Cons to gun owners: We can't be bothered to even pretend to care

Gee, usually it takes a little longer for Conservative bluster to be exposed as completely empty, meaningless and contrived:

The Conservative government appears to be acknowledging its attempt to kill the long-gun registry is a lost cause.

Despite introducing an unusual Senate bill to great fanfare earlier this month, an official in the office of government Senate Leader Marjorie LeBreton says there's no timetable for a vote on Bill S-5 in the Liberal-dominated upper chamber.

And Liberals say the whole point of the exercise was political posturing rather than serious legislative change.

"The Liberals are opposed to it, so it's unlikely to move very much right now," Eli Schuster, LeBreton's communications adviser, said Monday when asked about the status of S-5.

Asked why the government would introduce a bill it had no intention of pushing to a vote, Schuster abruptly ended the conversation.

It's really quite amusing. I mean, of course this thing was a farce from the start. The Conservatives have had years to take meaningful action on the gun registry. But they couldn't be bothered. Always some excuse or another. It's a minority, they'd say. Shhh, we're trying to appeal to urban soccer moms, they'd whisper.

Then they decided to pretend to care last month, after Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz took fire for agreeing to speak at an event with a Beretta semi-automatic handgun as a raffle prize. They pulled Breitkreuz from that event but had Harper speak at another giving away a rifle, drawing a distinction probably lost on many folk and unappreciated by their base. But as a sop, they promised to introduce legislation finally ending the gun registry ... in the unelected, undemocratic Senate. While, at the same time, promising every job at the gun registry processing centre in a Conservative-held riding is absolutely safe.

Now they're back to saying, sorry, too hard, nothing we can do on that gun registry thing. Apparently, they've just discovered the Liberals are opposed to it. Gee, I thought Liberal researchers dropped the ball when we didn't read the whole budget. Conservative researchers could have found this one out by checking Google.

I loved this line in the story:

Asked why the government would introduce a bill it had no intention of pushing to a vote, Schuster abruptly ended the conversation.

Indeed. Really, though, a good comms person, instead of running away arms flailing wildly, would have retorted "because Michael Ignatieff wants to implement a secret puppy tax" or something like that. They must really be rattled.

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