Remember, Remember

Remember, remember!
The sixth of December,
The girls in Montreal were shot;
I know of no reason
Why Lepine’s open season
Should ever be forgot!
Young Gharbi with his rifles
Did the scheme contrive
To kill the feminist women,
Make them all die.
“Misogyny!” Media blows.
“Guns are all evil, don’t ya know?”
Good men fought, but they were no match
For the agenda to be dispatched!
Victims were martyred
Illness ignored
“If you won’t give your gun,
We’ll take two,
The better for all,
And the worse for you!”
A rope, a rope to hang Scapegoat,
A gun was the cause of this crime,
A hatred of women is fine,
Talk of mental illness is lies!
Holloa, girls! Holloa, girls! Blame the guns now!
Holloa, girls! Holloa, girls! Take them all now!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

For the last couple of years, I’ve wanted to write a blog about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot.  I always seem to get bogged down in November and miss it though, only coming up for air about this time of year when the Ecole Polytechnique furor picks up.  So, this year, I decided to combine the two.  The above poem is my ode to Dec 6, set to the metre of Remember, Remember   😛

With the recent abolition of the long gun registry, I expected the Dec 6 hullabaloo to be a bit more chaotic than usual this year.  Surprisingly, it has been quite tame so far.  I’m not naive enough to think we’ve heard the last of it though.

The fourteen victims of Marc Lepine/Gamil Gharbi were killed on Dec 6, 1989 and their memories have been butchered all over again every Dec 6 since that date.  Rather than using their deaths as a launching point to bring awareness to mental health issues and violence against all people, a handful of Feminazi activitists chose to turn those tragic deaths into a pulpit for gun control and violence against women.  In a stroke, these misguided people drove an irreparable wedge between the sexes and alienated several million honest gun owning Canadians.  Each year, vigils and forums are held to discuss violence against women.  No doubt this is a worthy cause, but it’s irrelevant to the date.  Yes, only women were killed that day, and yes, Lepine spoke openly about his anti-women beliefs.  However, he could just as easily have fixated upon men, or children, or dogs.  It just so happens that his mental illness manifested against women. 

That’s why the memorials on this day are so out of touch with the reality of what happened in 1989.  Where are the focus groups and discussions on mental health?  Where is the funding for community health groups that could have helped Marc Lepine before he went on his ramapage?

Every year that we continue to focus on Marc Lepine’s victims rather than on the cause of his actions, is another year that the deaths of those women continue to have been in vain.  Yes, there are still gender issues that need addressing, but Dec 6 is not, and never was about feminism or misogyny.  Dec 6 is, and always has been, about mental illness.

When are we going to stop dishonouring the victims of Ecole Polytechnique and finally address the real reason that they died?

Opting Out of Remembrance Day

A recent controversy being discussed in the Canadian media is the fact that parents can ask that their children be allowed to “opt-out” of school Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day as it is sometimes known, is observed on November 11 in most commonwealth countries around the world.  The day and time – the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month – were chosen to commemorate the official end to hostilities in the First World War.  The primary purpose of the day though, is to honour the fallen soldiers who were not lucky enough to return home from the battlegrounds in Europe.  Over time the ceremony has evolved and it is now generally a time to remember and pay homage to all of our veterans both living and dead.  It is one day of the year when the country comes together in a moment of silence to pay respect to the soldiers who have given their lives, and the soldiers who continue to risk their lives, to protect their fellow citizens.

For me, Remembrance Day goes far beyond honouring our veterans and their fallen comrades.  To me it is about freedom.  That is the cause that these brave men and women fought and died for.  It is a cause that is shared by soldier and civilian alike and fought for by both, albeit in different ways.  It stretches back well before the two great wars.  It’s a battle that has been fought continuously since the dawn on human civilization.  It is a perpetuation of the struggle between those who would live free and those who wish to control them.

Freedom is a cause that is so much bigger than the conflicts of the 21^st Century.   The battle has raged for millennia, being fought between nations, within nations and even within families.  Governments have been toppled, nations conquered and families torn apart.

Freedom is such a simple word, but it seems to be a surprisingly difficult concept for many to understand.  Freedom isn’t about supporting the rights of only the people whose opinions and beliefs of those with whom you agree.  Freedom is about supporting the rights of everyone, especially those with whom you disagree.

The outcry caused by this rarely used school policy has clearly shown how little some people understand the true meaning of freedom.  There have been calls to make the ceremonies mandatory, to ‘force’ people to pay their respects on Remembrance Day.   These vocal few wish to honour the sacrifices of those who died in the name of freedom by taking away a freedom.

It needs to be pointed out that there are two very different groups who may choose to opt-out.  The first group is made up of those who are entirely opposed to Remembrance Day, be it religious, social or other reasons.  While I don’t agree with their position, I wholeheartedly support their right to it.   Opponents to this school policy claim that allowing students to opt-out of the ceremony goes against everything that our soldiers have fought and died for.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  Those who choose to opt-out are paying the highest honour to the men and women who have sacrificed their lives.  They are exercising the very freedom that those brave souls fought and died for.

The second group are those people who fully support the day, but for whatever reason can’t or don’t want to attend a ceremony.  While Remembrance Day services are generally a good thing, it needs to be remembered that the pomp and tradition are really only the trimmings.  The meat of the day is taking the time to appreciate the freedoms that we currently enjoy and giving thanks to all the people throughout history who have fought and died for those freedoms.   It’s not necessary to attend a ceremony to appreciate and honour those sacrifices.   We all have the right to pay our respects in our own way, and the traditional Remembrance Day service is only one possible way to do so.

Tomorrow morning at 11:00, while I observe a moment of silence, I will not only pay my respects to the fallen, I will also acknowledge the people who are choosing not to observe that moment.  Those people are the proof that we still have at least some freedoms left for which to give thanks.

Meet the Man Responsible for the Death of Canada’s Gun Registry

This article is from a few months ago, but I thought it well worth posting.  Thank you Garry for all of your tireless work for the citizens of Canada!!!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2012/02/29/meet-the-man-responsible-for-the-death-of-canadas-gun-registry/

 

Frank Miniter, Contributer
I expose the excesses of the bureaucracy

Looking north across the border, American gun owners may well see the fall of Canada’s long-gun registry with relief. This, after all, lessens the odds that the anti-gun movement will be successful in its attempt to install a gun-owners database in the U.S. However, before American gun owners forget about Canada all over again, there’s an incredible story here not being told outside Ottawa political circles that needs to be heard by every American who cherishes their freedom.

The way the press is telling it, the Conservatives finally gained control of the House of Commons and the Senate and then used, as they said they would, their majorities to begin the repeal of Canada’s long-gun registry. Their first big step, taken on February 15, was the House of Commons vote to kill the long-gun registry. They accomplished this by 159-130. Next up is Canada’s Senate, where repeal is inevitable because Conservatives also have a majority there. Finally, it’ll make its way to the Governor General of Canada where it will receive Royal Assent and be passed into law. So sometime this spring law-abiding Canadians will no longer have to fill out forms and pay fees in order to keep authorities aware of what’s in their gun cabinets.

All that seems to say that the political winds simply shifted and blew over the registry. The problem with that assumption is it isn’t quite true.

The true story is actually much more interesting; in fact, it needs to be heard by every American, as the arguments used by the anti-gun groups in Canada are the same ones being promoted in the U.S.

The story begins on an evening in January in 1994 in a little town called Preeceville, Saskatchewan. Garry Breitkreuz (pronounced Bright-Krites) was then a new member of Canada’s Parliament. He had been elected in October of 1993. Preeceville has about 1,000 residents. Garry was excited. This would be his first town-hall meeting. The topic was about a new gun-control bill, C-68, brought in by the then Liberal Government. It included the creation of a long-gun registry. “I’ll never forget that first meeting,” says Garry. “Even though it was 39 degrees below zero outside the place was packed and the people heated.”

Now it should be noted that Garry was hardly a gun-rights activist. Not yet anyway. Sure, he grew up in a rural Saskatchewan home and had a .30-30-caliber rifle he used to hunt deer with. “But when it came to the gun issue,” says Garry, “I was very naïve.”

Naïve indeed. Garry started the meeting off by saying to the crowd that “this long-gun registry seems to make sense. Maybe it’ll catch a few criminals….” He barely got started in this manner when his constituents made it clear they didn’t agree.

“They challenged me,” says Garry, “to do some research to find out if forcing people to register their guns will really save lives.”

Garry shut up and listened. Before a few more minutes passed he promised to do some research to find out if requiring people to register their guns really reduces crime.

This is where the story behind this repeal takes a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” shift. Garry set out to learn if making citizens register their deer rifles with the police really prevents homicides. “After just a few months of digging into it I did a 180,” says Garry, who soon hired a researcher to help. The researcher’s name is Dennis Young. Together they started asking the government from the inside how much the gun registry was costing and whether it was really reducing crime. The bureaucracy began stonewalling him, so he started filing “Access to Information” requests (the American equivalent of “Freedom of Information Act” requests). By 2002 he’d filed more than 500 such requests.

He learned that the Canadian government was horribly underestimating the costs of the long-gun registry. In 1995 Canada’s Department of Justice told Parliament that the Canadian Firearms Program would cost $119 million to implement and that this cost would be offset by $117 million in fees; however, by 2000 Canada’s Department of Justice was already estimating that the long-gun registry would cost over $1 billion.

Meanwhile, the gun-owners database wasn’t reducing crime rates. In fact, John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, looked into Canada’s long-gun registry recently and couldn’t unearth one murder the registry solved. Lott says, “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chiefs of Police have not yet provided a single example in which tracing was of more than peripheral importance in solving a case.”

Canada’s Public Safety Minister agrees with Lott. On the day of the vote to repeal the registry the National Post reported that Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the long-gun registry “does nothing to help put an end to gun crimes, nor has it saved one Canadian life. It criminalizes hard-working and law-abiding citizens such as farmers and sport shooters, and it has been a billion-dollar boondoggle left to us by the previous Liberal government.”

Now, back in the 1990s Garry wasn’t getting any traction politically or with the press, so he took his research to the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. The government agency agreed to review his data and to do its own audit. The auditing agency agreed with Garry. In 2002 the agency reported: “The Department of Justice Canada did not provide Parliament with sufficient information to allow it to effectively scrutinize the Canadian Firearms Program and ensure accountability. It provided insufficient financial information and explanations for the dramatic increase in the cost of the Program.”

“This report blew the lid off,” says Garry.

He says that before the Office of the Auditor General report made headlines even many Conservative politicians wouldn’t touch the gun-registry issue. They thought it was a losing battle. They said the facts didn’t matter, just the demagoguery they’d surely receive. They were afraid of the big media in population centers in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver—sound familiar?

“But the public was ahead of the politicians on this issue,” says Garry. “In meetings all over the country I was telling people that with what they were spending on the registry we could hire five or six thousand police officers.”

This resonated.

The exploding costs of the registry made headlines even in the city papers. Gary A. Mauser, a Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, has also looked deeply into the costs. He says, “John Lott and I added up the costs and found that, in total, the Canadian government spent about $2.7 billion on this failed experiment.” That’s more than 20 times what it was forecast to cost.

Even after the 2002 report from Office of the Auditor General came out Garry kept traveling around Canada speaking about the costs of having the government invade law-abiding Canadians’ gun cabinets. He also kept citing the crime statistics, which clearly weren’t being affected by this massive invasion of Canadians’ civil liberties. Criminals, as it predictably turned out, weren’t registering firearms they were using for crimes.

Nevertheless, some Conservative politicians still didn’t want to tackle the issue. So Garry looked for a new way to pull them together. In 2006 he learned that the U.S. has a Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (CSC). Nearly 300 members of the U.S. Congress are members of the CSC. Started in 1988-89, the CSC is supported by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), a group that fights for sportsmen’s rights, including wildlife conservation issues and gun rights. (Full disclosure: I do contract work for the CSF.) Garry hopped on a plane bound for Washington, D.C.

According to Phil Morlock, who is the director of environmental affairs for Shimano American Corporation/Shimano Canada and who is a CSF board member, “Garry couldn’t believe the U.S. had this large caucus fighting for hunting, fishing and gun rights. He was even more astounded that the caucus is bi-partisan. He met with CSC congressional leaders. He found himself talking to Republican and Democratic co-chairs of the CSC and asked them how they get along in such a partisan and politically charged atmosphere. The American politicians laughed and said that sometimes they think all they really agree on are sportsmen’s rights, including the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Garry flew back to Ottawa and, with the help of Morlock and others, started a nonpartisan caucus called the Canadian Parliamentary Outdoor Caucus. This caucus now is one of the largest on Parliament Hill. “The caucus helped get the information out to Members of Parliament and Senators that the long-gun registry was intrusive and ineffective,” says Garry.

At the time Garry wrote an op-ed for various newspapers in which he said, “[We] need to become proactive in protecting our outdoors heritage from an increasing number of large, well-funded, international groups who want to shut down hunting, fishing, trapping and sport shooting. Rural and urban Canadians of all political affiliations, backgrounds, ages and abilities contribute over $10 billion annually to the national economy through these industries. These traditional activities are a key part of Canada’s culture and an important component of our history as a nation.”

Sportsmen and those who just wanted to protect their families without government interference now had a caucus working for them.

Then, also in 2006, Stephen Harper, a Conservative, became prime minister of Canada by forming a minority government. Harper didn’t have the votes then to tear down the registry, but over the next few elections the Conservatives gained more seats. Finally, in 2011, with the caucus, the government, the facts and the public on their side, the Conservatives had the votes and the will to move against the long-gun registry.

Garry says the caucus, along with the blatant fact that the long-gun registry was costing a fortune without solving crimes, even had support from politicians in other parties. Nevertheless, when the vote came only two New Democrats—John Rafferty and Bruce Hyer—broke from their party and voted to repeal. “They’re now being punished by their party for doing the right thing,” laments Garry.

Then, when the vote came on February 15, something unusual took place. In the Canadian House of Commons members of Parliament stand to signify their votes. After Garry stood to vote to repeal the long-gun registry, they broke into a cheer: “Garry, Garry….” This just isn’t done in the reserved atmosphere of the Canadian Parliament. But repealing a government program—no matter how onerous and costly it turns out to be—is a rare thing. It’s especially rare to see a database of gun-owners repealed. Throughout history many governments have created gun registries—most recently in Australia and England. Gun registries often end in gun confiscations—again, this has occurred in Australia and England—but as far as Lott knows no registry has ever been repealed.

And the moral of the story is that Canada’s experiment didn’t end with the government disarming its citizenry because the people stood up and challenged a statesman to represent them by searching out the truth—this, in a nutshell, is what the Tea Party has been advocating in the U.S.

In fact, I asked Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action how this might affect Americans and he said, “Gun registration in the United States has always been the political fantasy of the gun-ban lobby. The clear lesson from Canada is that registration did not and does not reduce crime; in fact, since Canada’s long-gun-registration law went into effect, the U.S. murder rate has dropped almost twice as fast as Canada’s. A gun registry only infringes on privacy and has led to the confiscation of law-abiding citizens’ firearms in countries around the world, and even here in the U.S. That is why the NRA will fight any registration effort in the U.S. with every fiber we have.”

Indeed, Americans should be thanking Garry, too. He showed how to use facts, tenacity and a democratic process to overturn bad policy by convincing the government to stop making criminals out of law-abiding gun owners.

Gun control in one sentence

A good friend of mine had an epiphany a couple of days ago while pondering the global gun control issue.  He found a way to summarize the entire gun control debate in one sentence:

“If all the AK47s in Libya were licensed and registered, Muammar Gaddafi would still be alive today.”

Do you like it?  I do.  In fact, I like it so much that I’m dedicating an a blog entry to it.  It’s amazing how much meaning can be crammed into a single sentence!!

First point: the AK-47. 

The most quoted and, apparently feared, firearm on the face of the planet.  The Avtomat Kalashnikova selective-fire, gas operated, 7.62 x 39mm rifle was officially adopted for use by the Soviet Army in 1947.  Since then, it has become a favourite for military forces around the world, due to its robust design, reliability, low cost and ease of use.  AK-variant rifles are, in fact, the most widely produced assault rifle in the world [Source: Weaponomics: The Global Market for Assault Rifles; Killicoat, Phillip; WPS4202; April 2007].

The AK-47 is also incredibly popular among gun control advocates.  Every time a government suggests relaxing gun control laws, the cries of “Assault rifles will be easier to get!!” are heard from coast to coast.  They intentionally invoke images of madmen running loose with AK-47s, shooting anyone who happens across their path.  In the minds of gun control advocates, the AK-47 is the most dangerous gun ever made and nobody should ever own it, or anything like it.  They rely on the average person’s ignorance about firearms to create a state of fear and further their cause.  The bottom line is that a gun is a gun is a gun.  All are inert objects, the only danger comes from the person behind the trigger.  

Second point:  Libya.

The Arab Spring:  a string of revolutions throughout North Africa and the Middle East.  To mention but a few highlights, it began in Tunisia in December 2010, led to the overthrow of the Egyptian government in February 2011, and 9 months of bloody civil war in Libya.  The fighting has calmed in most affected countries, but still rages unchecked in Syria.

The protests, demonstrations and revolutions that rocked the Arab world were widely hailed as positive by the Western World.  They were seen as pro-democracy, the will of people, and the start of a positive new future for citizens of oppressed nations. 

The hypocrisy of it all is that, while groups such as Amnesty International supported these uprisings against oppressive regimes and dictators, they continued to try to disarm the very citizens they were supporting!  Now that the war has ended, the UN has become very vocal about disarming the people of Libya.  They are actively working towards preventing any future generations of Libyans from having the means to fight for their freedom if the need arises again.

Libya is a fitting example for the gun control issue on another front as well.  They have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.   Civilian gun ownership is entirely prohibited and it is also illegal to privately sell or transfer them.  Despite gun ownership being illegal, civilians own nearly twice as many guns as the military and police.  Civilian firearms are numbered at about 900,000, military firearms at 535,200 and police firearms at 22,000.  The rate of civilian firearms ownership is 15.5 per 100 people.  In comparison, in Canada, the rate of civilian firearms ownership is 23.8 per 100 people [Source:  Small Arms Survey, 2007].

Let me say that again.  In a country where civilian ownership of firearms is completely outlawed, the citizenry still outgun the military and police by almost 2:1!!!  

To summarize, while organizations like Amnesty International fully support the revolutions of the Arab Spring, they are doing everything in their power to ensure that the people revolting are denied the very tools that they need to succeed. 

Third point: Licensing and Registration

Oh boy, where do I even start on this one?  This topic has been done to death so many times, I’m not sure I even want to address it again.  These vary between countries, but here’s the nutshell version for Canada:

Licensing.  This is the process through which a government body determines an individual’s fitness to own firearms.  It essentially states that firearms ownership is illegal unless you are granted an exemption from that law by means of a license.

Registration.  This ties a firearm to its owner by means of a registration certificate.  The certificate contains information regarding the type of firearm (make, model, serial number, etc) and that certificate is linked to a specific firearms license holder.

They seem innocent enough on the surface, but these two puppies have been the cause of much death and destruction throughout history.  Put simply, every major genocide of the twentieth century was preceded by civilian disarmament – Ottoman Turkey, USSR, China, Rwanda, Guatemala, Uganda, Germany.  These confiscation schemes were all aided through systems of licensing and registration.  It’s common sense really – you can’t take a gun away from a person if you don’t first know that they have it. 

In some cases, Hitler and Mao for example, the introduction of the gun control laws was very methodical and a strategic part of their plans.  In other cases, Rwanda and Guatemala, the existing laws were a simple and convenient means to a horrific end.

The bottom line is that the intentions of the people who enact these laws are irrelevant.  What’s important is the potential for abuse and misuse of these laws in the future.  Simply put, if the potential for misuse exists, it’s a bad law.

Putting it all together

Muammar Gaddafi was one of the longest reigning and perhaps one of the most well-known dictators in recent history.  The reason that Muammar Gaddafi is dead is because the people of Libya had the resolve to rebel against him.  The means of their rebellion was their ability to fight for their freedom through the use of privately owned firearms.  The people of Libya were still armed, despite prohibitions on firearms ownership, simply because the country did not have a system of licensing and registration in place that would have allowed for wholesale confiscation.  If Gaddafi had gun controls in place, he would have confiscated firearms prior to viciously crushing the resistance, making many pay the price so that he could remain alive, unchallenged and in power.

Civilian gun ownership is not about hunting or target shooting or even home defense.  It is about freedom and democracy.  Many gun control advocates imagine a world where only the police and the military own guns – a police state.  Others imagine a world of peace where nobody needs guns.  While this is a noble goal, it is not the world we currently live in.  Until the causes of violence are addressed, guns will continue to be a necessary tool in our lives.

Gun Toting Liberals

I was shown this video today and found it to be a very powerful and well thought out argument.  It needs sharing with everyone you know.

There is a misconception all over the western world that guns are a “right-wing” issue.  The topic of gun control has been framed as a left vs right argument, with gun control supporters on the left and gun owners on the right.  This is far from the truth.  The gun debate does not fall strictly within party lines.  History shows that gun control can be introduced from either the left or the right, but that it always has unintended negative consequences. 

Outside the western world, the truth of the gun control argument is obvious. 

Who ‘needs’ a gun?

This is an excellent editorial by Lorne Gunter at the National Post.  He perfectly summarizes one of the core issues of the gun control debate in Canada.

Who ‘needs’ a gun?

Lorne Gunter, National Post · Nov. 2, 2011 | Last Updated: Nov. 2, 2011 3:07 AM ET

On Tuesday morning, members of the National Post editorial board – a group that includes me – got into a fascinating email debate regarding the federal government’s decision to decommission the long-gun registry. We then segued into a discussion of the possibility of increasing restrictions for several makes and models of rifles that the previous Liberal government had deemed non-restricted.

“The point of getting rid of the gun registry was supposed to be that it criminalized farmers and hunters,” one of my colleagues wrote. “But now the Conservatives [might] delist sniper rifles and the kind of semi-automatic used in the Norway massacre. Why do farmers and hunters need sniper rifles that can pierce armour from a kilometre away?”

I do not own a gun. I have never owned a gun and can’t imagine I ever will. As objects of utility or recreation, guns hold little fascination for me.

My interest in guns is purely philosophical: I can’t trust any government that doesn’t trust my law-abiding fellow citizens to own whatever guns they want. It’s the instinct to ban – rooted in the notion that governments or “experts” know better than we ourselves what is best or safest for us – that scares me far more than the thought of my neighbour owning a sniper rifle. The banning instinct is never slaked. Once it has succeeded in prohibiting guns, it will turn itself to offensive speech or unhealthy food.

Even the notion that there are guns that can be readily identified as a “sniper” or “assault” rifle is specious. There is no definition of either that would be useful at law. Every country that has ever imposed a ban on certain types of rifles has encountered the same problem: It is impossible to define which rifles are safe for civilians and which are too dangerous, based on muzzle velocity, barrel length, bullet calibre, scope, etc. So in the end, each jurisdiction (Canada included) has been forced to resort to arbitrary and irrational criteria, such as that one model looks scarier than another. Typically the more military a rifle looks, the more likely it is to be banned, even if it is not operationally one bit different from a civilian “hunting” rifle.

But above all, it always worries me when the concept of “need” enters the debate, as in (to quote one of my colleagues): “Why do farmers and hunters need sniper rifles?”

The concept of “need” is antithetic to freedom in a democracy where the citizens are sovereign. No one needs a car that goes more than 110 km/ hr, because that is the highest speed limit in the country. So should any of us who want to drive more than a Smart Car or Fiat have to go cap in hand to a government official and explain our “need” for, say, a sports car, before we are granted the right to buy one? Many more Canadians – thousands more – are killed by speeding automobiles each year than by high-powered rifles that are beyond what ranchers “need” to kill coyotes.

If you are guilty of no crime, what you “need” is none of my business, or the government’s. In fact, it is the reverse. Any government that seeks to restrict the liberties of law-abiding citizens should have to prove it needs to do so, and that it is not just pandering to popular emotions and political sentimentality.

One editorial board member said he would feel completely “free,” even if he were prevented from buying a high-powered rifle. But it’s easy to give up a liberty that is unimportant to you. The reason we non-gun owners should stick up for owners’ rights is that someday it may be our rights that are under attack. Someday, the banners who are going after guns may decide that eliminating hate speech (as they define it) is more important than defending free speech. And if we free-speechers don’t stand with gun owners against the banners today, why would the gun owner stand with us tomorrow?

lgunter@shaw.ca

Disarming the harmless doesn’t reduce crime, it reduces freedom

George Jonas hits one out of the park with this excellent Op Ed piece on gun control.  I only wish our lawmakers had such a solid grasp on common sense.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/01/18/george-jonas-disarming-the-harmless-doesnt-reduce-crime-it-reduces-freedom/

It was predictable for anti-gun activists to surface after the Tucson tragedy of Jan. 8. Some are the same opportunists who tried blaming the attempted assassination of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, but others aren’t political. They’re simply gun-shy. It’s a condition, I suppose, or at least a phobia, beyond the reach of reason.

Gun-shy folk have this much in common with gun-enthusiasts.

Guns are loved and hated irrationally. Some people admire firearms, collect them, fondle them, all but have sex with them. Others abhor guns, consider them pornographic, react to them as Victorians did to risqué remarks. Both types are equally alien to me, but they aren’t equal.

Former Toronto mayor David Miller was gun-shy. (I imagine he still is.) He tried making Toronto a gun-free zone, or said he would. He wanted Torontonians to have no guns, gun clubs, gun collections or shooting ranges within the city limits. He himself had no guns, presumably, or any interest in shooting.

Had the former mayor been a gun enthusiast, much as he may have collected guns and visited shooting ranges himself, I doubt if he would have tried obliging his fellow Torontonians to do so.

Here’s the difference. Those who love guns rarely demand that you share their admiration, but those who hate guns demand that you share their aversion. Firearm-philiacs make no attempt to persuade, let alone oblige, anyone to have a love affair with guns, but firearm-phobiacs use the law at every turn to make their hatred obligatory. Gun-lovers understand something about freedom; gun-haters understand only coercion. In the gun debate, the peaceniks are the bullies.

What about the merits of the debate? Immaterial. Love and hate are beyond debate. Ex-mayor Miller, for instance, used to talk about public safety. He and I may not have shared many soft spots, but I’d defy anyone to have a softer spot for public safety than me. I pose no threat to my townspeople and I prefer my townspeople to pose no threat to me. Yet the same goal — public safety — would lead Miller and me to entirely different policies. His instinct would be to control guns; mine, to control crime.

Gun-control advocates would disarm the harmless, and leave them defenceless against the harmful they can’t disarm. If I couldn’t disarm the harmful, which would be my first choice, my second choice would be to arm the harmless, or at least encourage them to arm themselves.

Disarming the harmless is easier, of course. Passing a law is all it takes. People who don’t much shoot people pay attention to laws. Many even pay attention to bylaws. Pass a bylaw that says “give up your guns, please” and by golly, they’ll give ’em up.

In contrast, disarming the harmful may be impossible. They’re scofflaws. They don’t obey.

Politics, as they say, is the art of the possible. Mayors are politicians, practical people, favouring practical solutions. Passing laws for the law-abiding is practical because they’ll generally abide by them, while passing laws for the lawless is impractical for they will rarely do so.

For politicians, the matter seems simple. Only impractical people advocate measures that depend for success on compliance by the lawless — they say — when with the same effort they could put laws on the books that depend for success on compliance by the law-abiding. What’s the use of passing laws that people don’t obey, such as “thou shalt not kill?” We’ve hundreds of such laws on the books. “Don’t carry illicit handguns; don’t peddle illicit drugs; don’t shoot up the neighbourhood.” They’re all laws that cost a mint to enforce, to little avail. The practical thing is to pass laws that people do obey, such as “no shooting ranges within Toronto city limits.” Switching from low-compliance-rate laws to high-compliance-rate laws is the ticket.

It’s a ticket, all right — but a ticket to what? If the destination is public safety, gun collectors aren’t in the way, either in Toronto or Tucson. Citizens using guns in self-defence aren’t in the way, either. They aren’t making our cities unsafe. What makes our cities unsafe is drug-dealing youth gangs shooting at each other and hitting passers-by. Or deranged individuals hearing voices that urge them to shove people in front of subways. Or the authorities defending shoplifters against shopkeepers more keenly than shopkeepers against shoplifters, as they did in Toronto last year.

Outlawing shooting ranges within the city limits won’t change that. No passer-by has ever been shot at a Toronto shooting range. Threats to public safety don’t come from insufficient laws but insufficient people: teenage mothers, drug culture, youth gangs, mental illness. The problem? Try political correctness, self-censoring politicians, irresolute courts, hamstrung police. People obeying good laws reduces crime; good people obeying bad laws reduces only freedom.

One cannot restrict the defiant by constraining the compliant. A law that obliged everybody within Toronto city limits to breathe would bring 100% compliance from the living and no significant change of behaviour from anyone else.

National Post

Hunting ducks, protecting families

Excellent editorial from today’s National Post.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Hunting+ducks+protecting+families/3577605/story.html

George Jonas, National Post · Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

Did Canada’s firearm-phobic urban elites score an own goal? Did they open up a political opportunity for Stephen Harper? Many commentators seem to think so.

I’m not as sanguine as some, but if, by their narrow rescue of the registry, Ottawa’s gunless wonders did elevate a wasteful program of loony liberalism into an election issue, it may open up an opportunity to re-examine the debate about gun control.

The police carry guns for a reason: They’re great tools for law enforcement. Letting firearms become the monopoly of lawbreakers, far from enhancing public safety, is detrimental to it. Canada has gone out of its way to make criminals as invincible, and victims as vulnerable, as possible. This wasn’t the aim of gun control, of course, only the result.

Canada isn’t alone. Two years ago, terrorists in Mumbai, India, claimed some 500 casualties, dead and injured. Among the many questions raised by the outrage, there was a purely practical one: Why was the attack so successful? How could so few terrorists claim so many victims?

One obvious answer, as I wrote at the time, was firepower. Guns were illegal in the hands of both the terrorists and the victims. The victims obeyed the laws, the terrorists didn’t. A Mumbai-type atrocity couldn’t have happened in Dodge City–or in Edwardian Europe, for that matter, where gentlemen routinely carried handguns for protection — but it could happen again at next month’s XIX Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India.

Some regard carrying guns uncivilized. Would you call an era of legal guns in the hands of Edwardian gentlemen less civilized — or less safe — than our own era of illegal guns in the hands of terrorists and drug dealers? I wouldn’t. The civilized place was turn-of-the century London, where citizens carried guns and the police didn’t.

Society needs crime control, not gun control. Violent crime in America declined in the past 20-plus years after a majority of states enacted “right to carry” legislation. There may have been several reasons, but the “right to carry” was clearly one.

There are Second Amendment absolutists in America, and libertarians elsewhere, who regard a person’s birthright to own/carry a firearm beyond the state’s power to regulate. I’m not among them. Communities set standards for many things, from the possession of exotic animals to the operation of ham radios; why not lethal weapons? But our aim should be to enhance, not diminish, the defensive capacity of the good guys, and increase rather than decrease the number of auxiliary crime-fighters who are available to be deputized when the bad guys start climbing over the fence.

The relationship between citizens and the law is magnificently simple. Citizens are the law. Not the bureaucracy, not the police, not the pundits: Citizens. It’s all right for people to take the law into their own hands because in a free society the law is, in fact, in their hands. It is the people who delegate the power of law enforcement to the police, not the other way around.

The police may think they license citizens to carry arms, but they don’t. It’s citizens who license the police. They license them to carry arms, to enforce the law, to investigate crime, to serve and protect. All power flows from the public to the authorities, not the other way around.

In free societies, that is. There are societies where power flow is reversed. They’re called police states.

Canada isn’t a police state and we don’t want it to become one– not even our gun-shy urban elites, most of them. The police chiefs with their disarming rhetoric aren’t looking for a police state, either; it’s just that “the police-man’s lot is not a happy one,” as Gilbert and Sullivan pointed out, and being the only ones armed would make their lot happier.

Maybe so, except an arms monopoly only serves and protects the police, not the public. While we support our cops, making police work congenial isn’t Canada’s national purpose. Our entitlement to carry arms, unlike our American cousins’, stems from no particular provision of a constitutional amendment, but intrinsically from our fundamental traditions of freedom, subject to whatever conditions we choose to impose on ourselves.

If the gun registry becomes an election issue, it may serve as a reminder that guns aren’t only for hunting ducks, but also to help people safeguard themselves. It’s as proper for citizens to defend their homes in peacetime against domestic robbers as to defend their homelands in war against foreign invaders. People who defend their families act as honourably as those who provide for their families. They must do so within the law, needless to say, providing or defending, in war or in peace, but as long as they do, one type of action is simply an extension of the other.

If someone could persuade criminals and lunatics to obey gun control, it would be a splendid idea. As long as only law-abiding citizens obey it, it amounts to countering stray cats by neutering vets: Showy, but not very useful.

Women and Gun Control – Part 2

As public debate over the long gun registry heats up, the Gun Control Lobby is continuing to push their stance of gun control being a women’s issue.  In particular, they are claiming that it is a rural women’s issue.  I decided to take a look at this stance in a three part series.

In Part 1, I discussed how the current system of gun control in Canada is diverting money away from programs that could help women who are victims of abuse.  In Part 3, I will be dealing with self defense.

In this part, I’m going to break down the numbers regarding violent crime, family violence and homicide in this country.  Where does it happen, who are the victims, and what are the causes.

Causes

Contrary to what gun control and feminist advocates would have us believe, guns are not a risk factor for domestic violence.  According to the Canadian Department of Justice, the major risk factors for spousal violence are

• being a young person
• living in a common law relationship
• having a partner who periodically drinks heavily
• emotional abuse in the relationship, and
• marital separation

Statistics Canada also adds being Aboriginal to that list.  20% of the Aboriginal population has reported being victims of family violence compared with 7% of the non-Aboriginal population.

A journal article, National Trends in Intimate Partner Homicides: Explaining Declines in Canada 1976-2001 made some more interesting points.  I would especially like to point out the date range of this study, 1976-2001, and remind my readers that the long gun registry did not come into force until 2001.

Over the time period studied, spousal homicide rates had declined by about 50%, falling from 8.5 (per million spouses) in 1976 to 4.2 in 2001.  Spousal homicides using a firearm had declined by 81% over the same time period. 

For those who like to make comparisons with the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1976-2000 our “gun loving” cousins to the south saw a decline in spousal homicides of 45%.  Keep in mind that gun ownership in the US of A increases by about 4.5 million guns per year.  Allow me to repeat that: over a 24 year period, as gun ownership increased spousal homicide decreased.

According to the National Trends article, the reasons for these declines in both countries were

• male to female employment ratios (more women had jobs)
• higher education levels for both men and women
• marrying later in life
• starting a family later in life and having fewer children
• social programs which make it easier for victims to leave their abusers

I hope my anti-gun readers have noted how guns and gun control are not mentioned anywhere as either a cause or a solution to the issues of domestic violence.

Where does it happen?

There is definitely some truth to the claim that rural Canadians are more at risk of spousal violence than their urban neighbours. 

	POPULATION	SHELTERS	SHELTERS PER 100,000	RATE OF SPOUSAL VIOLENCE*
Canada	33,739,900	569	1.7	188
Nfld & Labrador	508,900	15	2.9	123
PEI	141,000	5	3.5	128
Nova Scotia	938,200	16	1.7	145
New Brunswick	749,500	22	2.9	84
Quebec	7,828,900	126	1.6	241
Ontario	13,069,200	160	1.2	141
Manitoba	1,222,000	29	2.4	215
Saskatchewan	1,030,100	24	2.3	329
Alberta	3,687,700	50	1.4	249
BC	4,455,200	110	2.5	124**
Yukon	33,700	5	14.8	421
NWT	43,400	7	9.3	1,605
Nunavut	32,200			2,472

* Rate per 100,000 population
** Incomplete data for British Columbia

There is little data available on the reasons for the greater incidence of abuse in rural areas.  One thing that is known is that there is less help available to victims of spousal violence in rural Canada.  Even though the territories have a high per capita number of shelters, those shelters have very limited services available.  Additionally, because of the vast distances involved in all rural areas, it is not always possible for victims of abuse to reach help when it is available.  Other factors like education levels, financial dependence and divorce rates also play a role in this urban/rural divide. 

While spousal violence may be a bigger issue in rural Canada, there is no clear divide when it comes to violent crime and homicide.  Large and small communities are affected equally in this regard.  There are many socio-economic factors that come into play.

Who are the victims?

Here’s where the numbers become interesting.  There are about 330,000 victims of violent crime in Canada each year.  If we believe our misandrist lobby groups, the number of female victims should far exceed the number of male victims.  Right?

Wrong.  In 2007, 50.04% of the victims of violent crime were female.  Basic math tells me that 49.96% of the victims were male.  Hardly a staggering difference.  In cases of domestic violence, 7% of women and 6% of men have reported violence at the hands of their partner.  Again, hardly a noticeable difference. 

Specifically regarding family violence, the numbers are still not so different, with 63% of female victims and 61% of male victims suffering from common assault (Level 1).  However, the results are not always so balanced.  Men are twice as likely as women to be the victim of a serious assault (Level 2 or 3 – assault with a weapon or assault causing bodily harm). 

Common assault has been declining steadily since the 1970s, however serious assault has been increasing for the last 25 years, falling for the first time in 2008.  It’s no large stretch to see that violence against women is on the decrease, while violence against men is on the increase.

Let’s take a similar look at homicides in Canada.  In 2008, the lowest rate (24%) of female victims since 1961 was recorded.  Conversely, the rate of male homicide victims has been rising steadily for the last 10 years.  In terms of spousal homicide, women are 4 times as likely as men to be killed by a current or former intimate partner (51 vs. 14 for 2007).

To summarize all those numbers and add a couple of new ones:

• men are twice as likely as women to be assaulted with a weapon
• men are three times more likely to be the victim of a homicide
• all forms of violence against women have been falling since the 1960s
• all forms of violence against men have remained stable or have been increasing
• spousal violence and homicide has been falling since the 1970s
• women are four times more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner
• homicide by long gun (rifle/shotgun) has been falling steadily since the 1970s
• homicide by handgun has increased by 24% since 2002

Putting it all together

Well, now that I’ve bamboozled you with statistics, what does it all mean?

It means that violence in our society is not a simple issue.  Gun control advocates and feminist groups would have us believe that women are always the helpless victim at the hands of Neanderthal men. 

What I have attempted to show you with all these facts is that, while women are more often the victim in specific circumstances, the same holds true for men.  Guns are not a gendered issue any more than drunk driving is a mother’s issue.  Violence in our society affects everyone and the divisive tactics employed by groups like IANSA and the Coalition for Gun Control do little to help anyone.

Guns are not the problem in our society, nor are they the solution.  Until the real problems are addressed, weapons – including guns – will always have a place in our world. 

Sources

• Bureau of Justice Statistics, Intimate Partner Violence 1993-2001
• Statistics Canada, Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile, 2009
• Statistics Canada, Homicide in Canada, 2008
• Statistics Canada, Police Reported Crime Statistics, 2008
• Statistics Canada, Residents of Canada’s shelters for abused women, 2008
• Myrna Dawson, Valerie Pottie Bunge, and Thierno Balde, National Trends in Intimate Partner Homicides: Explaining Declines in Canada 1976-2001
• NRA-ILA, Gun Ownership at All-Time High, New FBI Report Shows Violent Crime at a 35-Year Low, Murder at a 43-Year Low
• Department of Justice, Canada, Spousal Abuse: A Fact Sheet from the Department of Justice, Canada

WOMEN AND GUN CONTROL – PART 1
WOMEN AND GUN CONTROL – PART 3

Folly of Feminism

The Toronto Star recently ran an article discussing a report released by the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (CFAIA) and the Canadian Labour Congress.

I could critique the usual fear-mongering and misuse of statistics in their report, or postulate on why a labour union was involved in its creation. However, I think a more useful approach is to focus on feminism as a whole.

In their earliest forms, feminism and women’s liberation were noble movements.  They sought to give women equality, legal autonomy, self-determination, and freedom of choice in a broad range of topics from reproduction to employment.  However, in more recent years, the agenda of feminist activists seems to have less to do with giving disadvantaged women a hand up and more to do with giving them a handout.

Activists wail and beat their drums, blaming everything from men to weapons to government for the plight of subjugated women everywhere.  They ignore the fact that portraying women as helpless victims of society undermines the entire concept of feminism.  They also ignore the fact that men and women are different.  While striving for total equality is noble, it’s also a pipe dream.  Men and women are not equal and they never will be.  There are very definite physical, emotional and mental differences between the sexes.  Some roles in our society are better suited to women, others to men, and no amount of government initiatives will ever alter that fact.

Should women have the opportunity to tackle any societal role that they choose?  Absolutely. However, so should men.  While there are still traditionally male-dominated areas where it’s difficult, if not impossible, for a woman to break through, the same holds true for men. 

This brings up another concept that modern feminist activists refuse to acknowledge: that men suffer too.  In their world, violence or discrimination against a woman is a human rights abuse, but violence or discrimination against a man is not just normal, it’s acceptable.  The divisive tactics used by feminist activists show that they have another agenda that has nothing to do with bettering the lives of women.  If they were truly interested in bettering our society, they would be looking at ways to improve the quality of life for everyone, not just women.

Taking a slightly different tack, in the Star article I mentioned above, wage parity (or lack thereof) in Canadian society is brought up.  I’m not going to touch on the fact that the professor quoted in the article is focussing only on wages as an indicator of quality of life.  Instead I’m going to point out how feminist activists, as usual, fail to take into consideration 3 very key issues that cause such a discrepancy in earnings: choice, childbearing and communication.

Many women simply choose not to go into higher paying (and traditionally male-dominated) fields.  The reasons are many and varied: it may be a career that is better suited to men, women just aren’t interested, or if they are in the field they’re unwilling to do what’s necessary to earn their place.  You see, equal opportunity isn’t something that can come from government handouts or special committees.  Like men, women need to push through obstacles on their own and prove that they are capable of doing the job.

I’ve worked in a male-centric field my entire adult-life and I’ve encountered many seemingly “backward” or “sexist” attitudes along the way.  I know my male readers are going to love this, but men really are like children 😀  They will regularly push the boundaries to see what they can get away with.  Women planning to work in a mostly male environment need to learn how to thrive in that environment.  There are many tricks and tools that are far more effective than crying “harassment” and seeking disciplinary action.  Gaining acceptance isn’t about running to management to complain that your male co-workers aren’t playing nice and trying to demand their respect simply because of your gender.  It’s about earning their respect based on merit. 

Connected to Choice is the second item I mentioned: Childbearing.  In 60% of two-earner families, one partner works full-time while the other either doesn’t work, or works part-time.  In 91% of those families, the man is the primary breadwinner. [Source: Statistics Canada, Family Work Patterns]  It’s pretty simple.  Women who have children work less, which means they have less work experience than their male co-workers, which means they will earn less. 

I can already hear people complaining that women are being “punished” for having children.  Quite the contrary, it’s actually very equal.  Like their male co-workers, they’re being paid based on their recent relevant work experience, rather than being given a handout simply for being female. 

My last point is communication.  Many a book has been written outlining the differences in communication styles between men and women.  In general, men tend to be more direct and ask for what they want.  Women tend to use a more subtle approach. 

Over the years I’ve seen the following scenario happen time and again, not so much in unionized employment, but definitely in the private sector:  Joe and Jane start working in the same job at the same company at the same time earning the same wage.  Five years later, they’re both in the same job, but Joe is now earning more than Jane.  Another 5 years down the road, Jane is still in the same job, earning only slightly more than when she started, while Joe has been promoted and received a raise…twice!

The modern feminist would have us believe that this is a perfect example of inequality in the workplace.  On the contrary, it’s a perfect example of a skill that women need to be taught in order to be successful in the workplace.  Why is Joe doing so much better in the company than Jane?  Because he asked.  Women will toil away at a job for years, expecting their boss to notice their hard work and offer them a raise or promotion.  Men will simply go to their boss and ask for it.

Much progress has been made in the quest for women’s rights over the last 200 years.  Laws have been made and repealed; cultural norms have been challenged and changed.  Government legislation has gone about as far as it can go.  It’s now up to women to pick up the flag and run with it themselves.

Instead of undermining their own efforts by portraying women as victims, feminists need to start taking a more positive and proactive approach.  Rather than wasting their time and energy lobbying for sympathy and handouts, they should be teaching women the skills they need to succeed.