Molly

PT, I lived in rural Saskatchewan, on the borders between farmland and true ranchland... We used to have a copy of newspaper clipping picture of the long-time cook at the church camp my kids attended- holding the cougar that came into her kitchen, and the gun she offed it with. There were so many angles of the law broken to end up with that picture, but I, for one, figure that the good outcome speaks for itself.

LOL Exactly! What does it have to do with registering long guns? But you are the one who took us on that tangent. The registry is what I object to, for its cost, its ineffectiveness, and its harrassment factor. I know I have not, but has anyone AT ALL objected to safety course requirements for gun owners? My kids took gun/hunter safety classes as part of their grade 7 health program! I took a gun safety class as an adult, but do not now nor have I ever owned a gun! That only makes sense when they/we lived in a place where guns might be present and/or in use, or where circumstances may well demand that you use one.

And Myata... when you are done speaking about ideology, good and evil, 'handguns semi auto guns and submachine guns', perhaps we can get back to the subject at hand-- utilitarian long guns, that can neither be easily hidden, nor shoot many rounds in quick succession. I'd propose that the long gun registry: a) doesn't address the issues it's intended to address; doesn't achieve it's (not very useful but) actual internal goals- that of having a reasonably comprehensive listing and tracking of the long guns in existence; c) is unnecessarily expensive and ponderous, both in it's beaurocracy, and for those who own those guns. Isn't that just about the purist definition of a program that should be either massively revamped, or scrapped completely? that it doesn't do what you want it to do; doesn't do what it says it's doing; costs too much, and red-tapes the heck out of folks? Seriously.

Progressive Tory, your post about the ease with which coyotes can be driven off is exactly the sort of comment that drives folks who are miles from being 'gun nuts', absolutely crazy. Suffice to say, that's not how it is. Coyotes aren't timid; speakers would accomplish nothing ; MNR would not fix it... Canada (outside southern ontario) is just not so urbanized, so small-scale, so insulated from Mom Nature nor so nanny-state-ish as that. I'd even agree that for southern Ontario, the reasons to own a gun mostly don't go beyond: to play dangerously; and to make trouble. Making rules to suit conditions that only hold within that tiny appendage-to-the-nation is ... utterly stupid. When your calving pasture is the couple of hundred acres closest to the yard, and coyote numbers are so high that they are packing up and attacking the cows as they give birth, and the MNR has a staff of two people who, even if they were going to come out and shoot coyotes, have 3 or 4 dozen others spread over a thousand square miles, facing the same problems you have... believe me, you aren't going to set out hanging speakers throughout the hinterland-- and you aren't going to keep your ammunition locked up.

Without re-arguing the whole debate, I'd say Argus provided a pretty accurate description of the politics of why and how we ended up with this silly registry... but I'd propose that the liklihood of actually getting its removal through the house, or even of the matter recieving a meritorious effort, is negligible... meaning that this is also largely a sop, to re-gird the loins of the faithful, and not really a matter of serious intent.

..well, for a start by not misleading them into believing that no guns are present, when they very well might be. (I hold to the theory that more long guns went underground than ever were registered. In my experience, the folks who never used their guns in any sporting capacity far outnumbered the ones who did/do.) Mind you, it will certainly remove the warrantless searches, and most of the 'charge the victim' capacities.

It's about darned time! A long-gun registry was stupid- misplaced- from the getgo, and the rules connected to it outrageous! So far it's operated as nothing short of harrassment of- yes- the innocent and law-abiding, while having no impact at all on the criminal. Now let's see if he actually moves on it. After all he's run three campaigns with that as a plank, so far. A private members bill isn't good enough- it's a do-nothing exercize.

Oh, my! Remember, you said that, and not me! .... and since literalism isn't evidence-based, it follows that....

... condoms cause sex..... That's a bit like saying speeding causes cars.

revision: On second thought, perhaps the best analogy was an atheist Pope.

Soooo... let's hear your thumbnail analysis of the motives of Hutterites for THEIR mode of dress. Then we can move on to the analysis of the wearing of habits by various Christian nuns.... (who aren't, I don't believe, required to remove them for passport photos, drivers licenses, etc.)

Argus... if religious opinions don't interfere with the attitudes to SCIENCE of the Minister of State for SCIENCE and Technology, then they are irrelevant. If his religion compromises/cripples his ability to grasp SCIENCE, to understand it, or to grant it appropriate respect, then it becomes a major issue. Was it Dobbin? who pointed out that we'd be screamingt every bit as hard if he happenned to espouse old order Mennonite perspectives on technology. It was an apt analogy- the most apt of the whole collection. However, I don't believe analogies are necessary. An antithetical-to-science attitude , regardless of its source, from a science minister, is asinine on its face, and requires no analogy to illustrate it's absurdity. I'm struggling to believe anyone could be a sufficiently partisan pawn to defend it!

LOL What fun! to watch a group of MEN talking about abortion! Two things: First, ALL birth control methods have failure rates, even when performed perfectly. If performed imperfectly (as in 'Nobody is perfect.') then there are even more failures. (So 'She should have used birth control.' is a pretty irrelevant comment, since in all liklihood, 'she' did. In any case, we doubt the intent of such a comment to mean that women who do use birth control should have abortion on demand without argument from you.) A wonderful one-liner is that our test of what qualifies someone as a good parent is 'If you are too irresponsible to remember to take a pill every day, you pass." (That should make the Darwinians in the crowd shudder.) And secondly, using 'girls' is completely inappropriate. Teen-agers only account for about 16% of abortions. There are as many women over the age of 35 as teen-agers seeking abortion- so you aren't talking about kids, but rather real, grown-up, job-holding, tax-paying, vote-casting WOMEN who are old enough to make an informed decision, and tough enough to tell you to butt out.

Vindicates him? High interest rates don't vindicate him. The message of high rates is, "He-llo-o?" this is urgent! " It was a compelling reason to try a heck of a lot harder, not an excuse!

Here I thought the visible cost to crappy health decisions and high-risk behaviours is POOR HEALTH! That's a pretty good incentive, without creating a special Beaurocracy of Being Judgmental about Unhealthy Indulgences.

Just one more way that McGuinty fails to win my heart... However, partisan-ing it wins no points anyway. Does one threaten to go Conservative (the ones who first planned it, leaderless and for the time being, completely knackered), or NDP (Right. In Simcoe County- or even in post-Rae Ontario. Credible threat that is, eh?) or what? If not aiming for broad, general public objection- crossing partisan lines-, and recognition that while NIMBY-ism applies to most protests, this one has much more for legs, then one may as well give up.

The only place anyone would seriously notice it would be on large-ticket items, and if it is a problem, that's easy enough to offset or rebate at income tax time. I think it's fairly foolish not to have them harmonized and handled by a single beaurocracy. It's so much more cost-effective.

Aye. What epithet do you have for me, Alta4ever? I'm a fiscal conservative, with a strong libertarian streak, and a long, hardworking history as a Progressive Conservative. There's no place for me in the Conservative party. I'm not welcome, and I'm ... seriously ... not... interested ... in being party to that mess.

'The Liberals'.... This is not the place to howl insults at t'the Liberals. When Conservatives so flagrantly embrace inanity and mendacity, there's no strawman switch that can cover the mess. Stand by your man! But you'll get to answer for him, too.

Holy crap! Point made, PT.

Name that cut, Dancer. Please.

And having revealing pictures presented is substantially different from being required to strip down to present the private part in open court! If unlimited intimidating trauma to witnesses is only 'fair' in the name of offering effective defense, then it follows that rape shield laws should be repealed, and no event in a complainants, or witnesses past should be off-limits- regardless of relevance. That would sure clear up any backlog in the court system, or risk of false accusation. No one would be willing to accuse, or testify.

For pity sake, Bill-- it was on the table long before McGuinty! It's an asinine place to put a dump regardless of who is backing it.

'Fair' does not mean irredeemable one-sided. Giving the accused a free ride is not 'fair'. Certainly we must err to giving the accused every reasonable opportunity to defend himself, but not to the point of making justice unachievable, and truth unavailable. Punishing victims to the point that they refuse to come forward goes far beyond 'fair'.

In using 'shoe on the other foot', Kimmy, I was considering the emotional reactions of someone forced to cover or uncover themselves beyond their social comfort level. I don't know your gender, or whether you've ever found yourself in a circumstance of being embarrassingly underdressed, but I assume you can identify with the nearly universal nightmarish dream of finding onesself on stage, naked. I wonder whether asking a Muslim woman who is normally highly covered, to bare her face in a public place, would be any different, from an emotional perspective, from asking a culterally western woman who would comfortably wear short-shorts to the mall, to remove her shirt. IF it is (definitely an IF) then it's sufficiently traumatic to be avoided unless the need is EXTREMELY compelling. (I was not wandering off into Shariah, or theology at all.) ...................... None of us (that I noticed) questioned that facial expression is an aid to discerning truthfulness. We have, however, questioned how valuable it is to that end, and how consistent we are about placing value on it. (Not consistent at all, given our easy, unquestioning acceptance of any number of other facial coverings and disguises, and barriers to visibility of a face.... 'masks', if that's what you want to call them.) So... is it of that EXTREMELY compelling value?