Don’t renew that gun licence!

If your firearms license has expired, don’t worry – you no longer have to renew it.

The federal government is providing a one-year amnesty for gun owners whose licences expire.

If you have renewed your firearms licence since January 1, 2004, you may be eligible for a refund. For more information, contact the RCMP, which has taken over responsibility for the firearms registry and now operates the Canada Firearms Centre.

Public safety minister Stockwell Day announced the amnesty among a series of changes on May 17, along with a funding cut that took the program’s budget from $83 million to $73 million.

These changes are a short-term measure — good up to May 17, 2007 — until the new Conservative government introduces a law to end the long-gun registry for good.

In the meantime, the rest of the gun laws apply.

Right now, you still need to get a licence to purchase a new gun or ammunition. And all guns must still be registered, but even that process just got easier. Gun owners no longer have to find a verifier to corroborate the information about their gun.

Even when the gun registry is abolished you’ll still need a licence to own or acquire a gun, including safety training and background checks, but this government promises to make that process simpler.

“The licencing is really the key for screening because it’s the licencing where you have to go through your background checks, you have to go through your safety training, and that is where you screen out dangerous gun owners, and that’s also where the police know a firearm, either a shotgun or a rifle, could be at a particular residence, from the license,” said policy advisor Roy Rempel.

“The registry was all about trying to track every individual firearm at all times and that just proved completely ineffective.”

Safe storage laws will remain in place.