Gun Control - A Not So Modest Proposal

This post will no doubt annoy firearms aficionados - I don’t much care.  In the last 2 weeks, the United States has experienced 2 mass shooting events that resulted in multiple deaths each - one approaching 10, and another over 20 dead.  

Uvalde, TX - a community of 13,000 souls spends 40% of its annual budget on policing.  It has a 10 person SWAT team … heavily armed and armoured … in a town of 13,000 people.  Sit with that for a moment.  In what universe did you ever expect a town that size to need a SWAT team, much less to spend $4M of a $10M total budget on policing?  A SWAT team that apparent spent its time keeping parents from entering the building while their children were being murdered by a man with an AR-15 … in a state which allows civilian carry without license, training, or well … pretty much any restrictions. 

The Hits Keep Coming

Yesterday, a man picked up a gun and killed 18 students in an elementary school in Texas. 

This morning a candidate for the leadership of the CPC promised to burn Canada’s gun control laws. 

Wow - talk about not reading the room - at all. Possibly the worst hot take to publish the day after yet another mass shooting takes place in the United States.  

Oddly, I do agree with the Canadian firearms lobby on one thing:  The regulatory framework around firearms is a shambles - decades of fiddling and tweaking has resulted in a mess of seemingly arbitrary rules - banning some firearms and allowing others that are seemingly very similar in function and capability. 

I don’t think the gun lobby would particularly like my approach though - because as far as I’m concerned, pretty much anything that isn’t a single shot firearm should be banned outright, and after that we can talk about what is allowed in terms of ammunition sizes. 

However, I don’t particularly want to argue about the particulars of firearms regulation today.  I’ve written other posts on the subject in the past. Today’s subject is about the culture associated with firearms. 

Dear Canadian National Firearms Association

How Dare You?

It is clear that Canada's excessive firearms control system has failed again. The excessive rules in place do not in any way increase pu blic safety, but merely contribute to an expensive and unnecessary regime which harms only those of lawful intent. Resources wasted on this fundamentally flawed firearms control regime could be better placed to support a health care system which could be better enabled to diagnose and treat conditions that put people's lives at risk.

Three RCMP officers lie dead today, two more seriously wounded and you try to use this tragedy to argue for less gun control?

At no time has the solution to gun violence ever been more guns.  We've seen that experiment tried in the US already, with its tragic price.

Fuck Off.

Sincerely,

A Canadian Who Likes Being Able To Walk The Streets Without Fear Of Being Shot

A Modest Proposal On Firearms

For years the argument has been made that regulations related to firearms are just a means for the government to subjugate the populace.

However, I have never heard any of these same people object to the reality that the same government insists that they register their car, carry insurance on the vehicle and pay taxes on the fuel that we use to run our vehicles.

Let's take a look at this for a few minutes, shall we?

In principle, a car is a mode of transportation.  It is purely civilian in its use.  In fact, using gun lobby logic, there is exactly no reason that we should have to register it to have it on the roads.  After all, cars don't commit crimes, people do, right?  Well, yes.

But, and there is a big but.  Accidents happen, people lose control of their vehicles and crash them.  Pedestrians crossing the roads get hit and injured all the time.  Being able to identify the owners of said vehicles goes a long ways to figuring out who did what in such circumstances.  Is this a bad thing?  Not at all.

Which leads me to the next point - insurance.  We are obliged to carry insurance on the vehicles we drive as a matter of course.  The reason for this is not that anyone is planning to kill others with the car (remarkably easy to do), or do damage to other people's property with said car (also remarkably easy to do), but because there is a likelihood that those accidents will happen and reparations will need to be made.  Most of us don't have a spare million dollars sitting in the bank to self-insure against the costs of long term injuries.

Licensing is a necessity.  We are required to demonstrate that we are competent to operate a motor vehicle safely.  That costs money too.

Gas taxes...we all hate them, but they are a fact of life.  We don't manage to escape them.  They are there, and in principle are used to in part to pay for the infrastructure we drive on.

So, let's turn briefly to the question of guns.  Guns are weapons.  They come out of a desire/need to kill things.  There is no other use for them beyond target practice.  You are either shooting to kill something or someone, or you are shooting at targets.  I can drive a car safely and not hurt anyone or anything else (save for a few bugs on the windshield), and similarly one can operate a gun in a safe manner.  There are inherent risks with both.

Registering a gun.  Why is this a bad thing?

The gun lobby would have you believe that the government will be at your door taking it away as soon as you register it.  To a certain degree, they have a concern here.  Governments have had a track record of arbitrarily changing the rules around what types of guns are legal or not.  Then again, they do the same thing with cars.  There are rules around what is a "street legal" car and what isn't.  Don't be fooled into thinking that you won't find yourself with a heap of trouble if your vehicle doesn't comply with the rules.

However, this doesn't change the reality that a legal obligation to register the fact you own firearms is really little different from having to register a vehicle.  Yes, there are rules.  You may disagree with the rules about what is legal or not, but those rules still exist.  I don't see where that's a bad thing.

Licensing.  Should you have to demonstrate basic competence with the maintenance, operation and storage of firearms?  I don't see why this is even remotely unreasonable.  Of all things, a mishandled firearm is far more likely to result in serious injury or even death than even a car.  As far as I am concerned, the notion of being able to own firearms without demonstrating basic competency with safety and operation of them is ridiculous.  The current "Firearms Acquisition Certificate" or whatever it's called in Canada these days is far too lax in this regard.

Insurance.  This one will no doubt get a whole lot of people riled up.  As far as I am concerned, if you own firearms it should be mandatory to carry personal liability insurance.  The simple fact is that just like a car, it is incredibly easy to injure another party with a firearm even in accidental circumstances.

As far as I am concerned, we need to treat firearms with the same kind of approach that we do cars.  Yes, there will be regulations on them.  That's a fact of life.  If you are going to own them, registration, licensing and insurance should all be mandatory.

Will this stop criminals from committing crimes?  No.  That isn't the objective.  The objective here is to ensure that those who do choose to own firearms do so responsibly in a manner that is generally safe.  Just as we cannot stop a criminal from stealing a car and driving it dangerously, we cannot stop a criminal from acquiring firearms illegally.  That is not, and never will be the objective.  Ensuring that those who choose to own guns legally do so with an eye to public safety and the liability that comes with owning a weapon of violence is another thing altogether.  If that happens to reduce the supply of firearms available to criminals on the way by, that would be an unexpected bonus.

So ... When's Harper Going To Engineer His Defeat?

There's little to be optimistic about in recent comments from Mr. Harper on the subject of Abortion, Gun Control and the Death Penalty.

On the surface, Harper has said that he doesn't want to get into those subjects, right?

Well, let's look a little further, shall we?

First of all, Harper's "back benchers" like Vellacott, Bruinooge and Epp have been very active putting forward bills that are directly or indirectly about abortion. We know that the base is alive and well in Harper's caucus - and they haven't exactly been silent.

Nobody in Harper's caucus so much as sneezes without permission from the PMO, and usually with specific instructions as to precisely when to sneeze and at what volume. Make no mistake, those bills had Harper's permission to exist in the first place - which, given Mr. Harper, is essentially an endorsement of the bill itself.

Second, I've found plenty of occasions where Harper (or his minions) have been dog-whistling to their "base" on a regular basis.

So, how do Harper's recent statements constitute a "dog whistle"? Simple, they're key hot button issues to his base - even mentioning them publicly is a reminder to his base that those issues haven't been forgotten about even if they haven't been acted on yet.

He describes abortion as an issue he’s spent his political career trying to “stay out of” and insists he wants no debate on abortion law. “What I say to people, if you want to diminish the number of abortions, you’ve got to change hearts and not laws,” he said.

Uh huh - spot the dog whistle phrases in there:

insists he wants no debate on abortion law

That's perfectly true - Harper doesn't want a debate. What he wants is the absolute power to impose his will. There will be no debate about it.

if you want to diminish the number of abortions, you’ve got to change hearts and not laws

Ah - in other words, under Harper, Canada's government will be funding more wingnut welfare programs by handing money out by the ton to so-called "pregnancy crisis centers" (fronts for various anti-choice groups) that lie to women about abortion.

Remember, Harper has done more to subvert and disrupt our democracy than any previous Prime Minister, and he's got his sights set on power - and I don't think he gives a damn what the price for that is as long as he can impose his will on Canada.