We have no need for gun control. Sure we don't!!!

Considering it is a risk (certain ones more than others), and it isn't really a necessary function, I have no problem with the RCMP considering some semi-automatics a greater threat.

This gets back to our fundamental difference over where the onus is, remember. I don't think there has to be proof that it is worse than something else when you are dealing with something potentially deadly. There was no lawn-darts lobby, even though it is possible to use them without skewering your kids. And considering much of the gun lobby's argument isn't really based on fact so much as imagined threats (and imagined ability to to deal with them WITH a gun), supposed rights, and bullshit notions like tradition and power, I think the other side of this is at least as fuzzy.

That is why my default is to defer to the side with the least potential for harm, unless there is a practical reason otherwise.

Again.. we haven't had any plutonium accidents in Canada. Does that mean we don't need to have rules about transporting it, or that it is less dangerous than a kitchen knife?

 

And in case I didn't say it clearly enough, I think the hammer and car comparison is really, really dumb, I know it most recently came up regarding Magoo's claim that "killing machine" was somehow inflammatory. Sorry, but hammers and cars are designed to do something other than kill people.

I am still waiting for explanations of what the purpose of a gun is, if not to kill, injure, or threaten. I can think of no other practical use.

Sure you can play with them, but in that they are no different than lawn darts.

 

Landscaping.

That gave me a chuckle actually, as it reminded me of a conspiracist argument that Dresden was just an Illuminati civil engineering project.

I suppose you could use them for haircuts too. A friend of mine saw an old guy in Paris do that one time with a butane torch.

 

6079_Smith_W wrote:

You can enjoy the shooting sports with a pellet gun, Hurtin Albertan. It doesn't require a semiautomatic rifle. In fact, if one took the time to do that practice there would be no need for that quick second shot when you had to use it for something important. I still have a compound bow. So it's not like anyone has to miss out on the enjoyment, even with Unionist's plan.

Exactly. I have no problem (why would I?) with hunting, target shooting, sports shooting, etc. But to balance harm and benefit, we need to get guns out of cities and towns, and ultimately out of private buy & sell hands.

Quote:

It is an interesting one, though one with flaws, particularly when one spots the sick coyote in the yard and has to find the gun rental card, drive down to the armoury and hope it will still be staggering around in the same place when you get back.

Sorry, I know lots of folks that live where there are coyotes and don't own guns. Somehow, they survive. One does get tired of hearing, "but the coyotes!!!" as the killer argument in favour of guns in every rural home.

Quote:

And of course the problem of people having to drive through towns and cities, even if they live in the country, and that most cities have a huge semi-urban area around them which is both town and country. There is no clear dividing line.

That's true. It shows the importance of getting consensus on the principle first ("don't bring your guns to town", to coin a phrase) - and then doing the technical work of defining boundaries.

Quote:

A special FN allowance to own guns is a noble ideal, but in practical terms it would also be one more reason that Native kids get pressured into gangs, and there is already overwhelming pressure on them.

That's an important caveat. I agree. Just to reiterate, there should be no exceptions or exemptions for guns in towns. The Indigenous exception I propose is for Indigenous peoples on lands where they enjoy hunting rights. And I tread carefully, because I think such issues in general need to be handled through nation-to-nation negotiations.

I'll reiterate again. Anyone caught with a gun in a town - once all the legislation and education is in place - would be subject to severe penalties. Doesn't matter why they have the gun, how they got it, or who they are.

 

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I don't agree with your plan Unionist, but I'm not just rejecting it out of hand; I see its merits, and these are things I honestly see as limits. And I am not some anti-wolf rancher. There is a lot more conflict between people and wildlife than most of us are aware of.

I know people in the country who don't have guns either; honestly, I didn't use mine very much. Like those who enjoy the benefits of herd immunity though, it would be very different if no one had a firearm. And I mentioned coyotes; I could just as easily have mentioned pest number one - gophers- or escaped boar, which are so much of a problem that municipalities have been hiring professionals to cull them for years. No one has been killed by one here in Canada, but they are potentially deadly, and very destructive. And of course I mentioned injured animals, which I have had the personal displeasure of dealing with. Deer have a special dispensation until hunting season of course; but while some vegetarians imagine they are on a moral high ground by not eating them or wearing leather, they probably don't consider those that are killed by trucks hauling lettuce up from California.

And I may have mentioned in previous conversations that I once spent a whole day with a Natural Resources officer doing nothing but driving around monitoring beaver dams which were to be blown up. THis was in a region of southeastern Manitoba where they flooded roads every year. Animal control is a real thing; not just an excuse cooked up by gun nuts. It is something we are all a part of because we all compete with them for space.

 

 

I agree. Sometimes people in urban areas become so disconnected from rural areas that they forget about animal control. However, I believe most people can support banning certain weapons and registering the rest. It amazes me how my relatives in rural Sask. became so bothered with the registry. I have hunted like most people here but I gave that up years ago and perhaps the most unsettling thing about the gun culture is the almost eroticism some had when talking about their guns.

jjuares wrote:

I agree. Sometimes people in urban areas become so disconnected from rural areas that they forget about animal control. However, I believe most people can support banning certain weapons and registering the rest. It amazes me how my relatives in rural Sask. became so bothered with the registry. I have hunted like most people here but I gave that up years ago and perhaps the most unsettling thing about the gun culture is the almost eroticism some had when talking about their guns.

 

But registering a .22cal Blazer rifle while outright banning the same Blazer-47 rifle with a few cosmetic differences?

I still believe the biggest problem people have with the firearm registery is that tomorrow they will register their firearms and next week the RCMP will decide those firearms are illegal and knock on their door to confiscate them (especially with no compensation).

The problem a most firearm owners have with banning weapons is that the decisions aren't based on empirical evidence, science or technical aspects but illogical assumptions.

80% of homicides in the US are committed with handguns and a very small number with so called assault weapons, yet.

 

One big complaint about doing away with door to door mail service is that there is an increase in the amount of mail stolen. The idea of putting firearms in a central lock up screams trouble to me. If we can't trust police to keep confiscated firearms safe (as pointed out by the NUMEROUS firearms taken from police stations) are we going to trust hundreds or thousands of firearms with a security guard from Garda?

 

I hate to admit it but home invasions where theives specifically target firearms is on a huge increase.   Presently Canadian firearm laws are geared more towards deterance than secure storage. One major thing I would like to see changed is stricter rules on storing firearms at  home. Also hold police under one rule when it comes to storing firearms and not all depending on the departments policies; as of late there has been a number of police firearms, pistols and semi-automatic versions of assault rifles, stolen from their personal vehicles.

 

Don't post much, mostly lurk. But this thread is particularly interesting. So here is a comment or two . . .

Unionist, you mention an extreme penalty in your scenario for someone caught with an illegal gun. What do you consider extreme? We have a problem with illegal handguns guns now in Toronto perhaps your penalty ideas would be helpful.

Also, on statistics, I always liked this one. More people are killed in Southern Ontario each year by the use of snowmobiles than by legal handguns in the hands of their owners. This means nothing but sounds sort of cool when tossing stats around.

By the way, I support gun control, and think that we have a reasonable balance at the moment in Canada. 

No firearms at all in municipal areas?

Let's put it this way; it's not something I'd lobby on, as I don't see it as a priority nor really feasible.  I don't think it is a bad idea, but it is more an ideal to be worked toward.

But most of these places already don't allow one to discharge a firearm, and when you are talking "municipal" that can mean a lot of things. Where I used to live, 35k outside of Winnipeg, and 3 km from the nearest town,  it would also not have been safe to point your 22 into the bush and shoot, as there were lots of nearby neighbours,

It would certainly be a way to revitalize the rural economy. Canuck Tire would probably open more country stores, and Cabelas would pull out of cities entirely.

 

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Paladin1 wrote:

jjuares wrote:

I agree. Sometimes people in urban areas become so disconnected from rural areas that they forget about animal control. However, I believe most people can support banning certain weapons and registering the rest. It amazes me how my relatives in rural Sask. became so bothered with the registry. I have hunted like most people here but I gave that up years ago and perhaps the most unsettling thing about the gun culture is the almost eroticism some had when talking about their guns.

 

But registering a .22cal Blazer rifle while outright banning the same Blazer-47 rifle with a few cosmetic differences?

I still believe the biggest problem people have with the firearm registery is that tomorrow they will register their firearms and next week the RCMP will decide those firearms are illegal and knock on their door to confiscate them (especially with no compensation).

The problem a most firearm owners have with banning weapons is that the decisions aren't based on empirical evidence, science or technical aspects but illogical assumptions.

80% of homicides in the US are committed with handguns and a very small number with so called assault weapons, yet.

 

One big complaint about doing away with door to door mail service is that there is an increase in the amount of mail stolen. The idea of putting firearms in a central lock up screams trouble to me. If we can't trust police to keep confiscated firearms safe (as pointed out by the NUMEROUS firearms taken from police stations) are we going to trust hundreds or thousands of firearms with a security guard from Garda?

 

I hate to admit it but home invasions where theives specifically target firearms is on a huge increase.   Presently Canadian firearm laws are geared more towards deterance than secure storage. One major thing I would like to see changed is stricter rules on storing firearms at  home. Also hold police under one rule when it comes to storing firearms and not all depending on the departments policies; as of late there has been a number of police firearms, pistols and semi-automatic versions of assault rifles, stolen from their personal vehicles.

It is not measures to satisfy the safety of the public that would lead to a ban. It is the fighting of those measures by the gun lobby that risks this.

If gun owners don't want to lose their weapos then the better route would be to quit denying the legitimcay of the public safety argument and work with the public and authorities to devise measure that can improve public safety other than a ban. This idea that you fight all forms of gun control, regulation and licensing is the real threat to gun ownership. If you were to convince me that no regulation, licensing or control can work then my reaction would be -- fine, take them away. This is the doubling down tactic of the gun lobby -- no licensing, regulation or control works so let's have none. When presented with this, public safety advocates are more likely to choose the ban. You see, most of us can live with either one.

 

I don't see a central storage for guns as being viable nor would there be enough compliance to make it viable. As for which guns to ban, the handgun ban should continue. And yes sometimes the weapons selected would be chosen for reasons that might be challenged. However any process like this is arbitrary but so what? We have many laws based on arbitrary judgements.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

Unionist, you mention an extreme penalty in your scenario for someone caught with an illegal gun. What do you consider extreme? We have a problem with illegal handguns guns now in Toronto perhaps your penalty ideas would be helpful.

I'm similarly curious.  Didn't the SCOC recently strike down the government's attempts to institute minimum penalties for gun crimes?

Quote:

However any process like this is arbitrary but so what? We have many laws based on arbitrary judgements.

Why is it abitrary?

Is, say, the classification of hazardous substances arbitrary?  Or is based on research?  Have we classified "Monster Energy Drink" as a hazardous substance because monsters are scary?

Do we just have no clue which guns are used in gun crimes, so lawmakers have no choice but to "go with their gut"?

 

I know this thread is a logic free zone but even if we did know which guns were used you need a context. Are we talking about crimes of passion or caused by mental illness? If so they are mostl likely the guns that were at hand.

If we are talking about criminals who have a crminal background they will be the best guns for their purpose that are available and where they do not have to go through a background check.

Of course gun advocates want to have it both ways. On the one hand they will say that the guns that are killing people are not the ones that are being controlled. The next moment they will say the controls are not working. If you think for more than a few seconds you can see the problem with the argument.

Now if you restrict the available market then the guns that will be the most popular will be whichever ones are the best for the purpose that are the easiest to get. It might be black market guns or it might be the ones the regulations missed. But if this is the case it means that regulations are actually having an effect. It may also mean that additional work to close loopholes for the guns that ought to be included and are not, the issues with mentail illness and guns, and attempts to compromise the black market.

But what gun advocates do instead is they point to the problems that remain and say that we should remove the mitigation efforts that are in place.

Now naturally you would think they could be consistant but actually they are not. They claim at the same time that the guns that are killing people are not comign from stores and they are often not the ones being controlled. Then they deny that this might in fact be the effect of the controls that are statistically limiting access to these sorts of guns in these ways. The point of course is they argue for us to do less rather than more.

Of course the other tacit of the gun  lobby is to create one more biased bogus pretend study after another. This article looked at some of them:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/walker-bragman/gun-myths_b_2585941.html

Note how most of these myths, often coming from the right wing libertatian point of view are brought out here.

Also note how when they are refuted the gun advocates just go on to the next bad argument circling around later when they figure the arguments against it have been forgotten.

The funny thing is this is a website that has a mandate to put people before profit so it is a real wonder that even here we have people equating their freedom to have their guns as more important than the public safety. It is true they do not put it that way as they couch it in language that makes it clear that their freedom to have a killing machine is the priority over public safety.

 

Quote:

I know this thread is a logic free zone but even if we did know which guns were used you need a context. Are we talking about crimes of passion or caused by mental illness? If so they are mostl likely the guns that were at hand.

And wouldn't the goal of further controls be making sure those guns WEREN'T at hand?

Quote:

If we are talking about criminals who have a crminal background they will be the best guns for their purpose that are available and where they do not have to go through a background check.

Then shouldn't we be restricting those guns?  Or, if we should focus on restricting the guns they DON'T use, is there a reason why that makes more sense?

Quote:

Are you really this incapable of following a point or are you just pretending to be?

Is someone grumpy?

Quote:

I already answered this -- the goal should be to get the guns that are being used but not to release the guns that are not being used so that they woudl replace the ones we control.

Ah.  So we need to crack down on the guns that are actually killing people.  But we also need to crack down on guns that aren't killing people, because when some gangsta can't get a Glock, he'll get Grandpa's squirrel rifle.

Not that Glocks aren't already heavily restricted.  How's the restriction on them working out?  Heck, how's the restrictions on handguns in general working out?  Are criminals lining up to hand them over, or do we need to perp-walk Grandpa and his old .22 down to the police station to show those "gun nuts" who's boss?

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

Unionist, you mention an extreme penalty in your scenario for someone caught with an illegal gun. What do you consider extreme? We have a problem with illegal handguns guns now in Toronto perhaps your penalty ideas would be helpful.

I'm similarly curious.  Didn't the SCOC recently strike down the government's attempts to institute minimum penalties for gun crimes?

Quote:

However any process like this is arbitrary but so what? We have many laws based on arbitrary judgements.

Why is it abitrary?

Is, say, the classification of hazardous substances arbitrary?  Or is based on research?  Have we classified "Monster Energy Drink" as a hazardous substance because monsters are scary?

Do we just have no clue which guns are used in gun crimes, so lawmakers have no choice but to "go with their gut"?

 

Well, the choices can be based on research but also the lines can be arbitrary. For example we know 4 years old can't understand our electoral system and shouldn't vote. But where did we set the age limit? The age for voting like drinking was arbitrarily set at 18 ( and in some pkaces and eras at 19 or 21). And indeed some argue for higher and lower numbers. So decisions can be both science based and arbitrary.

Quote:

Well, the choices can be based on research but also the lines can be arbitrary. For example we know 4 years old can't understand our electoral system and shouldn't vote. But where did we set the age limit? The age for voting like drinking was arbitrarily set at 18 ( and in some pkaces and eras at 19 or 21). And indeed some argue for higher and lower numbers. So decisions can be both science based and arbitrary.

I get that there are no solid studies that will tell us that a 17 year old is incapable of making a rational decision like voting, but that on the morning of their 18th birthday, they suddenly can.  So yes, the cutoff for voting will necessarily be arbitrary.

But is there NO information about how many Canadians are killed by guns with scary plastic grips?  So we have no choice but to 'wing it'?

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

 

Actually it does not matter if you are pretending or not. This is equally stupid.

You have been twisting words, ignoring arguments and creating straw men through this thread for a while.

 

Speaking about ignoring arguments would you be so inclined as to explained to me how these basement full auto upgrades make a semiauto rifle more dangerous?

Actually maybe we should just ban all guns period.  There's an estimated 12 million guns in civilian hands in Canda;just ban them all.

Hunters can get their food at the supermarket. If people up north are afraid of wild animals they can move south, we need to stop encroaching on mother nature anyways.

Police don't need guns. We can give them tasers and metal batons. Be more like the UK.

Take guns away from the military too. We're a peacekeeping nation. Peacekeepers don't need guns.

Problem solved

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

Actually it does not matter if you are pretending or not. This is equally stupid.

You have been twisting words, ignoring arguments and creating straw men through this thread for a while.

This stopped being a discussion long ago, at least in the sense of it ever resulting in some meeting of the minds.

And I know that you see that as solely because "gun nuts" just can't be honest.  And yet you and others continue to insist, fully supported by God himself, and proclamations carved in stone somewhere, that there's "no need for guns", that guns are solely "for killing people", and that anyone who believes that they're responsible enough and law-abiding enough to own a gun responsibly is just being "selfish".

So I'm just sayin' what I'm sayin'.  Please don't pretend that this isn't the discussion you want, or that you're budging one inch to make it any different.

Not what I said of course -- twisted out of context and changed but this shit is what you are about apparently.

Paladin1 wrote:

Even this 10 year old girl knows fullautos suck and switches from an assault rifle shotgun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f8VmJRuBFY

 

Actually a pretty neat video of a young competative shooter.  This seems cheaper much than hockey (and less violent too).

More gun propaganda and it does not even show what you said it does.

WTF, though?

There was some dude right behind her the whole time, and she just shot at clay targets and didn't even TRY to murder him?

Are those just defective guns in those barrels?

Isn't it up to the gun?

Quote:

Gun without person locked up safely is less harmful.

By "less" harmful, do you mean maybe "not harmful"?  Or else what harm does a weapon, locked up safely, do?

Still, though.  A ten year old girl just had unfettered access to three different guns, each of which would be restricted in Canada (an automatic, a shotgun with a magazine holding more than three shells, and a handgun) and despite someone only a few metres away, failed to murder him, or even try to.

Just a few rounds into the ribcage and she could have used those guns as they were designed to be used.  Instead, "gun nuts" have to patronizingly pat her on the back and say "well done, sweetie, good try" when she did nothing more than hit some targets.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Isn't it up to the gun?

Not entirely -- the point is the person and the gun getting together. Person without access is less dangerous if they have a breakdown or just feel the desire to spill blood. Gun without person locked up safely is less harmful.

People saying trust me -- "It will never happen to me, I just want to own and look at something that can kill dozens of people in seconds -- I don't actually want to do that"  -- just rings hollow.

 

Someone without access to a gun is absolutely not less dangerous. 

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-athlete-killed-in-murder-suicide-new-york-state...

Quote:

GENESEO, N.Y. -- A junior hockey team in Chilliwack, B.C., is remembering a former player who once dressed as Santa Claus for a gift exchange and is now among the victims in a murder-suicide that left three people dead in New York state.

Matthew Hutchinson, 24, was studying geography and business at State University of New York in Geneseo when he and a female student were killed early Sunday morning. Police say a former boyfriend of the woman stabbed the two students to death before apparently killing himself with the same knife.

Quote:

One person manages not to shoot up the people around her and has guns -- therefore guns are safe.

I think that generally, inanimate objects only become lethal when humans choose to use them lethally.  That goes for both guns and hammers.  And for that matter, cars, baseball bats, paring knives, lengths of pipe and bricks.

But I'm going one step further back, to the repeated claim that guns are designed and engineered "for murdering", and I'm wondering how it is that a ten year old child can use three different "killing guns" in as many minutes, and despite seemingly having mastered the aiming part, and the pulling of the trigger, and despite having at least two people only metres away from her, she didn't manage to murder either of them.

Did nobody have the heart to tell her that those guns weren't designed to shoot those clay targets?

And if a child could use all three of them safely, what excuse does any adult have (other than the excuses they give -- "I was mad", "he didn't signal his lane change", or "he dissed me")?

Quote:

Yesterday I saw a cat. It was black. I saw a second cat today. It was also black.

All cats are black.

Someone murdered someone with a gun somewhere.  Another person murdered someone with a gun somewhere.

Guns are for murder.