The Great Gun Control Debate

[Kat Stevens]

Good luck with that. Total fear mongering has gripped those of a Liberal mindset.

Yup, good thing the conservative atmosphere of fear and divisiveness is over...  :

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I hope they realize that in Canada, the largest user group of "handguns on the street" are the police officers  ;D.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Good luck with that. Total fear mongering has gripped those of a Liberal mindset.

Consider that just the opening salvo. Look if even 1 in 10 gun owners in Canada sent a letter, that would amount to hundreds of thousands of letters. That gets attention.

Send letters to the editor of your local newspaper.

This time around, different classes of gun owners cannot throw each other under the bus. For example, Hunters need to defend hand gun owners- because guess what. After that first seemingly "reasonable" restriction on a freedom, your sport is next.

 

[Jed]

Consider that just the opening salvo. Look if even 1 in 10 gun owners in Canada sent a letter, that would amount to hundreds of thousands of letters. That gets attention.

Send letters to the editor of your local newspaper.

This time around, different classes of gun owners cannot throw each other under the bus. For example, Hunters need to defend hand gun owners- because guess what. After that first seemingly "reasonable" restriction on a freedom, your sport is next.

Very true words. However, they are seldom heeded.  Many of the older hunters just go along to get along. In my opinion, they put far too much faith in our politicians and LEOs. You should be able to give your cautious support, it is not like it is a life long marriage commitment or something similar.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Consider that just the opening salvo. Look if even 1 in 10 gun owners in Canada sent a letter, that would amount to hundreds of thousands of letters. That gets attention.

Send letters to the editor of your local newspaper.

This time around, different classes of gun owners cannot throw each other under the bus. For example, Hunters need to defend hand gun owners- because guess what. After that first seemingly "reasonable" restriction on a freedom, your sport is next.

I would love to contribute, but I am not a great writer unless I can use expletives lol  Any chance you have a template I can sign my name too and flood his office with ?

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I would love to contribute, but I am not a great writer unless I can use expletives lol  Can chance you have a template I can sign my name too and flood his office with ?

Just do what these guys did and drive to Ottawa to lobby  ;D

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I would love to contribute, but I am not a great writer unless I can use expletives lol  Can chance you have a template I can sign my name too and flood his office with ?

Templates are not a great way to go- office staff detect that pretty quickly and it loses impact.

Write from the heart- along the lines of you have been a life shooter and gun owner; you are law abiding; why should you have a freedom removed or restricted on scant or non- existent evidence that restricting Law abiding gun owners does nothing to impact the violent crime rate.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Good luck with that. Total fear mongering has gripped those of a Liberal mindset.

Unfortunately for gun owners it seems that the politics of the US become Canadian. With every shooting down there there seems to be an equal reaction here. After these events we should be looking at our system and realizing that were doing ok.

Too often Canadians see liberals=democrats and conservatives=republicans

 

[Halifax Tar]

Unfortunately for gun owners it seems that the politics of the US become Canadian. With every shooting down there there seems to be an equal reaction here. After these events we should be looking at our system and realizing that were doing ok.

Too often Canadians see liberals=democrats and conservatives=republicans

I have been saying this for years about our politics.  Many Canadian Liberals cannot separate our two countries and actually get them mixed together when they defend their various stances.  Gun control being the most prevalent.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

I have been saying this for years about our politics.  Many Canadian Liberals cannot separate our two countries and actually get them mixed together when they defend their various stances.  Gun control being the most prevalent.

It's not just liberals. I know a lot of people on the right who believe they have second ammendment rights

 

[Jed]

It's not just liberals. I know a lot of people on the right who believe they have second ammendment rights

Unfortunately this could not be farther from the truth. In Canada, we can not even defend ourselves let alone our property. We are at the mercy of Control freaks and a public that is too trusting yet afraid of something they do not know about or understand.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Actually, Jed, Bird_Gunner is correct that many Canadians seem to hold the view that they have "second amendment" right to bear arms.

This is a result of their ignorance of their own constitutional rights.

Canada, like all countries whose constitution includes the British Parliamentary constitutional rights by reference or tradition, has a right for its citizens to own guns (though a right that may be "controlled" by Parliament to a much larger extent than in the US) which arises from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This is the Bill of Rights that established the concept that the King cannot rule without the consent of Parliament. One of the rights settled in the Bill was that (contrary to what James the second had done, which led to his being deposed and a new King installed by Parliament - with the Bill of Rights adopted) the King had no authority to disarm his subjects.

That is the true source of any rights to own arms in Canada, and as i said, its content is however more constrained than the American right (though it is one of its inspiration).

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Actually, Jed, Bird_Gunner is correct that many Canadians seem to hold the view that they have "second amendment" right to bear arms.

This is a result of their ignorance of their own constitutional rights.

Canada, like all countries whose constitution includes the British Parliamentary constitutional rights by reference or tradition, has a right for its citizens to own guns (though a right that may be "controlled" by Parliament to a much larger extent than in the US) which arises from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This is the Bill of Rights that established the concept that the King cannot rule without the consent of Parliament. One of the rights settled in the Bill was that (contrary to what James the second had done, which led to his being deposed and a new King installed by Parliament - with the Bill of Rights adopted) the King had no authority to disarm his subjects.

That is the true source of any rights to own arms in Canada, and as i said, its content is however more constrained than the American right (though it is one of its inspiration).

Except it didn't stop the United Kingdom from disarming its own citizens, did it.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

OGBD,

Thank you for that very useful summary of the origins of our freedom to own guns (note that did not use the word "right").

If the majority is going to extinguish the freedoms of a group of people, they had better have an extraordinary set of evidence to support their position.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

OGBD,

Thank you for that very useful summary of the origins of our freedom to own guns (note that did not use the word "right").

If the majority is going to extinguish the freedoms of a group of people, they had better have an extraordinary set of evidence to support their position.

It won't take a majority. It will just require the Trudeau Liberals 39%.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

So we hit them with that piece of hypocrisy, too.

 

[McG]

I have been saying this for years about our politics.  Many Canadian Liberals cannot separate our two countries and actually get them mixed together when they defend their various stances.  Gun control being the most prevalent.

I think there are many people on both sides of the political spectrum who have difficulties understanding legal, political, social, etc differences between Canada and the US.  With that in mind, I wonder how the NYT's page 1 editorial will impact on this side of the boarder.

NYT calls for more gun regulation in first Page 1 editorial in 95 years
CTV News
05 Dec 2015

NEW YORK -- The New York Times is using space on its front page to call for greater gun regulation in the wake of recent deadly mass shootings.

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says the newspaper is running its first Page 1 editorial since 1920 on Saturday to "deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country's inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns."

The Times' editorial suggests drastically reducing the number of firearms and even "eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition."

The editorial comes after three people were fatally shot at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last week and 14 people were killed in a shooting Wednesday at a social services centre in San Bernardino, California.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/nyt-calls-for-more-gun-regulation-in-first-page-1-editorial-in-95-years-1.2688077

End the Gun Epidemic in America
​It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.
New York Times
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
04 Dec 2015

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opinion/end-the-gun-epidemic-in-america.html?_r=0

 

[Eaglelord17]

It's not just liberals. I know a lot of people on the right who believe they have second ammendment rights

It really depends on what you consider a right.

Legal rights are the rights that are legally supported by the government.

Natural rights are the rights people believe they naturally possess. For something to have ended up as a legal right, it was at one point a natural right to someone. For example I believe I have the natural right to own property, however in Canada, that is not a legal right.

 

[Jarnhamar]

We need to ban "assault style clothing".
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-two-suspects-dead-wearing-assault-style-clothing-police/article27573521/

The Prime Minister can add it to the assault weapons hes taking off the street.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

We need to ban "assault style clothing".
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-two-suspects-dead-wearing-assault-style-clothing-police/article27573521/

The Prime Minister can add it to the assault weapons hes taking off the street.

:facepalm:

Truer than you think. Careful what you wish for.