OTTAWA - Former prime minister Jean Chretien says he was shocked to discover how easy it was for the student-killer at Virginia Tech to obtain guns under U.S. law.
In an interview, Chretien expressed astonishment at the permissive gun culture in the United States, while defending the measures his government introduced in Canada.
A legal loophole in Virginia allowed Cho Seung-Hui to obtain weapons despite having already been ordered to undergo outpatient psychiatric counselling. He went on to kill 32 students and himself in a shooting rampage earlier this month.
"It's a lot harder to get weapons here in Canada than in the U.S.,'' Chretien said.
"I was pretty stunned to see how easily he managed to get himself armed to the teeth without any trouble. He would have had to answer a lot more questions here.''
One day after conducting the interview last week, the former Liberal prime minister was asked by the Conservative government to represent Canada at Boris Yeltsin's funeral in Russia. But during the interview, he took a dig at the Tories' hostility to the long-gun registry his government introduced.
Critics have complained that the Conservatives have rendered the registry toothless by waiving penalties for people who fail to register their firearms.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day insists the latest one-year amnesty is actually an attempt to offer recalcitrant gun owners another chance to register their weapons. The registry law has not been evenly enforced because many gun-owners simply refuse to comply.
But Chretien said he can't understand why people would be so dead-set against registering their weapons.
"Apparently you have to register your dog, no? And your bicycle, too. It's way less dangerous than a gun,'' the former prime minister said.
"There's nothing to it. . . I don't understand why we're having a hard time getting people to register their firearms -- when people register their bicycles and pets.''
He showed little patience for the argument that the registry should be scrapped because of its infamous cost overruns which have led to a price tag well over $1 billion.
"As with any program, there were problems,'' he said. But he noted that police chiefs and the Canadian Police Association, which represents rank-and-file officers, have called the registry a useful tool.
"Ask the police chiefs if they like the system. They're all in favour,'' he said.
"Now when they go into a house they can find out right away that there are weapons inside. They don't have that in the United States.''
The Tories have apparently abandoned the idea of completely eliminating the gun registry. With all three opposition parties opposing them, such a move appears politically and mathematically impossible.
Chretien denied his gun registry, introduced in the 1990s, is unpopular with most Canadians.
"There are people against it. We find all those people in the same party,'' he said.
"I'm happy with it.''
