Words
Gun owner on guns
I’m a Liberal. I’m also a gun owner.
Now, I’ll bet those aren’t two sentences you’re used to seeing strung together.
But, in my case, it’s true. I don’t see them as being mutually exclusive concepts, either.
I got to thinking about guns, and the politics of guns, with the news this week the long-gun registry is a goner.
Conservative government sources revealed the registry will be scrapped this fall.
The Cons’ telegenic gun-loving talking head, Candice Hoeppner, all but wrote the obituary.
“Everyone knows it’s been part of our party’s policy for many years,” she chirped. “It’s a priority for our government.”
True enough.
And no one should be particularly surprised, either. They said they’d kill it, and now they’re killing it. That’s that.
But it’s still a mistake.
It’s going to get people killed who don’t deserve to die. Cops and women in particular.
Now, now, calm down. I’m not going to regurgitate the statistics about guns and gun control.
You’ve heard them plenty of times over the years.
Gun-related crimes are down from what they used to be, and you’re a damn fool if you suggest otherwise.
But forget about the statistics.
What’s more important here are the lives that will be lost.
Lives which wouldn’t be lost, but for the scrapping of the registry.
I used to be a crime beat reporter. Used to go along in squad cars with officers, or meet up with them at crimes scenes. I did that in Calgary and Ottawa, and I came away with a lot of respect for police officers.
It’s a cliche to say they put their lives on the line for us, but — like some cliches — it’s true.
I’ve been alongside cops when they are rushing to the scene of bank robberies, or riots, or even terrorist-type incidents.
Every time, they remember their training and they keep their cool.
The only time I’d see them looking a little bit uncertain is when they were called to one of the many, many “domestic disturbances” that happen every night in every town in every part of this country.
You could feel the edge, then. It’d get tense.
There’s a reason for that. Chances are, they were heading to a residential neighbourhood, where some pathetic coward of a man had beaten his wife, or worse.
Here’s the two very good reasons, then, for having some gun safety laws.
One, they obviously make it a bit harder for the cowardly S.O.B. to get his hands on a gun in the first place.
Two, and this is a big one for me, a gun registry helps cops.
They plug in the address on the computer in their car and they see within seconds whether the S.O.B. has a gun.
If I were a police officer, I would find that pretty damn useful information.
I’m knocking on the door, I can hear screaming inside and I know the guy on the other side of the door probably has a gun.
I know that because the registry has a record of it.
Anyway, like I say, it’s over. Conservatives wanted to get rid of the registry, and now they’re going to.
That’s that.
Not as a Liberal — just as someone who knows what guns can do — I ask one favour of Conservatives.
Next time you hear about a cop getting shot dead while attending to a domestic dispute, ask yourself one question: Did I let this happen?
What do you mean, you can’t hunt with a handgun. What about trappers, they can get a license to carry while checking their trap line. The best response to this stamen is that you can’t hunt with a handgun ONLY because the law doesn’t allow you to!
This is crap. The cop can check if someone had a pal. The cop should approach a situation assuming someone is armed, or assuming the worst, anyway. This is a classic example of liberals wanting to make life difficult for many to benefit a few.
Dear Mr. Kinsella,
As one who has attended her share of domestic disturbance calls from Sandy Hill to Kanata in my past, I can tell you first hand that police are trained and ingrained to assume that everyone and anyone may have a gun, a knife or a weapon at their disposal . It is also much more likely that a criminal will not be in possession of a legally owned or lawfully registered gun. Upon once questioning a high ranking official from the Ontario Solicitor General’s office in 2011, he imparted to me in confidence and well off the record, that the actual number of documented cases of registry related “saves” or harm prevention incidents that were enabled due to the registry was zero and that was at the national level no less.
I realize that you have stated and qualified your self as a gun owner. Are you fully and truly aware of what is involved in the rigorous process of obtaining a 12-6, an RPAL, or an ATT? (BTW that’s not the phone company) Do you actually know what IPSC, IDPA, PPC, Western Action Shooting etc. is? Have you ever introduced your self to any of the Psychiatrists, Doctors, Lawyers and yes even an Indian Chief (Six Nations), that in addition to LEO’s and everyday Joe and Janes that make up the recreational shooting community? Perhaps if you actually did you might have more to offer towards defining the character and intellect of our fraternity with verbiage more often used by those of lesser education and vocabulary.
I might ask why you would actually believe that a Brinks guard has more entitlement to guard a bag of nickels with a hand gun than a law abiding citizen gas to guard their life? I would also ask if you truly believe that even a total ban on guns would eliminate crime, Danzig’s or Creba’s etc. Ater all isn’t “banning” how we won the war on illegal drugs? Perhaps in Unicorn City or the province of Utopia. I might also ask you, other than; Hollywood vilification/portrayals, phobic or uninformed reasoning and soliciting professional favour amongst PR clients, just what is your fear and aversion to handguns vsv long guns? And really why the vacuous hyperbole and low brow ad homonyms?
It would be my pleasure to properly introduce you to a higher level of expertise on the subject and to treat you to a qualified and certified introduction and experience of hand gun sport shooting, safety, laws, regulation and people. I would gladly make you fell respectfully welcome and safe at a sanctioned range in the GTA and I am hopeful you may make yourself available in the name of credibility, education and fun. Despite your stated remarks to “ignore statistics”, I must warn you however that there is more than a one hundred fold chance you may be killed…enroute, in an everyday motor vehicle accident.
Have a blessed Christmas and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely, Rachel Richards