Re. recent media reports concerning Saskatchewan Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz being dropped as a speaker at a gun lobby dinner in Ontario:
Clayton Pecknold, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police spokesperson, called a handgun raffle to be held at the dinner “in poor taste.”
Here’s what truly is in poor taste: Police chiefs who like to download their failure to do their job, i.e., control criminal gangs and drug dealers, onto the backs of ordinary, law-abiding gun owners.
it’s too bad the $2 billion blown in the past 10 years on licensing and registering law-abiding gun-owners hadn’t been available to police to allow them to deal with the real problem: crime.
Instead of registering criminals and interdicting illegal flow of guns from outside the country, our Liberal government gave us a law that registers the law-abiding. Kafka would be impressed.
Hypocrisy No. 1: Police chiefs who believe that it is OK for them to be armed (gun, Taser, pepper spray, billy club) because there are bad, dangerous criminals out there, but that such is not OK for ordinary citizens with equivalent training and background to have the same tools to protect themselves.
Do the police chiefs not walk the same streets and live in the same neighborhoods as the rest of us? Why the double standard?
Hypocrisy No. 2: High-ranking politicians and bureaucrats who travel with armed body guards to protect themselves out there in the big, bad world, but who do not allow same for an ordinary citizen.
Why the double standard?
Somehow the value of one life is greater than that of another in the rose-coloured world of those who wrote, and promote, this wasteful law.
Orwell said it best: “Some are more equal than others.”
Police chiefs, bureaucrats and others who lie to the public in order to advance their nefarious agenda are also a “Poor Taste of the Year” contender.
For example, using false “stolen guns” numbers – which, by the way, do not include the guns stolen from or lost by the police themselves or from the military.
The only objective for these people is to win this debate, at any cost. The ends justify the means to them.
Canada’s gun law began with a lie – one that was so blatant that finally someone in the RCMP stepped up and publicly corrected it for Parliament and Allan Rock.
The lies continue to this day. Tell a lie often enough and it becomes truth for those who do not dig into the whole story. Orwell must be turning over in his grave.
More poor taste: The arbitrary criminalization of gun owners for not having a piece of paper from Ottawa that affords a defence to what otherwise would be a crime (i.e., possession of a gun in Canada).
Morgentaler fought the same battle (without written permission from a doctor, it was crime in Canada to obtain an abortion).
As a defence lawyer, I can state that most of my gun clients have never seen the inside of a court room. “Your papers please” is the reality for gun-owners since this odious law was passed.
It gets worse: Who would have thought that drug dealers have more rights to be secure against unlawful search and seizure by the police? Well, the “inspection” provisions of the Firearms Act create just that incredible reality.
See s.104, et seq of the Firearms Act for the ugly truth.
When did firearms become such a problem in Canada that gun-owners’ rights should be so badly trashed?
Does the average Canadian care about this? If not, then get ready for the “fat tax” and other prohibitions. The nanny-state knows best, after all.
Poor taste might be best illustrated by looking at the real causes of injury in Canada – the ones with the big numbers – drownings, falls, car accidents.
The rate of injury or harm each year in Canada by firearms is so low that life insurers do not ask if an applicant owns guns. They do, however, ask if the applicant smokes, scuba dives, sky dives, races cars, etc.. They inquire about statistically dangerous activities.
For less than $10 per year, a gun-owner gets $5 million insurance for her shooting activities. The insurance companies make money on this paltry premium. Why? The claims rate is infinitesimally small. But the demonization of a lawful activity enjoyed by about seven million to 10 million Canadians is none the less ongoing.
It sells newspapers, of course. Politicians believe it will help them get re-elected.
The truth and objective analysis have fallen victim in this smear campaign.
“Not in my Canada” apparently applies only to that portion of (mostly urban) citizens who believe that their vision of Canada is the only one. In my Canada, responsible people of all walks of life own guns.
I find it to be especially “poor taste” that there are some who have a pathological fear of inanimate objects.
Firearms do not go off by themselves.
It takes criminal intent to commit a crime with a gun.
This is not a difficult concept for most; yet there are many who fear the thing, fear that their neighbour has one of those things.
These same people believe that since they do not trust themselves with inanimate things that could cause harm in the wrong hands, nobody else should be allowed to have those things, even if in a responsible way.
I am pretty sure this is a kind of mental illness.
Richard Fritze
Red Deer
Editor’s note: The letter writer is a lawyer.