29/11/2011

I've Quit Trying to Figure it Out

I live in the heartland of Canada’s gun culture. I don’t think there was an area of Canada that supported Stephen Harper’s move to get rid of the gun registry more than right here in Saskatchewan. People who would never even flinch at lining up to register their marriage, their car or even their dog balked at filling out a bit of paperwork to register their guns.

Saskatchewan gopher rifle
Filling out a form was characterized as some soviet style intrusion into their private lives. Nothing would lather up a radio call in show like the topic of gun control. Farmers after all need their guns to shoot gophers and to keep marauding packs of coyotes at bay lest they eat their grandchildren or worse still, their Pekinese farm dog.

Gun control is just an issue for bleeding heard Liberal and NDP city dwellers anyway. Isn’t it? Us folks out here in the country don’t have our firearm problems.

I frankly found it all quite unnerving.

Looking at the Regina leader post just this morning I noticed:

  • A man on the Cowessess First Nation was charged with careless use of a firearm, possession of a weapon dangerous to the public, unauthorized possession of a firearm, unsafe storage of a firearm and uttering threats as a result of a situation there. It took up to 40 RCMP officers to resolve the issue.. 
  • A Regina man was charged with uttering a death threat, assault with a weapon, pointing a firearm, careless use of a firearm and possession of a firearm contrary to a court order. 
  • In Earl Grey, two men either killed each other, or there was a gun related murder/suicide yesterday.
  • And, there was a letter to the editor about a person who after threatening his former girlfriend had his firearms taken away said. He then told his former friend, “If you feel safe now, don’t. I have more guns hidden away on my farm” or something to that effect.
All that in one day.

Bear in mind, this is not big city violence. That is something else all together. Harper's law and order agenda will take care of all that.

Now if we follow these home grown cases, I am sure we will find out these people who were charged are all upstanding members of their communities. Good people who just, somehow fell into the wrong crowd and lost their way or that they didn't really mean to do those things but were driven to it by unique circumstances.

I for one would feel a lot better with effective gun control.


2 comments:

  1. Well Gord, one of the unexpected consequences of the end of the long gun registry is the free sale of firearms among private citizens. This will soon lead to the wide availability of long guns to anybody who wants one regardless of whether they have a PAL or not (hey when you're selling a gun off Craigslist are you going to ask the guy with money in his hand for his PAL?). The second unexpected consequences will be the possession of weapons like this:
    http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/support-weapons/1459.aspx
    If I were a less than popular politician, or a cop, I would not like either of those one bit.
    A couple of old friends of mine who did serious time in various institutions once told me that the first emotion to come over them when they got out, was rage. So we're going to make long guns easier to get and put more people in Jail for longer times. Consequences. We'll have the murder rate of Chicago in Moosejaw.
    Wheeeeeeee!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This week some guy in Alberta shot three people in a van then turned the gun on himself. Another one of those good guy has bad day stories.
    In Regina a "sporting goods" store was broken into and 50 guns were stolen along with the ammo. No need to worry about registering those babies.

    ReplyDelete

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