Gun Control

[segnosaur]

What do you suggest we do to prevent more Marc Lepines from using guns?

How about we just accept that as a society that values a certain amount of freedom, there is a risk of such incidents happening. Just as with backyard swimming pools and private automobile use, there will always be tragic deaths. At best we can tinker with the rules to reduce the risk, but we will probably always have incidents like the Montreal shootings.

I've heard the argument from many a gun advocate that nothing at all can be done to prevent this but I haven't heard a single politician argue that this is why we shouldn't try to prevent them. If the inconvenience and burden of gun control is so onerous and invasive that society feels it can afford the occasional Lepine then why can't the politicians just say so?

Ummm... perhaps because it would be detrimental to a politicians career to just say "We can't do anything"? Politicians are in the business of getting elected. If they came out and said "We'll never stop all tragic shooting deaths" they will likely loose to the politician who makes the claim (probably falsely) that he "Has a plan to make us safe".

We obviously accept a lot more death and injury from other dangerous activities like swimming and driving, why not the few that guns cause?

Ummm... I find it ironic that you would ask why we don't "Accept the deaths/injury that guns cause". Did you not at one point call for the storage of firearms only at central armories? (Yeah, while technically allowing "private ownership", it pretty much curtails the usefulness/enjoyment most would get from such ownership.)

So if you want to ask "why don't we accept the risk from firearms", why don't you just ask yourself? After all, you're pretty much a textbook case... you have no problem accepting swimming/car deaths (well, apart from suggesting impractical beliefs) yet you want to curtail the benefit people get guns.

[Argus]

Tell that to 8 Million legal gun owners in this Country,There are already strict laws in place against anyone caught carrying a prohibited weapon but that doesn't stop gangs from getting them....people say "stop the guns coming from the USA" well that would work about as well as stopping drugs coming from Columbia......lol there isn't enough money, resources or officers to deal with that. Guns are a fact of life in Canada and that is the way its going to stay.

but it wouldn't inconvenience all 8 million. It wouldn't inconvenience rural gun owners at all, and would only inconvenience those urban gun owners who wanted to use their guns for something within the city - which I'm thinking is a very small number.

[Wild Bill]

What do you suggest we do to prevent more Marc Lepines from using guns?

Sadly, there is only one way but you're not going to like it!

There are practical limits in trying to keep guns out of the hands of wingnuts like Lepine. It's like the old argument about controlling drugs - you'd need a cop on every corner and how could we possibly afford that? The first 80% of anything is easy and relatively cheap. The last 20% just gets harder and more expensive on a logarithmic curve that will never quite touch 100% of the desired solution.

The only other alternative is defensive approaches. We could put metal and xray scanners in schools and public institutions that are prime targets. This would dramatically change the ambiance of a place!

Lastly, we could allow the carrying of arms! I wouldn't go this far myself but I can't deny that if a wingnut starts shooting into a crowd where several citizens have the ability to fire back, odds are the death toll would be minimized. If the only defense is an armed cop then you automatically grant a Lepine 10-30 minutes of free and clear shooting!

I don't expect you to like any of these alternatives, eyeball. I'm just saying that realistically, there aren't any others. We can wish all we like but if Daddy can't afford a pony we won't get one. Or to be more techy, no matter how much you want the water to go uphill you will still need to buy a pump.

Things work or they don't. They are possible or they are not. They may be possible but too expensive, or demand we change our lifestyle more than we want. Personally, I think we are just going to have to accept as a fact of life that there is no defense against (as FireSign Theater said it years ago) "just some berserker who's prepared to die!"

[Argus]

West Vancouver police Chief Peter Lepine said his officers use the long-gun registry an average of 18 times a day in preparing for domestic violence calls or when dealing with potentially dangerous offenders.

BC police officers use the registry 2700 times a day.

[/i]

B.C. top cops voice support for long-gun registry

'nuff said

Anyone who says the police access the registry X times per day is automatically a liar. I can see them sitting around their shiny board room tables with their media consultants telling them what will play well, and that is always the best one they seem to find. But using it is blatantly dishonest. It suggest the police are actually checking the registry when in 99% of the cases they're not. They're checking something else, adn the system automatically cross references the registry.

These chefs all say they love the registry. I wonder what they'd say if they were told the government is going to divide up the cost and they'll have to find the money for it out of their budgets. You'd see some pretty damned fast back pedaling then! They love the registry as long as it costs them nothing, but they don't love it as much as they love almost anything else that they pay for.

[Argus]

when calling someone stupid you should make sure you know what your talking about first...

Anyone who supports this gun registry is stupid. How's that? Stupid or dishonest. I give Layton and Ignatieff credit enough to know the registry is useless, but none for honesty. Now I wonder how honest those rural NDP MPs will be when confronting their constituents. Do you suppose they'll openly admit that the party put pressure on them to change their votes so they didn't risk losing votes in Toronto and Vancouver? That the urban votes is more important to the Birkenstock wearing wine and cheese set which runs the NDP than a bunch of hick farmers?

Edited September 16, 2010 by Argus

[Argus]

I agree that it really does'nt get at the root of the problem of illegal handguns,but I don't get the problem with actually having to register rifles???

I mean,so what?

It's a complicated paperwork process that costs a lot of money and accomplishes absolutely nothing.

As for why people are irritated, read the cite I posted some pages back about the Toronto journalist who had police show up at his door because he let his FAC lapse. Because he was a good boy and registered his old gun the cops were now at his door demanding he hand it over - and very rudely, too, and threatening to get a search warrant to go through his house for it. Rural people who regard their rifles as just tools are highly offended at the thought cops will be in their faces every time the paperwork has a problem - all at the behest of urbanites who shiver under their beds every night behind barred windows and alarms in fear of visible minorities with uzis and hand guns.

Edited September 17, 2010 by Argus

[Argus]

Ah...So it could be construed as an anti-union thing???

Well,that's right up the neo-liberal Friedmanite's alley then!!!

The fact of the matter is that the Con's almost always side with the cops on any law and order issue,except this one because it's red meat for the kooky right wing base....

I have always had a great deal of sympathy for cops. But I don't count police chiefs as cops. They're selected not on the basis of competence but on their ability to smooth talk local councils and tell them what they want to hear. Their careerist types who care only about themselves, not about the people under them. I have yet to see a police chief or senior police leader in Canada who didn't turn out to be an incompetent clown. Certainly the most eager proponent of this thing, Toronto's police chief, has no obvious clue as to how policing works. Likewise the senior brass at the RCMP appear to have less knowledge of policing than the average follower of police detective shows.

[Argus]

Preventing another Marc Lepine was the original reason for the registry, now that seems to be the farthest thing from it, why is that?

Preventing a Marc Lepine was NEVER the reason for the registry. The registry was designed as a political sop to urbanites trembling at the thought of bad people with guns. Rather than actually doing something to crack down on bad people with guns the liberals brought in this silly "gun registration" thing so they could hold it aloft and trumpet how they were doing something about crime. Of course, they didn't actually WANT to do anything about crime because for the most part, liberals tend to have more sympathy with criminals than victims, and neither the Libs nor the NDP could stomach the thought of tougher laws or sentences.

[g_bambino]

That kind of thinking is EXACTLY why we in rural Canada will NEVER support the gun registry.

Australia has perhaps even stricter rules on gun ownership than Canada; only 5.2% of Australians own guns; which is far less than the rural population of the country. They manage to survive and I never once heard a complaint about the rules; in fact, all the Australians I knew - including those in the outback town I lived in for 3 months - were supportive - almost proud - of the country's gun policies. What makes rural Canadians so different?

[wulf42]

but it wouldn't inconvenience all 8 million. It wouldn't inconvenience rural gun owners at all, and would only inconvenience those urban gun owners who wanted to use their guns for something within the city - which I'm thinking is a very small number.

It's not the registry that is really the concern....i agree with gun control and before a firearms license is given training is required and firearms need to be properly stored and that is all fine with me, the problem is where will it stop? next a certain type of long gun won t be acceptable and then a shotgun should be outlawed and so on and so on. The registry simply makes life harder for people who are not a threat! If you want to reduce firearm violence increase the prison time by about 20 years for anyone committing a crime with a firearm ...problem solved.

Edited September 16, 2010 by wulf42

[Topaz]

It's not the registry that is really the concern....i agree with gun control and before a firearms license is given training is required and firearms need to be properly stored and that is all fine with me, the problem is where will it stop? next a certain type of long gun won t be acceptable and then a shotgun should be outlawed and so on and so on. The registry simply makes life harder for people who are not a threat! If you want to reduce firearm violence increase the prison time by about 20 years for anyone committing a crime with a firearm ...problem solved.

Let the boys have their toy guns,....register the bullets!!

[g_bambino]

If you want to reduce firearm violence increase the prison time by about 20 years for anyone committing a crime with a firearm ...problem solved.

Yes... That's worked well elsewhere.</sarcasm>

Edited September 16, 2010 by g_bambino

[wulf42]

Yes... That's worked well elsewhere.</sarcasm>

Well it probably will work better than a useless gun registry.

[wulf42]

oop's double post

Edited September 16, 2010 by wulf42

[wulf42]

Let the boys have their toy guns,....register the bullets!!

Many people have an historical interest in Guns and simply collect them and never fire a single round...so i would imagine many people would be fine with that.

Edited September 17, 2010 by wulf42

[g_bambino]

Well it probably will work better than a useless gun registry.

Any evidence for this probability?

[eyeball]

How about we just accept that as a society that values a certain amount of freedom, there is a risk of such incidents happening. Just as with backyard swimming pools and private automobile use, there will always be tragic deaths. At best we can tinker with the rules to reduce the risk, but we will probably always have incidents like the Montreal shootings.

I accept that, I've never said otherwise. I just don't accept that the tinkering we've seen to date when it comes to preventing gun deaths has done anything.

Ummm... perhaps because it would be detrimental to a politicians career to just say "We can't do anything"? Politicians are in the business of getting elected. If they came out and said "We'll never stop all tragic shooting deaths" they will likely loose to the politician who makes the claim (probably falsely) that he "Has a plan to make us safe".

If voters are so stupid as to always fall for unrealistic promises where do they get the smarts to accept hard realities?

Ummm... I find it ironic that you would ask why we don't "Accept the deaths/injury that guns cause". Did you not at one point call for the storage of firearms only at central armories? (Yeah, while technically allowing "private ownership", it pretty much curtails the usefulness/enjoyment most would get from such ownership.)

They still get to go target shooting and hunting. People who fly planes recreationally aren't allowed to park their planes in their driveway and use the street as a runway. Why not Mr. Double Standard?

So if you want to ask "why don't we accept the risk from firearms", why don't you just ask yourself? After all, you're pretty much a textbook case... you have no problem accepting swimming/car deaths (well, apart from suggesting impractical beliefs) yet you want to curtail the benefit people get guns.

No I don't, I want to see more being done to prevent more Marc Lepines from happening. Forging the specific benefit you mention, storing guns at home, seems like a reasonable trade off to me. Like storing planes at airports.

[Sir Bandelot]

Yeah that's right, there's a conspiracy here. The police chiefs don't really care about their staff, they only care about making liberals look good. Same goes for the police union. Lord knows how they support liberals, and don't really represent the officers.

It cost 2 Billion over ten years? Pshaw... Harper can blow 1 billion on a weekend in Toronto.

[Keepitsimple]

I'll say it one more time. The handgun registry is the perfect example for why a REGISTRY DOESN'T WORK. We've had strict licensing requirements for handguns AND a registry since 1934. We've had 75 years to optimize and improve the handgun registry and guess what - we've still got criminals running around in every major city killing people with handguns. So all this hand-wringing about saving the registry so it can be improved is pure hogwash.

[PIK]

Let the boys have their toy guns,....register the bullets!!

They already are, another example of how people have no idea what is going on ,but act if they do. If you want to buy ammo, you need a PAL,then your name and PAL number , address, what you bought ,how much you bought, what day you bought it and waht time you bought it, IS ALL RECORDED. What makes me sad is seeing the family of the poor girls killed begging for the registry, these poor people have been sold a bill of goods that does nothing and they are being used to push it thru, I am sorry for your loss, but you are making a fool out of yourselves for something that does not do a damn thing, and I do not like the idea I have to suffer for it.When you have NDP'ers saying they changed their minds because of how the cons went about trying to kill it, nothing to do with guns or safety of the people ,but pure politics.This has gotten out of hand.

[Argus]

Yes... That's worked well elsewhere.</sarcasm>

Can you tell us what other jurisdictions have this law?

[eyeball]

I'll say it one more time. The handgun registry is the perfect example for why a REGISTRY DOESN'T WORK. We've had strict licensing requirements for handguns AND a registry since 1934. We've had 75 years to optimize and improve the handgun registry and guess what - we've still got criminals running around in every major city killing people with handguns. So all this hand-wringing about saving the registry so it can be improved is pure hogwash.

This has nothing to do with preventing more Marc Lepines, the original impetus behind the registry.

The criminals you're talking about that are running around using handguns and making all gun owners look bad in the process are caused by the criminalization and prohibition of vice. We've had 75 years or more to improve how we we do that too and guess what...?

I agree improving the registry is a waste of time which is why we should scrap it and institute real gun control instead. As for reducing handguns, we need to seal the border and legalize vice. It's the answer logical solution.

Edited September 17, 2010 by eyeball

[Argus]

I'll say it one more time. The handgun registry is the perfect example for why a REGISTRY DOESN'T WORK. We've had strict licensing requirements for handguns AND a registry since 1934. We've had 75 years to optimize and improve the handgun registry and guess what - we've still got criminals running around in every major city killing people with handguns.

And handgun violence has actually risen enormously during that time and continues to rise today. This despite not only the hand gun registry but far more severe restrictions on ownership and use of hand guns than for long guns. The reason, of course, is the guns flooding across the border, and the lax and often unenforced laws against smuggling, selling, buying and posession of hand guns.

I still remember the news article, just after the last government "tightened up" laws about illegal guns, the street gang people caught with fully automatic Uzis in Cornwall.

They got a fine. And were released.

[g_bambino]

Can you tell us what other jurisdictions have this law?

Which law? And why would our laws apply to other jurisdictions?

[grammar]

Edited September 17, 2010 by g_bambino

[Argus]

Which law? And why would our laws apply to other jurisdictions?

[grammar]

You suggested the idea of a 20 year addition to the sentence for firearm use hadn't worked in other jurisidctions. I want to know which jurisdictions have tried it so I can check their results.