Gun Control in Canada

[tracy]

Re: RE: Gun Control in Canada

If guns aren't the easiest way, then why does that always seem to be the way spree killers choose? You don't hear about kids killing a bunch of their classmates with cars or golf clubs or knives.

I don't know if the gun registry is a good idea or not, but I definitely don't get the whole "guns are just like cars" idea. That just doesn't ring true to me.

Tracy

Good nomenclature - "spree killers" - forgot that and it applies here.
Guns may not be the "easiest way" to obtain but they are certainly the weapon of choice for this kind of killer, no matter how difficult it may be to obtain the weapon itself. It is part of the whole scenario - legitimizing the plan construct.

The psychopathology of this kind of angry outcast loner is impersonal killing - he cannot get close enough to feel any emotion - because his life is geared to protecting himself from emotion - in case he gets hurt by rejection from others.

Guns can kill from afar - no connection to the victim - other weaponry except for the bow and arrow are too up close and personal to be the weapon of choice. You don't want to feel the body heat, or smell the blood or see their eyes. Distance is the choice.

It is also the typical coward's way out - suicide by cop is often used to describe it - when the final explosive behavior is acted upon and the violence actually begins - the euphoria takes over knowing he is finally in control - no matter if it lasts only for minutes.

At the cost of his own desperate life, he dictates a one act play involving strangers for whom he has no empathy and under other circumstances would be nervous or fearful in their personal space under normal conditions.

If you don't get the connection about "training responsible use of guns" as part of their control system and registration - what would you suggest?

Ignore the possibility of it being replicated and hope for the best?

I don't see any alternatives being suggested for what we now call "gun control".

I appreciate your thoughts and they make a lot of sense. It's those reasons that a gun is not a knife (the ability to kill many people from afar), so I've never bought into the argument that a gun is like any other weapon or tool. It isn't. It's different. That doesn't mean guns need to be banned. It just means guns do need to be treated differently, and they are.

I don't know what the answer is as far as gun control is concerned. Training in gun safety, as important as it is, doesn't do anything to assess a man's state of mind. I'm not pleased that people with significant psych histories can still buy guns, but I know the gun's rights people and mental illness activists would never allow that to be stopped. I also don't think medical workers are going to want the responsibility for reporting unstable gun owners. It isn't practical.

 

[Zzarchov]

Tracy...if people "Always" choose guns then how come we have such a much larger problem with Suicide bombers than Suicide Gun Attacks. People also use Poison Gas alot, remember the Tokyo Subway attacks?

Nutbags tend to choose guns as the second or third option. Bombs tend to be number one (Tim McVeigh, the Unabomber, Terrorists, etc etc)

 

[tracy]

Re: RE: Gun Control in Canada

Tracy...if people "Always" choose guns then how come we have such a much larger problem with Suicide bombers than Suicide Gun Attacks. People also use Poison Gas alot, remember the Tokyo Subway attacks?

We don't in this country. We've had very few bombing deaths or poison gas attacks by spree killers compared to gun deaths. The OKC bombing and 9/11 weren't really the work of spree killers, they were terrorists. Their goal is different than the kids at Columbine, Jonesborough, etc. But, I don't know if that even matters. Bombs and poisonous gases ARE banned aren't they?

As far as the Tokyo subway attacks, I don't know how easy it would have been for them to get other weapons in Japan. I have no knowledge of their gun control.

 

[Zzarchov]

Actually, I think the problem is your drawing imaginary lines where none-exist.

This kid is for all intents and purposes a terrorist. He had a group he hates (Preppies) and thinks are whats wrong with the world, so he goes on a self-righteous campaign to gun them down and scare others from acting like them.

Thats part of the problem here, we like to label terrorism as "disturbed individuals" or "serial killers" if they are like us (and thus not our fault or responsibility) , but "Terrorists" if they aren't (and thus their entire religion/ethnic group is to blame).

I mean, did anyone even listen to the goals of the kids at columbine? They wanted to overthrow the government AND CRASH PLANES INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.

But they are white kids so they are just 'disturbed', if they were muslim kids they would be terrorists.

Who did Mark Lepine Target and attempt to scare "Feminists". But he's not an anti-feminist terrorist , he's just a whackjob. Now if he had been targetting jews and had darker skin he'd be an anti-semite terrorist.

Terrorists are just serial killers who have either found or made up a 'cause' to latch onto.

 

[tracy]

Terrorists have political motivations for their killings. Spree killers are usually just f'ed up, enraged loners. Gill isn't white, I still wouldn't call him a terrorist. I would call Timothy McVeigh a terrorist and he was white so it isn't about race/ethnicity.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Re: RE: Gun Control in Canada

...I definitely don't get the whole "guns are just like cars" idea. That just doesn't ring true to me.

Me either. That's not what I said.

 

[Sassylassie]

I'm terrorfied of guns, but a licence should be sufficient. I spotted a coyote in my back yard the other night, scary where's a hunter when you need one.

 

[MikeyDB]

Colpy

Any argument for or against gun ownership or firearms availability swings with the media hype associated with stories of lawlessness involving the use of firearms. It’s a topic that invites passionate posturing because there is no comforting reconciliation to be made between the idea that someone has, could-obtain either legally or illegally, an instrument that has as its intended purpose the ending of a life; and a victim, an innocent person who would still be alive if that contorted chain of events that took place had not happened.

What’s missing (although someone did mention it earlier sort of ‘in-passing’) was the notion of personal responsibility.

Our perception of who is “responsible” for some event or circumstance perceived as entirely avoidable or preventable can and is easily re-directed onto the “object”…and other factors. If….there hadn’t been a gun…if people didn’t play violent video games….if people weren’t “into” gothic culture, heavy metal music such as Marilyn Manson etc. etc.

No one would be alarmed (well no rational individual at least) if a media account appeared detailing the shooting of a puma that attacked a child on a campground, or rabid animal that was preying on livestock was shot by a rancher/farmer.

The hypothetical scenario of a child being protected through the use of a firearm might make the local news but it’s unlikely that a story about a diseased animal being shot would appear anywhere.

If we consider the gruesome and unnecessary (and fully avoidable) tragedy of RCMP officers killed in Mayerthorpe, we could paint every firearms owner with the same brush we’d use to detail James Roszko.

People suffering from mental illness/disease command our sympathy and when someone falls victim to an ill or deranged individual and a firearm is involved, it’s a whole lot simpler and easier to focus on the firearm than it is to look at the precedents involved.

And this is the fundamental key that no government mandarin (see Anne McLellen or Zacardelli) wants anyone to consider.

Alarmist knee-jerking the populace through promoting gun-hysteria, and when that doesn’t work, “pot”-hysteria (as was the case in Mayerthorpe) works to promote a feeling of outrage and capitalize on mans basic fear mechanism.

“Gun Control” won’t work, it’s never worked and it can’t work!

While we (Canadians) are content to spend billions on a gun registry and rattle every politician’s cage about “gun control”, funding for mental illness and disease detection and prevention is laughable. While the criminal history of James Roszko is public record and the alienation of a whole generation of young people in Canada gets missed by our “governments”, they will spend enormous sums on “fixing” anything but the problem!

Ultimately we are all responsible and although its convenient to lay the blame on the firearms owner or any of the “causes” identified by the shirkers in Ottawa and provincial legislatures, the hard truth is that we as a society aren’t prepared to entertain any solution but the simplest and if it’s demanded that we evaluate our social ethos and assess the wisdom of our choice to permit “self-expression” and entertain every audacious behavior as seminal in preserving our “freedoms”, then we are not part of the solution but are part of the problem.

I’ve owned restricted firearms for over twenty years. My firearms have never been stolen, never used by anyone without my direct supervision or by anyone I didn’t evaluate as mentally stable enough to handle them. My firearms sit in their safe and my ammunition sits in a locked container some distance away and you’d have a hell of a time even knowing where to look or that I even have these guns.

Why should I forfeit my rights because my government fails to serve its citizens?

If people want to be angry about something be angry with how poorly this government and many past governments have dealt with mental health and failed to provide the care and professional assistance needed by our desperate friends and neighbors caught up in the terrible maelstrom of mental disease and emotional dysfunction.

Governments are intended to protect us and our government thinks offering a poorly administrated and inappropriately supervised bureaucracy does the job!

 

[Colpy]

MikeyDB, I am no less than completely flabbergasted, gobsmacked, bemused, and astounded.

I agree with every word of the post above.

 

[Colpy]

People, you should all read the commentary in Monday's Globe and Mail by Gary Mauser entitled One Thing's for Sure, Crime Causes Gun Laws.

.....Canada twice introduced sweeping changes to its gun laws, in 1991 and again in 1995. These changes included prohibiting over half of all registered handguns, prohibiting a wide variety of semi-automatic firearms, licensing gun owners and requiring the registration of rifles and shotguns.
But to what effect? Since 1998, when firearms were required to be registered, the homicide rate has increased by more than 3 percent. Despite the outrageous cost of the registry, the percentage of gun homicide has remained fixed at 27 percent. The percentage of family homicides involving firearms has remained at 23 percent.

..........Would a more thorough firearms ban have been more effective? In the 1970s, both the Repulic of Ireland and Jamaica passed legislation to prohibit virtually all firearms. In neither country has the attempt to ban and confiscate firearms reduced the homicide rate...........

He also speaks of costs, and of the results of massive gun bans in Australia and Great Britain..........

 

[gc]

Re: RE: Gun Control in Canada

People, you should all read the commentary in Monday's Globe and Mail by Gary Mauser entitled One Thing's for Sure, Crime Causes Gun Laws.

.....Canada twice introduced sweeping changes to its gun laws, in 1991 and again in 1995. These changes included prohibiting over half of all registered handguns, prohibiting a wide variety of semi-automatic firearms, licensing gun owners and requiring the registration of rifles and shotguns.
But to what effect? Since 1998, when firearms were required to be registered, the homicide rate has increased by more than 3 percent. Despite the outrageous cost of the registry, the percentage of gun homicide has remained fixed at 27 percent. The percentage of family homicides involving firearms has remained at 23 percent.

..........Would a more thorough firearms ban have been more effective? In the 1970s, both the Repulic of Ireland and Jamaica passed legislation to prohibit virtually all firearms. In neither country has the attempt to ban and confiscate firearms reduced the homicide rate...........

He also speaks of costs, and of the results of massive gun bans in Australia and Great Britain..........

I understand that statistics don't say anything about the cause, but here's some interesting statistics nonetheless:

Link

They are from statscanada, so I assume they are reliable. Notice the dips in homicide right around 1991 and 1995, while the proportion commited by firearms remains fairly constant. Of course, it could be a coincidence.

 

[sanch]

With gun control and its consequences one's view ultimately is based on if one is in the "culture" or if one is outside of it. MickeyDB's post might make a lot of sense to an insider. But someone who does not have the same passion for guns might wonder if all the myriad topics in the post hang together thematically.

Here is another viewpoint. The focus is a little different as it is not on individual rights but the societal consequences of gun ownership.

The research has shown that when other factors are held constant, the gun death rises in proportion to the rate of gun ownership. One study found a 92% correlation between households with guns and firearm death rates both within Canada and in comparable industrialized countries.

Other studies show that increased risks are associated with keeping guns in the home:
Homicide of a family member is 2.7 times more likely to occur in a home with a firearm than in homes without guns. Keeping one or more firearms was associated with a 4.8 fold increased risk of suicide in the home.
The risks increase, particularly for adolescents, where the guns are kept loaded and unlocked.

http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/TheCaseForGunControl.html

 

[Colpy]

I have a BIG problem with the Coalition for Gun Control (no surprize there!).

One of the problems I have is the dishonest way they present their stats. "FIREARMS DEATHS" mean nothing. If I want to kill myself, and I've got a gun in the closet, it just might get used........if I don't have a gun in the closet, I might drive my car into a wall, jump off a very high cliff, etc. What is relevant is the question "does the rate of Firearms ownership effect the OVERALL suicide rate?"

Ditto with murder rates. I might use a gun if I have one.......if not I might use a bucket of gasoline, a knife, a baseball bat....etc. The question, to be fair, must be "Does the rate of firearms ownership significantly effect the MURDER rate, not simply the murder rate with guns.

To better make my point, please observe the links you provided..............one of the the highest per capita ownership of guns in Canada? Newfoundland, with 32% of the households containing guns..

The lowest murder rate in Canada? Newfoundland (and PEI)

Likewise New Brunswick, with 35% of the households containing guns (the second highest rate of the provinces), yet it has the third LOWEST murder rate........

Stats Can figures I can go with, the Coalition is dishonest in the very fibre of its being.

It is a special interest group courted and bought by the former Federal Liberal government to lobby that same gov't to pass laws it wanted in the first place.

Edited to say:

Sorry Sanch and GC, I was comparing stats from the links you both provided........and I thought they were both provided by Sanch.

Sanch, the homicide rates I used in the arguments above are from the Stats Can link provided by GC just above your post

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Re: RE: Gun Control in Canada

I spotted a coyote in my back yard the other night, scary where's a hunter when you need one.

Well, if you bear even the slightest resemblance to that provocative avatar of yours, I'm sure you'll have no shortage of volunteers. :lol:

You probably don't need to be afraid of a solitary coyote, unless it's rabid. Coyotes are usually smart enough to know not to attack humans at home. But maybe don't go walking out alone at night far from the lights of wherever you live. We are the most dangerous predators on the planet, and they know retribution will be swift and fatal for them. It might take your dog or cat, if you have one, that happens all the time in the bedroom communities near Regina where I live, but it's highly unlikely to go for you. You're much bigger than it is, unless you're a very tiny woman indeed, and there's much easier prey for it. I've encountered them (and wolves too) many times while out hunting birds, or out working the farm machinery and they clearly didn't want anything to do with me. I don't think they were afraid of me, but they knew I was potentially dangerous to them, so they avoided me. Smart critters.

You don't need to be afraid of guns either. They're just another tool. Potentially more dangerous than most, of course, in the wrong hands, or handled stupidly, which is one of the reasons I'm inclined to think that safe gun handling is something everybody ought to know, but still, they're just another tool we've invented. A tool for killing, yes, but that's just the basis of a specious emotional argument against them that makes no real sense to me. You can't live without killing. Even if you're a vegetarian, plants die to feed you. Harvest is about killing plants before they can reproduce. For you to live, other things have to die. That's the way nature's arranged it, and all New Age mystic nonsense to the contrary, there's no way around that one unless you can live on air and water and sunshine. For that you'd have to be a plant, and you're obviously not.

Ah, but I'm rambling far from this thread's original subject. My essential point is that guns are tools that some people legitimately need. I don't think I've ever been in any farmer or rancher's half-ton that didn't have at least a .22 calibre rifle stashed behind the seat and a box of cartridges on the dashboard or in the glove box. Sometimes there's also a shotgun, or a heavier rifle, like a .303. They're for vermin, which is defined as critters that will damage the crop or the livestock. Farmers and ranchers tend to be pretty hard nosed and unsympathetic towards things that threaten their income (and wouldn't you be?), a fact that Liberal and NDP strategists need to pay attention to. They are primarily parties of the urban centre-left. It's no coincidence that Conservative support is most consistent and reliable in the rural prairies.

 

[MikeyDB]

Why Colpy?

We disagree at a fundamental level regarding the situation in the Middle East vis-a-vis Israel's policy/treatment of Palestinians, but everyone has the right to an opinion, even if that opinion is ill informed or prejudiced by perception twisted to achive a hidden agenda.

As far as "gun control" goes, what's sorrly needed in our postmodern self-indulgent-me-first-immediate gratification-at any expense to anyone else--world is a little more self-control mixed with what has become the rarest commodity of all....common sense.

 

[MikeyDB]

Sanch

I don’t regard the world as a simple place where there are only two kinds of people, the “insiders” and the “outsiders”.

You may feel free of course to reduce human perception, behaviour, expression and everything that contributes to the experience of existence by Homo Sapiens into two categories. Life is simpler indeed if we can draw lines of differences, demarcate, objectify through prejudices and enjoy the prospect of living in a world segmented and compartmentalized into some ultimate form of “them” and “us”.

It is the ultimate form of bigotry to dismiss opinion on the basis of something so crass as “ well you know those XYZ_Types….and how THEY think…and how THEY behave….and how THEY are….”

I’m coming to the same conclusion I’ve reached when participating in forums many times over the past number of years.

People contributing to forums and discussions like Canadian Content aren’t interested in listening or making an effort to consider or entertain someone else’s view, their principle reason for dialogue (probably of any kind in any milieu) is to reinforce their worldview and seek support for their already steadfast opinion on particular issues.

Every time some horrendously unjust and barbaric event involving firearms happens, these kinds of polarizations emerge. The same thing applies to any discussion wherein the topic piques response. Now if we embrace the idea that we can or should or ought-to embrace the idea that we can divide the world up into various camps of various ideologies and are satisfied to believe that only those who share our particular perspective are “right” then what we have is a world divided by dissimilarities and a world prepared to interrelate on the basis of opposition and contention, with (if any) only a limited availability to change.

We could spend a great deal of time clarifying the parameters that constitute one particular camp or another, looking at things like religion, language, skin-color, gender, height weight, hair color, eye color, etc. etc. etc. and instead of moving toward solution what we do is move toward dissolution and isolation. Well I suppose you could say we’d be moving in the direction that every ad-campaign and every preacher and every politician has been pushing us toward for the past what ….five hundred years?

I’m tired of listening to people who’ve decided the world is a place that can be summarized in a half dozen words fqk all of you….

 

[sanch]

MikeyDB you made an argument on behalf of your right to own guns. Your guns are safe, etc. You are a responsible individual. More attention should be given to mental health and emotional issues. Gun control will never work. (I take it you have evidence)

I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of the issues you mention. But they are not really tied very well into your argument. An insider inflamed with the passion of gun ownership would likely overlook the incoherence as in general your post would be very agreeable from their perspective. But you are talking from the pulpit and it may surprise you that not every one shares your beliefs.

Canada is a hodgepodge of multicultural groups all advocating in some way that they have a grievance in that their essential needs are not being recognized. It’s known as the cultural of entitlement (multiculturalism) and gun owners are now using the same script visible minority groups have long used. This is not a bad move because in Canada this strategy works. Let’s just allow each cultural group to define how they should be treated without any regard to national consequences or the impact on society in general.

I brought up the example of the Sikhs and their kirpan. If you look at this issue you will see a lot of similarities between the way Sikhs defend the carrying of the kirpan and the way gun owners are defending their right to carry guns. Obviously if one is a Sikh one would probably be convinced that the Sikh argument is right. A non-Sikh or an outsider might not be so easily convinced by the same argument. This was basically the point I was making about guns. There is a justifiable basis for differentiating between audiences based on their internal belief systems.

I did not create the ethnic and cultural divisions that currently exist in Canada. For that we have to thank government policy. The government has created a taxonomic system and this group referencing system is what I was referring to. I just want you to know that I would rather live in a world without social or cultural divisions that separate how people think and behave. This will never happen as long as sectors of the population are able to effectively create individualized sanctuaries within the national domain that sets them apart from other groups and the mainstream.

 

[Colpy]

Re: RE: Gun Control in Canada

Why Colpy?

We disagree at a fundamental level regarding the situation in the Middle East vis-a-vis Israel's policy/treatment of Palestinians, but everyone has the right to an opinion, even if that opinion is ill informed or prejudiced by perception twisted to achive a hidden agenda.

As far as "gun control" goes, what's sorrly needed in our postmodern self-indulgent-me-first-immediate gratification-at any expense to anyone else--world is a little more self-control mixed with what has become the rarest commodity of all....common sense.

I simply had put you in a slot with most of the rest of the anti-Israeli left, unfairly as it turns out.

Sorry about that.

 

[BitWhys]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Charest, and everyone who is concerned by this situation that we are going to maintain the registry system. A police officer will be able to check whether a person owns a gun. As well, this information will remain available in the information system, for use by police. People who want to keep and buy guns will still have to register them. We are going to keep the system's strengths.

no idea how they're going to pull it off, but that's good enough for me.

 

[Colpy]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Charest, and everyone who is concerned by this situation that we are going to maintain the registry system. A police officer will be able to check whether a person owns a gun. As well, this information will remain available in the information system, for use by police. People who want to keep and buy guns will still have to register them. We are going to keep the system's strengths.

no idea how they're going to pull it off, but that's good enough for me.

There is something seriously amiss here.

There is currently a amnesty from the long gun registry, brought in by the Conservative government. That amnesty has crippled the long gun registry, and is supposed to last until the gov't gives the damn thing a coup de grace, and kills it.

I assume Mr. Day was speaking of the RESTRICTED WEAPONS registry, which would have included Gill's Glock pistol and Beretta Storm.