On guns, Mr. PM, try Down Under

[Gord]

This debate could go on for ever. The sad part is the The Dawson College shootings were perpetrated by an individual with registered guns. So please explain to be how the gun registry was able to help prevent such a massacre.

[geoffrey]

It's a chosen way of life with no victims, like Bubber would like to say about pot smoking for example. Even trophy hunters are doing little wrong IMO. Population maintenance is required now that we over protect many species.

I also struggle with this tightening of gun laws will reduce crime. It comes from the same people generally that say loosening drug laws will reduce crime. Why the hypocracy?

Because there are different forces at work.

The assumption is if drugs are legal, the prices would fall so that crime would not be necessary to buy drugs. On the other hand, if guns are readily available, they will be readily available for criminals........

.....the canard that victims will have guns to doesn't lessen the fact that they are still victims.....

I thought the idea was raising prices, which would reduce consumption and make everyone better off.

Or maybe that idea really was as flawed as I claimed? Hmm...

[M.Dancer]

It's a chosen way of life with no victims, like Bubber would like to say about pot smoking for example. Even trophy hunters are doing little wrong IMO. Population maintenance is required now that we over protect many species.

I also struggle with this tightening of gun laws will reduce crime. It comes from the same people generally that say loosening drug laws will reduce crime. Why the hypocracy?

Because there are different forces at work.

The assumption is if drugs are legal, the prices would fall so that crime would not be necessary to buy drugs. On the other hand, if guns are readily available, they will be readily available for criminals........

.....the canard that victims will have guns to doesn't lessen the fact that they are still victims.....

I thought the idea was raising prices, which would reduce consumption and make everyone better off.

Or maybe that idea really was as flawed as I claimed? Hmm...

Perhaps because the differences are so extreme that the comparison is absurd?

[August1991]

Bump.

[Pliny]

Because there are different forces at work.

The assumption is if drugs are legal, the prices would fall so that crime would not be necessary to buy drugs. On the other hand, if guns are readily available, they will be readily available for criminals........

Criminals will always get guns if they want them.

It seem you are saying that if there are more guns available there will then be an increase in criminals? Criminality is created in two ways, one: by laws that will make criminals and two: by people with criminal intent.

With gun laws are we creating more criminals or stopping criminal intent or perhaps trying to prevent accidents and incidents of rage and/or mental lapses in judgment?

.....the canard that victims will have guns to doesn't lessen the fact that they are still victims.....

The way you put it is indeed a canard. It should be said that 'if honest people will have guns too it may lessen the number of victims' of criminal's with guns. Victims are victims.

[PIK]

Let do what the australians did, I am talking tamils, put them right on a plane back home. They are not even allowed into their waters. I agree.

[August1991]

Criminals will always get guns if they want them.

Pliny, that's dumb - and simplistic.

Criminals are not stupid. If it's easy, many will have guns. If it's hard, many won't. This is not a black/white, male/female question. There are degrees.

---

I happen to think that the Australian compromise on gun control makes alot of sense. I think that it would work well in Canada. I am surprised that Harper never proposed it, and I am surprised that Layton is not proposing it now.

Margrace was right to start this thread. Maybe, we should look "down under" on this question.

Edited September 3, 2010 by August1991

[Topaz]

Almost everyone I've heard on the TV have said that registering a gun doesn't save lives. Here's the question... does licensing a gun save lives? What's the problem with registering? Is it the cost or is it that government is too involved again? I know that Alberta does not want the registry and I guess that's the main reason Harper is going after it. I still say the provinces should take over this.

[August1991]

Almost everyone I've heard on the TV have said that registering a gun doesn't save lives. Here's the question... does licensing a gun save lives? What's the problem with registering? Is it the cost or is it that government is too involved again? I know that Alberta does not want the registry and I guess that's the main reason Harper is going after it. I still say the provinces should take over this.

I live in downtown Montreal but even I can understand that many rural people in Canada (and Canada is a rural country) use guns the way civilized people use toothbrushes.

It makes as much sense to force rural people to register guns as to force civilized people to register their toothbrush. (I know that toothbrushes are generally not lethal, and even rural people can be civilized. So if you dislike my example, because you're an urban progressive lefitst, consider registering Henckel knives.)

IMHO, we should restrict the use of guns (as Australia does). It is absurd to make the federal bureaucracy to register every long gun in Canada. It creates a huge bureaucracy and imposes an ongoing cost on private citizens - to what gain?

If Canada were Monaco or Luxembourg, a small urban country, then this long gun registry idea might make sense. But Canada is the second largest country, by area, in the world. Canada is a rural country. Rocks and trees. There are better ways to protect people.

----

If we registered every toothbrush, would Canadians suffer fewer toothaches?

Such is the absurdity of this public debate.

Edited September 3, 2010 by August1991