Ten thousand regulations.

I was wondering to myself last night: "When was the last time having a police force made me feel safe, rather than nervous?" I was thinking this because I had a dream where I had been given something that I wanted (A handgun from someone who had passed away), but then had fear of the police for not having the "proper paperwork" to even take it home. As someone who tries to abide the law, yet believes in personal freedom this was very conflicting (this was literally a nightmare), simple due to the severely restrictive nature of Firearm's laws in Canada. Even the other day on a Highway trip I knew I wasn't speeding (had the cruise set), yet when the I saw the red and blues come up behind me (and pass me) I had no feelings of safety or protection. What I did get was a ball in the pit of my stomach, even though I knew I wasn't breaking any laws!

Now I've already explained (previous post) how law enforcement is incapable of protecting the citizenry from crimes upon the person, but what they are supposed to do is enforce infractions to the laws, so to be honest the only problem I have with the police in this post is their compliance to enforce laws that actually restrict the freedoms of what we obviously mistakenly think of as a "Free Society". The problem itself comes with the incompetency of (knee jerk) lawmakers who put forward restrictive legislation which only affects those who respect law.  Winston Churchill once said "If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law", and to be honest I believe for a lot of responsible gun owners it has come to that point. We now had the potential for 10,000 "paper criminals" that were facing mandatory time in prison, for owning a firearm that has been recently deemed "scary" (arbitrarily reclassified from non-restricted straight to prohibited) See here.

When did we start giving up freedom for the perception of safety? And let's face facts, right now all you have is the "hope" that some criminal won't somehow victimize you, not the security that they won't (which no one ever has). For one thing penalties for "actual" criminal offences are so short that they are no deterrent for a real criminal, yet there are those that the mere thought of doing something administratively wrong, yet not even truly criminal,  is enough to give them nightmares. Does that sound right for a free society? The Government has the power to either protect rights or oppress them, and in the case of responsible gun owners they have gone the way of oppression.