To clarify a point made earlier, the amendments to the Criminal Code do not permit the police, or anyone else for that matter, to just waltz in to your home and inspect your firearms for safe storage.
S. 117.04(2) permits search and seizure without warrant because of a risk to public safety, based on reasonable grounds. Although this has not been defined, it is generally held based on precedence that this requires some sort of immediate danger to member of the public.
S. 117.04(1) permits search and seizure, based on reasonable grounds, if possession of a firearm, weapon, prohibited device, ammunition or explosive is not in the best interest of the person or any other person, but this requires a warrant.
As always, search of a dwelling house without warrant is permitted if there are exigent circumstances (read: immediate danger to public safety). This has always been the case, long before the Firearms Act made any amendments to the Criminal Code.
I cannot comment on Michael Moore, or his movies, not having seen any of them. However, I suspect like most people in the media spotlight, he has found a way to manipulate the situation to suit his message (or the message to suit his situation, whichever).
Old School is right, we have had registration of firearms in Canada since 1930, in one form or another.
I think the majority of firearms users object to the need to register long guns.
Long guns are not commonly used in crimes, and therefore it is reasonable to conclude that registering them is simply a "tax" grab (and an ineffective one at that, hence the cost of the registry).
Enzo‘s comment about not supporting Tec-9‘s as a hunting weapon is flippant. Tec-9‘s are, and always have been, a prohibited firearm, and no reasonable sportsman has any wish to see that change. Any Tec-9‘s that are legally owned in Canada have had to be registered, under the 1977 weapons laws, and the Firearms Act made no changes there.
Handgun hunting, on the otherhand, is a legitimate activity that has been banned in Canada for a long time, and law-abiding hunters who take an interest in that aspect of hunting have a reasonable issue with the firearms laws in that regard. But this has nothing to do with the registry.
The fact is a vocal element of Canadian society believes the government should spend more money on healthcare, education, and other social programs. A good number of these same people see no problem (I call them Liberal voters) with the government spending $1 Billion on a firearms registry which will clearly have no more than a marginal benefit to society, since it only adds (non-restricted) long guns to the list of firearms that must be registered, and these firearms have never factored significantly as being used by criminals in the first place. The problem is clear: money is being spent on a program with negligible benefits, and money is badly NEEDED in other programs which have wider impact or benefit. And I haven‘t even included the military, simply because I don‘t think anyone here would disagree that the army needs more money.
Licencing? A totally different issue, and one which I fully support. Sport shooters in Canada should have at least some level of competence, skill, and knowledge of safety before being permitted to own or acquire any kind of firearm. The military has a similar standard, I believe it‘s called a PO check. My dagger on the sleeve of my DEU‘s tells the military community that I am trained to safely use various types of infantry small arms.
But we had licencing long before total gun registration.
Let me leave you with a few words from one of history‘s great supporters of total gun registration:
"This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilised nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
- Adolf Hitler, 15 April 1935.
(Caveat: According to some internet source, this quote is "falsely" attributed to Hitler, but in any event did appear in contemporary publications and in any event makes clear German policy on gun registration, which likely went into effect much earlier under the Weimar Republic)
