Monthly Archives: March 2014

I think what Canadians wanted to achieve with our gun control initiative and policy was to create a culture of safety and responsibility around the ownership and use of guns. — Anne Mclellan (March 10th 2004)

To prop up the Canadian Firearms Act imposed on Canadian gun owners by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Anne McLellan was appointed as the Minister of Justice in 1997 (a post she held until 2002). In propping up the Canadian Firearms Act, the Ministry of Justice came up with the slogan Aiming for Safety for the promotion of the Canadian Firearms Program, a component of the Canadian Firearms Act. I remember all this at the time, and then as now, when I review the transcriptions of Anne McLellan’s public pronouncements on creating a “culture of safety and responsibility around the ownership and use of guns,” I still register shock and disbelief. Is she that obtuse? How does making gun ownership a crime, enabling bureaucrats to prohibit makes and models of firearm arbitrarily and demanding that hunters and sport shooters register themselves and their property with the state do anything for safety and responsibility around the ownership and use of guns? In short, it does nothing of the kind; Aiming for Safety is nothing more than a euphemism for gun prohibition.

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In the debate over guns, both sides are angry. The pro-gunners are angry at the ignorance, lies, and distortions of the anti-gunners, and the anti-gunners are angry with the pro-gunners for presenting facts. ― Dave Champion

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There have been a number of school shootings in the past several years. Of the various school shootings the only one where I can recall where I was and what I was doing when the news broke was the one that took place at Columbine High School in Colorado on April 20, 1999. I was working for Canadiana in its offices at the National Library National Archives of Canada at the time. I was searching for books in the library stacks and another employee had a radio on. News that there was a shooting at a high school had been relayed and the radio announcer was assuring listeners that the school shooting was not in Ottawa. Twelve students and one teacher were killed in the rampage, with twenty-four students injured before the gunmen, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, committed suicide. Since then there have been a number of shootings in schools, Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007 and Sandy Hook Elementary School, on December 12, 2012, for example, in which children and young people were murdered, in each case by a mentally ill individuals in unlawful possession (with the exception of Seung-Hui Cho who lawfully acquired his firearms) of the guns used in the shootings. These tragedies are exploited shamelessly by gun prohibitionists who insist that it is guns that are the problem and thereby it is gun owners who are guilty by association. The typical refrain is something along the lines of “if not for those selfish gun nuts who refuse to give up their deadly toys, those children would still be alive.”

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Security is the mother of danger and the grandmother of destruction — Thomas Fuller

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The Canadian Firearms Program, a component of the Canadian Firearms Act, a stupid law, drafted by the Liberal government led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien and enacted in 1995, burdens peaceful and law-abiding hunters, sport shooters and gun collectors with oppressive regulations. Moreover, it enables belligerent and defiant bureaucrats in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to arbitrarily order the prohibition and confiscation of legally acquired and owned firearms. The decision to proceed with this policy was rooted in the moral panic that arose following the mass murder of fourteen women at an engineering school in Montreal in 1989. Moral panic is defined as “an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.” (Jones, M, and E. Jones as cited in Wikipedia) Following this tragedy, Canadian gun owners were singled out as a menace to the social order. This was not the first time in Canadian history that a federal government responded to a moral panic in pushing forward with stupid legislation, against the counsel of advisors from within its ranks. A stupid law that resulted in the oppressive regulation and confiscation of property from a segment of the population in Canadian society who were unjustly deemed to threaten the social order. Continue reading →

The bedfellows politics made are never strange. It only seems that way to those who have not watched the courtship. — Marcel Achard

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The following comment was posted as a response to my recent post on the current state of firearms laws in Canada.

I think male homosexuality repellent, and therefore do not follow those issues closely. Because I am a genuine (which is to say, 19th century, tolerant, John-Stuart-Mill-type liberal) I believe that things which are none of my business are, you know, none of my business: You do not need, nor would receive, my approval, much less “celebration” for whatever passes for your lifestyle choice. But whatever consenting adults want to do that does not harm or threaten others is NONE OF MY BUSINESS. It is most certainly none of government’s business, and I believed that, and supported homosexual rights, from the times when homosexuality was an imprisonable felony in Canada.
I am heartened to see therefore, that with your lifestyle, you account responsible arms ownership on the list of things that are None Of Government’s Business.
When the government wants to prosecute those who harm or threaten others, they have my entire support. When they want to persecute those whose lifestyle choices are contrary to contemporary fashion, the resistance, subversion, and defiance are called for.

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The Firearms Act is about licensing and registration, not confiscation. — Former Justice Minister Anne McLellan, July 31, 1998.

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I bought my first gun in a private sale, back in 1977 when I was sixteen. As it happens, 1977 was a turning point in the regulatory framework for gun owners in Canada; it was the last of the good old days for gun owners in Canada. The familiar classification system for firearms was in effect (non restricted, restricted and prohibited). This was enacted in 1969 with the passage of Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69 (S.C. 1968-69, c. 38), which, coincidentally, also decriminalized homosexuality. In 1977 it was unlawful to sell guns to individuals of unsound mind or those under prohibition orders, otherwise Canadians were free to own and use guns for hunting, sport shooting and collecting without having the state on their back. As the Minister Justice, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, observed in shepherding the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69 through parliament, “obviously, the state’s responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation.” (as cited in Wikipedia) In 1977, just as the state had no business in bedrooms of the nation, neither did the state have any business in the basements and gun cabinets of the nation.

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We are living at a time when creeds and ideologies vary and clash. But the gospel of human sympathy is universal and eternal. — Samuel Hopkins Adams

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Is religious liberty under threat in the United States? This is an interesting question and bears examination. The controversy over the passage of SB 1062 in Arizona and the decision by the Governor, Jan Brewer, to veto the legislation has many people insisting their religious liberty is threatened and determined to stiffen their resistance to this perceived threat. Regarding religious liberty in US society, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, in 1944 (then Federal Council of Churches of Christ), formed the following definition:

Religious liberty shall be interpreted to include freedom to worship according to conscience and to bring up children in the faith of their parents; freedom for the individual to change his religion; freedom to preach, educate, publish and carry on missionary activities; and freedom to organize with others, and to acquire and hold property, for these purposes. (as cited in Wikipedia)

At present, these are fundamental freedoms guaranteed in US law. Is there any reason to believe they are at risk? Continue reading →