Some deceits are readily apparent. None moreso than the species arguments being used in a desperate attempt to save the disastrous two-billiondollar boondoggle known as Canada’s long gun registry.

Claire Hoy Despite what people say - particularly bureaucratically obsessed Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police -the registry is useless. Worse. It’s an unjustified intrusion in the lives of millions of law-abiding Canadians, none of whom should ever be compelled to deliver so much personal information to the government and open themselves up to random searches of their homes.

The registry is a failed response to a horrible, long-ago murder, which any sensible person can see - if they really want to see - had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not there was a long gun registry.

Toronto’s left-leaning Police Chief Bill Blair, president of the CACP, and one of the strongest supporters of the registry, recently rallied his fellow chiefs to give their full support to maintaining the registry in light of an upcoming parliamentary vote on private members bill by Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner to abolish the registry.

Blair says “we use it (the registry) over 11,000 times a day. Our police officers use that information to conduct criminal investigations, they use it to keep communities safe, and they use it to keep themselves safe.”

Oh, please. That constant usage has little to do with the danger posed by gun owners. If a cop stops you for jaywalking , he checks the registry. Speeding. A missing taillight. You name it. It’s just one more intrusive tool to poke collective noses into your private affairs.

As for the claim that it is used to “keep communities safe,” that’s a good one too. Safe from whom? From the law-abiding long gun owners who have complied with the law? Surely not from the criminals who are using long guns - which, incidentally, is but a tiny minority of criminals, since most use handguns (which have been registered for decades, also with little useful results).

Does Blair really expect people to believe that criminals a)- register their guns in the first place and b)-would hesitate to rob their local bank upon realizing their weapon isn’t registered? How stupid does he think the public is?

Indeed, how stupid does he think the rank and file police officers are in this country?

Randy Kuntz, an Edmonton police officer for 22 years, recently surveyed 2,600 front-line cops on the issue and - guess what folks? - about 2,400 of those want to scrap the registry. “With the boots-meets-thepavement type of policeman who’s going to be dealing with the public every day,” says Kuntz, “overwhelmingly three is not support for this registry. It hasn’t saved anybody.”

Kuntz goes further, saying relying on the registry for accurate information makes police work more dangerous. “The CACP tells the public that it is a necessary tool for law enforcement. It is not...”

Why then are the chiefs so supportive? For one thing, top cops love anything that allows them to snoop on people.

But it could be worse than that. Blair should explain a recent article written by Larry Whitmore, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, an admittedly pro-gun organization.

Whitmore says reports in April 2009 confirmed the CACP accepted about $115,000 from CGI Group, a Bell mobility affiliate. Nobody denies it.

So what, you say? Well, CGI is the software contractor for the gun registry, so it has a strong reason to keep the registry going. What a coincidence, eh?

The vote in parliament will come down to whether NDP Leader Jack Layton orders his caucus to vote to keep the registry. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff - who has real problems with the concept of democratic votes (having “won” his current job without any input from party delegates) - has ordered his Liberal lemmings to vote against the Tory motion, despite the fact eight Liberal MPs voted last November to kill the registry.

Lobbyists - which the CACP has shamefully become on this issue - are trying to pressure Layton into forcing the 12 NDP MPs who voted to kill the registry last November to have a sudden change of “principles” and vote against the Tory motion.

So far - to Layton’s credit - he hasn’t. He understands - which Ignatieff apparently doesn’t - that those MPs hold ridings where they’d commit political suicide by suddenly supporting the hated registry.

So we’ll soon know. In the meantime, Blair and his fellow chiefs should be ashamed of themselves for acting as lobbyists on a highly-charged political issue.

Their job is to enforce the law, not to lobby lawmakers, particularly on behalf of association donors who have a financial interest in the outcome.

Even if they genuinely love the registry and believe it helps, their actions fall short of the old-fashioned smell test.