Gun Control

[Argus]

3.  If the referendum is passed, all firearms are to be removed from the city.  Anybody caught with a gun, trafficing or holding a gun in their home, will be charged with a severe criminal code offense.

This appears to be the heart of your proposal. We have this law now. If you are caught with a weapon you are not supposed to own, ie, do not have a firearms licence for, you are supposed to be severely punished. This has been the law for some time. It is universally ignored. I can't recall ever reading about it being enforced - ever. I can't recall a single charge under the law. I'm sure there were some, of course, somewhwere.

The closest I can recall was some criminals from Montreal who were arrested at gunpoint and had fully automatic submachineguns in their car. They were fined and then released.

Let me list a few other laws we have on the books. For example, if you point a firearm at anyone you are liable for up to 5 years in prison. This is another law never enforced. Another law is "Use of a firearm in the commision of an indictable offense". This provides a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 14 years additional prison time. Charges are usually laid using this, then withdrawn as part of a plea If you merely posess a weapon dangerous to the public peace for the purpose of commiting an offence you can get up to 2 years. Never used. If you are caught with a concealed weapon you can get up to 5 years. Never used. Or if you merely posess a restricted weapon (ie, a hand gun) without a licence you can get 5 years. That one is also rarely enforced, charges rarely, if ever laid, then plea bargained down. There are others, lots of them. Why, if you read through the crininal code you'd suspect that anyone caught holding up a convenience store would be so hammered by weapons charges they wouldn't get out of prison until they were tottering little old men. Instead ... well, we all know what weak sentences they get, and how quickly they're paroled back to the street.

[Cartman]

It seems to me that the Liberals lied to Canadians on this issue and this is what really pissed off people. I can see the government wanting to know how many guns are out there and trying to control who owns them, but they royally screwed this up. This was an attempt at gun control when they said it was simply about registration. They should have created an all party commission to determine how to handle this. All they did was further alienate the West.

Don't get me wrong, I am in favour of a reduction on such weapons in Canada. Gun ownership should not be a free for all. But this whole approach was arrogant and inefficient.

[mirror]

3.  If the referendum is passed, all firearms are to be removed from the city.  Anybody caught with a gun, trafficing or holding a gun in their home, will be charged with a severe criminal code offense.

This appears to be the heart of your proposal. We have this law now. If you are caught with a weapon you are not supposed to own, ie, do not have a firearms licence for, you are supposed to be severely punished. This has been the law for some time. It is universally ignored. I can't recall ever reading about it being enforced - ever. I can't recall a single charge under the law. I'm sure there were some, of course, somewhwere.

The closest I can recall was some criminals from Montreal who were arrested at gunpoint and had fully automatic submachineguns in their car. They were fined and then released.

Let me list a few other laws we have on the books. For example, if you point a firearm at anyone you are liable for up to 5 years in prison. This is another law never enforced. Another law is "Use of a firearm in the commision of an indictable offense". This provides a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 14 years additional prison time. Charges are usually laid using this, then withdrawn as part of a plea If you merely posess a weapon dangerous to the public peace for the purpose of commiting an offence you can get up to 2 years. Never used. If you are caught with a concealed weapon you can get up to 5 years. Never used. Or if you merely posess a restricted weapon (ie, a hand gun) without a licence you can get 5 years. That one is also rarely enforced, charges rarely, if ever laid, then plea bargained down. There are others, lots of them. Why, if you read through the crininal code you'd suspect that anyone caught holding up a convenience store would be so hammered by weapons charges they wouldn't get out of prison until they were tottering little old men. Instead ... well, we all know what weak sentences they get, and how quickly they're paroled back to the street.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well then we need to enforce severe sentencing. What is stopping that from happpening? Do we not have enough space in our prisons? Is prison life too comfortable? We keep hearing stories about about how good life is in prison with great meals, satellite TV, horses brought in for Thatcher, etc., but I certainly would not want to go there to live. Violent offenders should be housed in prisons perhaps in the far North where they are forced to physically work a large part of each day in a productive way, to offset the cost of housing them. Are our judges being personally threatened so they are afraid to be harsher? Obviously the solution is NOT to allow more guns on the streets. I mean are we going to talk about this forever in Canada or are we going to do something about it?

[mirror]

3.  If the referendum is passed, all firearms are to be removed from the city.  Anybody caught with a gun, trafficing or holding a gun in their home, will be charged with a severe criminal code offense.

This appears to be the heart of your proposal. We have this law now. If you are caught with a weapon you are not supposed to own, ie, do not have a firearms licence for, you are supposed to be severely punished. This has been the law for some time. It is universally ignored. I can't recall ever reading about it being enforced - ever. I can't recall a single charge under the law. I'm sure there were some, of course, somewhwere.

The closest I can recall was some criminals from Montreal who were arrested at gunpoint and had fully automatic submachineguns in their car. They were fined and then released.

Let me list a few other laws we have on the books. For example, if you point a firearm at anyone you are liable for up to 5 years in prison. This is another law never enforced. Another law is "Use of a firearm in the commision of an indictable offense". This provides a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 14 years additional prison time. Charges are usually laid using this, then withdrawn as part of a plea If you merely posess a weapon dangerous to the public peace for the purpose of commiting an offence you can get up to 2 years. Never used. If you are caught with a concealed weapon you can get up to 5 years. Never used. Or if you merely posess a restricted weapon (ie, a hand gun) without a licence you can get 5 years. That one is also rarely enforced, charges rarely, if ever laid, then plea bargained down. There are others, lots of them. Why, if you read through the crininal code you'd suspect that anyone caught holding up a convenience store would be so hammered by weapons charges they wouldn't get out of prison until they were tottering little old men. Instead ... well, we all know what weak sentences they get, and how quickly they're paroled back to the street.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well then we need to enforce severe sentencing. What is stopping that from happpening? Do we not have enough space in our prisons? Is prison life too comfortable? We keep hearing stories about about how good life is in prison with great meals, satellite TV, horses brought in for Thatcher, etc., but I certainly would not want to go there to live. Violent offenders should be housed in prisons perhaps in the far North where they are forced to physically work a large part of each day in a productive way, to offset the cost of housing them. Are our judges being personally threatened so they are afraid to be harsher?

Obviously the solution is NOT to allow more guns on the streets. I mean are we going to talk about this forever in Canada, or are we going to do something about it?

[Argus]

Well then we need to enforce severe sentencing.  What is stopping that from happpening?

Very liberal judges out of touch with reality, very liberal prison administrators out of touch with reality, a very liberal parole system encouraged to release as many prisoners as possible, overcrowded prisons, and overcrowded courts which require Crown's negotiate pleas in most criminal cases.

Is prison life too comfortable? We keep hearing stories about about how good life is in prison with great meals, satellite TV, horses brought in for Thatcher, etc., but I certainly would not want to go there to live.

You probably would not want to associate with street gang members either. You probably wouldn't think beating people unconscious was a fun thing. Arguably, the life of a scumbag in prison is not much worse or more dangerous than the same scumbag living on the street. Prisons seem horrible to middle class folk, but they're not so much worse than their regular life for violence oriented street criminals