Gun Control Issue Reveals a Changing Canada

[MaineCWPtraining]

OTTAWA — Like public health care, Canada’s tight gun-control laws help distinguish the country from its powerful neighbor to the south. But as Canadians commemorated the 20th anniversary of one of the country’s most notorious shooting sprees on Sunday, their Parliament was on course to eliminate one of its most significant gun-control measures.

Canada Unnerved By Slayings of 14 (Dec. 9, 1989)A long-gun registry, which requires the registration of rifles and shotguns, emerged largely from public revulsion over the massacre in 1989.

A decade before the Columbine high school shootings set off a national debate on gun violence in the United States, an angry, unemployed 25-year-old armed with a semiautomatic hunting rifle stormed the École Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal. Shouting “I hate feminists,” the gunman separated the female students from the men and killed 14 women before killing himself.

READ MORE

 

[Hillie4life]

"And many police officials warn that without mandatory registration, their officers will lose the ability to seize illegal guns found in the possession of criminal suspects. William Blair, the Toronto police chief and president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said that information from the registry allowed his force to seize 58 illegal guns in October alone."

I can understand the logic behind this if they are arguing that the guns become illegal once a person has committed a "serious domestic dispute" ... but if the guns are truly illegal (ie. the person who possesses them is a criminal/looney or the gun was purchased illegally). How could the officer possibly know if that individual has a gun if its not (and wouldn’t have been) registered to begin with? I mean, I don’t know how the system works up there, but I'm guessing they aren't giving guns out and then doing criminal background checks once the gun is registered.

Also, the verbiage “seize illegal guns… of criminal suspects” makes it seem like you are guilty of a crime by just being a suspect.

Anyways… just some thoughts, thanks for the article.

 

[Jose]

I dismiss arguments from police that this is an essential crime fighting tool.

 

[Garys]

“Canada is suddenly changing into a place that loves guns and armies and war,” said Gerald L. Caplan, a prominent academic and former campaign director of the liberal New Democratic Party. “I don’t know how we got there but I don’t like it.”

I dismiss arguments from liberal weenies who don't like it when subjects decide that they'd rather be citizens.

I think a lot of Canadians are finally sick of the government telling them what to do, when to do it, that they have to pay for it, and that the government knows better than they do how to protect themselves.

I hope that attitude spreads here soon too.

 

[MaineCWPtraining]

Atta factor~

 

[Mr Weebles]

“This is so vicious, it’s amazing,” said Suzanne Laplante-Edward, whose 21-year-old daughter, Anne-Marie, was killed in the Montreal shooting. “The gun-control law is a monument erected to the memory of our daughters.”

Therein lies the problem with this law. That's all it is, a monument.

I have the same problem with this that I do with U.S. laws named after people or things. Whenever you add an emotional component to a law, voting against it is seen as voting against the person.

This is why gun controllers and others of their ilk love to have new gun laws with someone's name or a tragedy attached to them. After all, who would vote against the "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act"? Why do you hate Blair Holt?

Any proposed law should just have a number.