CDNbear; If I sound paranoid it may be because I am, Alan Rock helped out in that regard. I am also protective and vigilant, I have my reasons for that too. I may have missed your point, but it has been my experience that those who see no reason themselved to possess something believe no one else has a reason either. That may not be you, but it is so for a large number of activists who have the sympathy of gun grabbing legislators.
It isn't me in a nut shell. I'm not anti gun. I'm anti stupid people, with guns.
My point of the automatic firearms is that they were arbitrarily classified as "prohibited", for absolutely no reason, they have never been used to commit a criminal act by a civilian in this country. Emotion trumps logic, even though I see no practical use for them myself, they may be very useful in dispatching a pack of wild dogs or coyotes attacking livestock, who knows. Just like PWC's and ATV's though I hate them I see justification in having them arbitrarily banned.
An ATV or PWC, doesn't have the ability to dispatch with human life on mass, click, click locked and loaded, to do it all again.
There is no need for any civilian to posses an automatic weapon. They are solely for dispatching human life, with great prejudice. I see sidearms in a similar light. Similar, not the same.
As for storage at a gun club, very few clubs are staffed 24 hours a day, nor are they fortified or secure enough to prevent theft by criminals. Criminals don't know which homes have alluring firearms, but clubs are easy targets and many are out in the countrside. Heck, even police detachments and military armouries have fallen victim to theft.
If you got with 20 feet of the door of the gun club not 20 minutes from here, you'ld already be on camera and the police would already be well on their way. Gun clubs are legislated to death for security. And rightly so.
btw...My friend was arrested for walking out of the local Canadian Tire, with the folder they write the names and license numbers in, when you purchase ammunition. We went in to purchase ammo. He filled out the page as required and the young lady put it back under the counter where it came from. We asked if that was where they always kept it, she said yes. We protested and she baulked at us. So, we waited until she was attending another customer. My buddy reached over the counter, scooped up the binder and tucked it in his jacket. We calmly walked out, turned around and walked back in. Asked for the manager, explained what we had just done and he promptly called the police.
He dropped the charges before the officer could finish taking my buddies info down, right after I explained to him, my cell phone was ring, and the call was to the Toronto Sun.
If a criminal wants to find out where the guns are, they will.
I'm Ex Army, an Ex Con and still Native, I can easily obtain illegal firearms on a whim. Most of what I've seen and have access to, have been legally purchased in the States, and snuggled here. Theft is a low contributor for the weapons issues we face in Canada.
Granted there are those who shouldn't possess firearms, there are also those who shouldn't drive or operate power tools. But we can't yet phohibit someone from owning something because of what we think they might do. The training requirements in place now though have resulted in a sharp reduction in accidental shootings, as a matter of fact there has only been one fatality the East Coast in the last four years, but poaching and alcohol were involved too.
Look, I'm not talking about banning weapons willy nilly here. I fully support the right to bear arms. But certain firearms are well outside the relm of appropriate civilian possesion. Like semi auto shotguns, they have no place in civilian life.
