd say that's a pretty good figure for doing guns and owners.
And So: The Firearms Centre reports 6.8 million guns and 1.9 million owners now on file which would be a gross of $870 million at those rates. Of course they 'gave away' registrations to encourage participation and so took in way, way less And set-up costs: buildings, computers, printing and distribution have to be added on—the MoT paid for all that sort of stuff (somehow) years ago. But we're getting up over a billion for sure.
So I'm really wondering, why any one ever thought it would be less?
Or am I just hopelessly naîve?
So imagine they put you in a room and said, "Invent the gun registry. A record per each and every gun. A record for each and every owner, with the appropriate gun records connected to each owner. A way of retrieving records by gun—so we can find out who is the owner, and so we can record a change of ownership. A way of retrieving records by owner—so when someon's forbidden to have a gun in future, we can see if they already have one. A way of retrieving by address—so we can have the ETF cops ready if there's a domestic and someone has an arsenal in her basement.
So I figure, after doing it for years the MoT's prices for Driver and Vehicle Licenses make a pretty fair comparison: recording similar amounts of info, similarly retrievable. They run $100 each give or take, so I'd say that's a pretty good figure for doing guns and owners.
And So: The Firearms Centre reports 6.8 million guns and 1.9 million owners now on file which would be a gross of $870 million at those rates. Of course they 'gave away' registrations to encourage participation and so took in way, way less And set-up costs: buildings, computers, printing and distribution have to be added on—the MoT paid for all that sort of stuff (somehow) years ago. But we're getting up over a billion for sure.
So I'm really wondering, why any one ever thought it would be less?
Or am I just hopelessly naîve?
