11.01.2011 08:03 AM

The Cons want this gun to be easier to get (updated)

It’s the Steyr-Mannlicher HS.50.

Like the Ruger Mini 14 – the type of weapon used in the Montreal massacre, when 14 young women were murdered at École Polytechnique – the Steyr-Mannlicher will now be easier to acquire. And, according to the Toronto Star, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives plan to make both exempt from their new gun law.

Some days, it’s hard to come up with the words to describe this government. Other than this:

They make me want to puke.

UPDATE: This sentence in the Star story – “…in information sent to the Star, its researchers point out that under the Conservative bill the Ruger Mini-14, the .50-calibre sniper rifle known as the Steyr-Mannlicher HS .50…” – I read conjunctively, not disjunctively.  They’re two different weapons, so I have amended the posting above, and offer apologies for those who were confused by the Star story, as I was.

But the criticism remains: a government that thinks it should make it easier to get the Ruger Mini 14 or the Steyr-Mannlicher is a government that has lost its mind.

UPDATER: I’ve spammed dozens of comments that were racist, disgusting, libellous or off-topic.  As of this point, any more crap and we will post your identifying info and make it way easier for you (and your guns) to be found.

287 Comments

  1. Chris says:

    The question is, will anyone care when the rate of gun deaths in Canada starts to climb again?

    How will the repulsive conservatives attempt to pin blame on the NDP or Liberals?

    • RG says:

      The question is: will people like you care if gun crime drops? I’m sure Warren will find someone to misconstrue the statistics for him.

  2. ed says:

    But But its the only thing that’ll bring down a Wooly Mammoth Warren. Stop criminalizing good, hard-working Canadian Wooly Mammoth hunters.

  3. Brad Szela says:

    Warren, why the falsehoods? The gun depicted is the not the gun used in the Montreal massacre. The gun in the Montreal massacre was a Ruger Mini-14, a common rifle used for varmint hunting and sport shooting. The rifle depicted has never been reported as used in a crime anywhere in the world, ever. It’s a bolt action single shot rifle that needs to be loaded before every shot.

    Neither gun will be any easier to get as they can only be sold to licensed individuals. The registry has never presented any sort of barrier to purchase for a licensed individual.

  4. JStanton says:

    I certainly share the disdain for Mr. Harper and his government, but the facts cited here are in error.

    The Steyr was NOT the “type of weapon” used, other than it is also a rifle. And the legislation does NOT make it easier to get, just easier to transport.

    In fact the Steyr costs in the neighborhood of $6000.00, and is available from few suppliers. Gang-bangers can much more easily procure the illegal guns smuggled across the border, just as they always have. This is not a firearm that, statistically, decreases public safety. Very few can afford it, obtain it, or shoot it. Most that own it appear to be military veterans. Any that own it will still have to be licensed, and are statistically far less likely to commit crimes than the general population.

    We cannot challenge the anti gun control lobby, if we don’t get our facts right, and if we go terminal chicken little. There is lots of sensible argument to be had, based on facts and reason. No need to resort to hyperbole – it just encourages them.

    .

      • nic coivert says:

        Oh, I see, two tiered gun control, keep the weapons in the hands of those that can afford it. I feel safer already knowing that the rich are well armed and the poor have only smuggled guns.

        • Nate says:

          If that’s how you feel about it, would you be happy to know that I think women should be allowed to carry handguns? Bullets make all sizes equal!

      • JStanton says:

        heh, heh, I’m sure that many others are lining up excitedly to do any heavy lifting that correcting the Star entails. I’ll leave it to them, I think.

        .

  5. Moki says:

    WOW now that was a completely out of touch good humour rant to bad it couldn’t be more wrong…

  6. Jeff says:

    While this whole post is nothing but more fear mongering. Not only was that not the rifle used in the Montreal massacre, it has NEVER been reported used in a crime ANYWHERE in Canada.

    As for the hunting comments from some, this is not a hunting rifle. It is used by sports shooters for target shooting. Target shooting is an OLYMPIC event, before anyone goes on how it’s not a sport.

    As for power, do we really need motorcycles and fast cars that can drive 300km/h on our roads, when the fastest anyone can LEGALLY drive ANYWHERE in Canada is 110km/h. Especially considering vehicles are responsible for more deaths in Canada than firearms. More people are killed with vehicles, than ANIMALS are killed by hunters every year.

    • Warren says:

      I love your use of CAPS. You do REALIZE that it means early onset dementia DON’T YOU?

    • Ted says:

      And no one complains that we have to have a license to drive, AND an ownership registration to own the car.

      Fancy that.

      A good model for regulation that there car industry.

      • Opie says:

        People would complain if vehicle licensing and registration were criminalized, and you could face up to 5 years in prison for violating vehicle licensing & registration laws. Would you be ok with that?

        • Ted says:

          You already do, bud.

          Barely a difference.

          First you get a ticket/fine and then you go to jail.

          • .... says:

            Guess what “bud”
            Car ownership does not immediately make you a criminal, who is only exempt from persecution by the possession of a piece of paper. Furthermore you only need to register your car if you intend to drive on Her Majesty’s highway’s. You can drive an unregistered vehicle around your own property all you want. If only law-abiding gun owners could have kept this same right and freedom.

          • Ted says:

            Whoa is me. I have to file a piece of paper with a government agency. Soooo very onerous.

            It is, for all practical and real purposes, absolutely no different than registering your car. I don’t really know that many people who spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy a car just to drive around on their own property and never take it on a road.

            If they don’t register their car and they do take it on the road, they are in exactly the same boat as an unregistered gun owner. If you drive a car without it being registered, then fail to pay the fine, you can go to jail. It is no different.

        • Austin So says:

          So…let me get this straight:

          If “failure of gun registration and licensing” were considered misdemeanors instead, you all would be fine with that?

          Be honest now…

      • Lorenz says:

        That’s quite right Ted; because the police don’t confiscate your car when your license expires. Bill C-68 tramples on civil rights. It sets a legal precedent for the confiscation of personal property without compensation. Here’s a tip, do your research before you’re embarrassed by your own ignorant rhetoric.

    • Lynn says:

      I guess it really depends on how you feel about personal responsiblity, accountability – and liberty?

  7. derek says:

    Thank you brad for some sensibility on this issue. I think you took those Paul Martin commercials a little to seriously Warren.

  8. Michael Reintjes says:

    Actually Warren..the Ruger Mini-14 (a very common hunting rifle) was the rifle used in the murders. The Mini-14 Ranch has been available to hunters Farmers for decades.The Star article unfortunately looks to be written by someone more concerned with sensationalism than news.The Mini-14 is a semi automatic hunting rifles like thousands of other similar models that have never been restricted despite what the Star writer is trying to create with this pointless article.

  9. Doug says:

    It sure would be nice if Warren would get his facts straight instead of parroting info from the Coalition for Gun Control.

    The firearm picturesd is not a mini 14, and a mini 14, is not a “high powered” firearm

  10. Michael Reintjes says:

    …so I guess ….you really don’t need to puke.

  11. Harith says:

    He used a Mini-14, Warren. Not a heavy-ass .50 calibre bolt-action sniper rifle. Jeez…

    • Warren says:

      The Star is wrong, then? Have you written to them?

      • Harith says:

        First sentence of their article: “The powerful Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle used in the 1989 Montreal massacre and this summer’s Norway bloodbath.”

        Nowhere in the article do they say that a 50 calibre sniper rifle was used during the massacre. The Steyr-Mannlicher HS .50 is one of the rifles they mention as being affected in the bill.

        So why would I write to the Star telling them they are wrong?

      • Ken Shoup says:

        All news sources are wrong and skew information heavily. Seriously, the only way to get real news these days is to experience it for yourself. Even if you try writing to them, they are going to assert their claims and lie to you.

  12. Matt says:

    Wow. That’s some yellow journalism by the Star. They’re normally pretty bad but this is fear mongering of the worst order. Shame.

    There’s something to be said for reasonable debate on this issue and as Brad pointed out there’s no need to spread these disgusting falsehoods around to bolster the argument. If Big Gun Control can’t come up with a coherent defence of their position without resorting to such lies and misdirection then they deserve to lose the argument.

  13. Robert L says:

    Warren,

    If you are going to make a point at least try to use facts and not the usual liberal spin to spread fear and misinformation. The above rifle was not used at Montreal Polytechnique. A rifle of this type would have been too heavy, too expensive, and hard to get ammunition for (this is why the murderer chose a lighter, more common ranch rifle). Not to mention that this rifle wasn’t even in existence at the time of the shooting. Warren, you should stick with what you know as it seems that firearms knowledge is not your strong suit.

    • Warren says:

      Have you written to the Star to demand a correction?

      Guess not.

      • Robert L says:

        I’ve written the Star a bunch of times and they seldom reply. And when they do they aren’t very receptive to correcting their own lies or the lies of the likes of Wendy Cukier. This is why I will never buy the Star on the newsstand. Yellow journalism at it’s worst.

  14. Michael H says:

    Don’t use common sense on these people, it tends to get lost.

    I can buy a car give it 5000hp and drive it as fast as I want on my own property, without a license. There’s no speed/power rating on a car you can own, it’s a given that the owner will be responsible and use it within the limits of the law.

    I cannot buy a shotgun, and shoot a tin can (assuming I have the appropriate area to do so) on my own property without a license. You can’t even buy certain rifles/shotguns because they LOOK a certain way even though they perform/operate the exact same way as other legal firearms.

    It’s a double-standard of safety, and really, when you think about it; doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

    • Paul says:

      And not only that, if you legally purchase a handgun you cannot fire it on your own property since “restricted” firearms may only be discharged at a shooting range.

      I can buy a .22 rifle and shoot it on my land, but a .22 pistol firing the same cartridge (but with lower velocity and accuracy) would get me arrested and charged. Ridiculous.

      Gun control has always been more about the “control” than the guns, unfortunately.

    • Dan says:

      who the fuck drives a car on their own property?

      you have a bizarre meaning of common sense.

  15. BW Stephens says:

    LOL.. Warren you are such a joker.. Not very accurate though.. They are not going to make that or any firearm easier to get.. Easier to keep yes.. Less intrusion into lives. at $5 a round it’s not exactly something you would want to tote around campus.. and Gamil Gharbi used a Mini-14.. Which most shooters consider to have minute of barn accuracy…

    But if usage is the issue maybe we should look at what brand of car drunk drivers drive and get them pulled off the market..

    Warren for a smart guy you don’t make sense sometimes..

  16. Nate says:

    The Steyr-Mannlicher won’t be made “exempt” from anything. It’s not being “declassified” or “unbanned” or anything like that. To acquire and own one, you still need to be licensed. This makes you subject to a safety course, testing, extensive police background checks and harsh penalties for unsafe transport and storage. In addition, to keep that license, you must have permission from not only your current spouse, but any of your previous partners.

    It’s not any easier to get than before.

    Yes, once again The Star got it wrong, and I did write to them. But considering their willingness to publish factless, sensationalist articles like this in the first place, I doubt they’ll publish it.

    I and doubt you’ll make any corrections either.

    • crank says:

      I cannot find the article on The Star’s website anymore.

      Problem?

    • Nate says:

      I should probably note that I am not a gun owner.

      So, when did this become about the image? I have no doubt that the image you provided is indeed the rifle in question. Is it supposed to be scary? I see a large, unwieldly, unconcealable, extremely overpriced target rifle, a rifle that has never been used for criminal purposes, ever. Anywhere.

      My point was about how the laws work. Getting rid of the registry does not make this rifle “easier to get.” Bill C-19 does not change the classification of this rifle to make it easier to acquire. It was not the type of weapon used in Montreal.

      I understand that you’re just going by the information you get from The Star. This is the reason why gun owners flock to respond to these things: The information they gave you was not only wrong, but dishonest.

  17. steve says:

    The actions of the Harper government lead to only one conclusion: Like the PNAC group they want a violent incident upon which they can galvanize public attention in order to pursue their strict nutty ideological campaign to remake Canada into 18th century Rhodesia.

  18. Billo says:

    “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”

    Well, what about in journalism?

    Some fact checking please? Or is a copy/paste from The Star good enough? No original content? No checking of sources?

    I saw the Star was claiming pigs fly, care to repost that too without checking?

    • Warren says:

      This is a personal web site, doofus. Not a newspaper.

      The newspaper in question published the name of the weapon, as they did, and then I Goggled the only image that corresponds to that exact name.

      But that’s not really what this is about. Gun nuts have been told to swarm this page, because they fear the emotional impact that image holds.

      They should.

      • Billo says:

        Be serious for a minute here, there is more danger of getting rear ended by a Ford F-350 than any danger from that gun.

        Trust me, getting rear ended by a large pickup truck, driven by a 16 year old boy is a lot more likely than ever seeing that gun personally.

        How about we talk about “Duty of Care”

        I am personally “Emotionally Impacted” when I see a foolish kid driving a large pickup truck, because they do not understand how powerful it is. They risk my life on the road.

        Anybody who is familiar around guns, knows how powerful that gun is, and are exceedingly careful with it. They are not foolish with it; they exercise extreme duty of care, while an immature boy driving a pickup truck does not.

        However we do not keep 16 year old drivers under lock and key for the rest of their lives.

  19. The Doctor says:

    Maybe this is Warren’s new “rip their faces off first” strategy in action.

  20. reformed liberal says:

    Warren, your facts are wrong. The above rifle weighs almost 30 pounds, is 4 and 1/2 feet long, costs $6,000 and is a single shot – no magazine. This is a specialty rifle, and maybe a handful of people in Canada would own one. The rifle that Gamil Gharbi used was about as different from the HS50 as you can get. You might want to look into it for yourself. And just because the Star got it completely wrong, doesn’t excuse you for not checking basic facts. Then rethink your opinion.

  21. Bob44 says:

    That is probably the safest gun you will ever come across, because it will be a member of the Canadian Military behind it!

  22. Ted says:

    More worrisome and sickening than the Conservatives’ desire to make it easier to own assualt weapons, is there desire to make the job of police officers harder.

    Before the registry, the onus was on businesses to keep records of who sold what guns to what people. That task was taken over by the long gun registry.

    That information has made work safer for cops and has helped them solve crimes. I sorta get that the Conservatives don’t care about that when there are so many dollars and votes to be wrung, and wedge issue buttons to press, in rural areas of the country. Politics is always going to trump good policy for these guys, as we all know.

    But what the article also shows – and this is the part that is more worrisome and sickening – is that the Conservatives have decided not to put the onus of record keeping back on the businesses and they are destroying all gun registry records.

    It’s just more of the Conservatives’ Dumb On Crime Agenda (TM).

    • Ted says:

      Their. Not there.

      Too infuriated by no-evidence, ideologically driven politics to type correctly.

    • Ted says:

      And, of course, even more worrisome than that, and something that should be of great concern to all (and not just those who favour reduced gun crimes), is that the Conservatives don’t even want to have a debate on this and are shutting down debate in Parliament. Again.

      Cowards as well as pro-crime.

      Nice government we elected, er, 24% of us elected, isn’t it.

      • hunter54 says:

        That wasn’t a problem when it was the Liberals in charge, just a different 24%

        • Ted says:

          According to whom was it not a problem?

          And when in our history has a majority ever been elected with such a low percentage of support from Canadians?

          • The Doctor says:

            Umm, Ted, in the 1997 federal election, Jean Chretien’s Liberals won a majority with 38.46% of the popular vote. In the 2011 federal election, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won a majority with 39.62% of the popular vote.

          • Ted says:

            Ummm, Doctor, in the 1997 federal election, Jean Chretien’s Liberals won a majority with 25.4% of all eligible voters. In the 2011 federal election, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won a majority with 24.0% of all eligible voters, the lowest level of support for a majority government in our entire history.

            Which goes right along with his other records of the lowest and second lowest level of support for a government in our entire history (22% and 23% in 2008 when his vote total actually went down, and 2006, respectively). Add that to his string of records: biggest spender (outside of a recession), second biggest spender (outside of a recession), biggest and second and third biggest spender (inside a recession), quickest broken promise (appointment of a senator on his first day in office), most broken promises, highest broken promises per days in office (first term), largest cabinet ever, biggest PMO budget, most photo ops, fewest press conferences… etc. Quite the list of accomplishments.

          • Warren says:

            I love it when Ted clubs Cons in his gentlemanly way.

          • The Doctor says:

            This whole voter turnout argument is so bogus. Have you checked out the voter turnout in your typical Canadian civic election lately? I think the last Vancouver mayoral election it was somewhere around 30%. Does that mean Gregor Robertson has no mandate to govern Vancouver? Does that mean he’s a dictator?

            I think it’s a dangerous road to go down, claiming that low turnout somehow means there’s something illegitimate about your victory or your mandate (absent any actual electoral improprieties or illegality of course). Fact is, there’s every chance that voter turnout will be low, or lower, come next federal election. Fact is, there’s every chance that if the Dippers or Liberals win that election, it will be with numbers quite similar to Harper’s popular vote numbers. Are you going to bitch and whine about the Dipper/LPC victory being illegitimate then?

            And BTW Warren, I voted Liberal last election, so I don’t know whom your “clubbing Cons” comment is supposed to be aimed at.

          • Ted says:

            I claimed absolutely nothing about legitimacy. I believe fully in our democratic system – way more, in fact, than Mr. Shut It Down When I Want To – and Harper’s government is every bit as democratically and legally legit as any other. It is the system we have.

            But it has a weak mandate and a morally weak position for radical change. It is simply a fact that Harper and his government do not have a great deal of support in the population.

            Moreover, the fact that it is the weakest we have ever had is quite significant, especially when he is making so many radical, ideologically driven, evidence-be-damned policy and legislative decisions.

            Democracy is not an event that happens every so often. It is a living breathing everyday thing. And Harper is on dangerous grounds with such weak support and taking actions he did not campaign on and then to shut down Parliamentary debate on top of that? This kind of arrogant anti-democratic behaviour is not a good start to a majority.

          • Sarah says:

            The Ontario election that returned Dalton McGuinty had an even lower voter turnout.

          • Ted says:

            And he has, justifiably, an even weaker mandate to do whatever the hell he wants.

            But we’re not talking about voter turnout. Or a provincial government.

    • Opie says:

      Hey Ted, what is an Assualt Weapon?

    • bob-moa says:

      Please read Bill C-68 before you make any comments on owning guns. There are a dozen breaches of the Charter in there.

      How about you talk to some beat cops about how useful the registry is? I have. They don’t trust the registry, and for good reason, because its their life on the line, not some date entry clerk!
      Because, the registry is incomplete, and the registry will not have illegal guns on it

      • Ted says:

        First, it is information. More information = more safety. I have never known a copy yet who doesn’t want as much information as they can get about every situation they go into. It makes things safer and they will ALWAYS tell you that because they believe that.

        Second, it is information. More information = more tools to track down the criminal. What the cops say even more than the safety aspect is how useful the registry has been in tracking down criminals and putting them in jail, solving crimes.

        • How does more information; make, model, barrel length, and previous owner help police if the gun is stolen?

          Some huge number like 80% of guns that are used in crime are illegal imports from the USA (registry doesn’t help)

          The rest of the guns are stolen in Canada. The registry may help find the previous owner, who is legal and most likely already compensated by insurance for the break in. I fail to see how tracking “this guy” down helps police. The gun was already reported stolen.

          The vast majority of guns used in crime are illegal imports (no registry) or stolen (so already on file with the RCMP).

          Double redundancy is redundant 🙁

          • Ted says:

            You are more than within your rights to disagree with the police and try to make their jobs harder. I, for one, choose not to.

            If a gun was stolen, that is a crime with a crime scene and a file full of facts. If a gun is then used in crime, that is a crime with a crime scene and a file full of facts. A database that is accessible to cops and gives them access to all of those facts, helps connect those facts and trace a history. For example – and this is from a real case – a crime committed in downtown Toronto can be connected to a stolen gun in Hamilton and then the cops were able to focus on who might have lived in Hamilton at the time of the theft and in Toronto at the time of the shooting.

            I’m not a cop. But on things like this, I go with the cops and what they say is useful. It doesn’t, on its own, solve crimes. But neither does a fingerprint. But it helps.

        • nine-nine says:

          How does more information; make, model, barrel length, and previous owner help police if the gun is stolen?

          Some huge number like 80% of guns that are used in crime are illegal imports from the USA (registry doesn’t help)

          The rest of the guns are stolen in Canada. The registry may help find the previous owner, who is legal and most likely already compensated by insurance for the break in. I fail to see how tracking “this guy” down helps police. The gun was already reported stolen.

          The vast majority of guns used in crime are illegal imports (no registry) or stolen (so already on file with the RCMP).

          Double redundancy is redundant

        • willy says:

          David Wilks MP is ex-RCMP, supports C-19. He is a CPC MP, yes, but he is a real deal cop.

          There are a lot of ways there could be a legal firearm in a car, during a traffic stop, and it would NOT show up on the registry. Many ways, all legal.

          No cop would bet their life on the LGR

          • Tamara says:

            But how many police chiefs would bet the lives of front-line officers on the LGR?

            Albeit from behind a comfy desk.

        • willy4 says:

          How does more information; make, model, barrel length, and previous owner help police if the gun is stolen?

          Some huge number like 80% of guns that are used in crime are illegal imports from the USA (registry doesn’t help)

          The rest of the guns are stolen in Canada. The registry may help find the previous owner, who is legal and most likely already compensated by insurance for the break in. I fail to see how tracking “this guy” down helps police. The gun was already reported stolen.

          The vast majority of guns used in crime are illegal imports (no registry) or stolen (so already on file with the RCMP).

          Double redundancy is redundant

        • zorro says:

          David Wilks MP is ex-RCMP, supports C-19. He is a CPC MP, yes, but he is a real deal cop.

          There are a lot of ways there could be a legal firearm in a car, during a traffic stop, and it would NOT show up on the registry. Many ways, all legal.

          No cop would bet their life on the LGR

        • .... says:

          See Constable Randy Kuntz’s survey of almost 3000 police OFFICERS (not Chiefs of Police) roughly 95% of the officers surveyed said they had no use for the LGR. It literally does nothing for police officers, and any officer who bets his life on the registry would be asking for trouble. Criminals don’t register their guns or legally purchase them with a licence and they never will.

          • Attack says:

            Nonsense. It wasn’t a bona fide survey; it had neither a random nor a fully representative sample: it was more like a petition gathered through a partisan site like the BloggingTories.

            The invitation to vote Yay or Nay to scrapping the LGR wasn’t sent to all 65,000+ cops in the country:
            http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-225-x/2010000/t002-eng.htm

            it was posted on a p/w protected site, on a pro-gun, pro-hunting forum, by someone who IS a hunter & SOLD guns at the time, to email him directly, and he collected the responses over a TWO-YEAR interval.

            So not only is it a skewed sample & process to begin with, but we can’t even trust it on its own terms: if you were a cop who wanted to keep it, would you really trust telling a yahoo like him about it, using your real name & email, so that he could mock you to your colleagues?

            So it has all the validity of, say, one of CBC Power & Politics ‘Question of the Day’ polls. I.e., nada.

          • Ted says:

            Um, no.

            Kuntz did not conduct a survey and it was not of police officers.

            He put an ad in a gun magazine asking people to submit their thoughts, yay or nay for the gun registry. It was open to the public. It was not sampled or random.

            It literally does lots for police officers. The claim that “no officer bets his life on the registry” is one of the most asinine comments and demonstrates you don’t understand a thing. A cop doesn’t “bet his life” on a suspect’s criminal record or a fingerprint or a DNA sample or a list of known accomplices or information relayed through a 9-1-1 call or anything. THAT’S NOT WHAT THE REGISTRY IS FOR. That comment is almost as dumb as “criminals don’t register their guns”.

            Me? I trust the cops on this. And every single one, except Kuntz and former cops running for the Conservatives, who has spoken out publicly for the gun registry have said it is important, valuable, cost-effective, and helps them do their job. Even Fantino, before he became a politician, said it was “critical”. The victims group that Harper set up says it is important (which is why they have suppressed the group’s reports).

            Some people want to look and sound tough on crime. Others want to BE tough on crime.

    • Richard Wakefield says:

      Ted, assault weapons are banned in Canada.

      • Ted Betts says:

        Not these ones. And no doubt no for long under this “strong stable Conservative majority government”.

        • Dave says:

          The only people in Canada that can legally possess “assault weapons” are the military and the police. There are no “assault weapons” owned by your regular gun owner. All we have to buy are semi-automatic rifles that fire one shot per trigger pull, nothing automatic. Your grandpa’s old 1930s semi auto rifle has the same “firepower” as a modern, evil-looking rifle.

          This is what I don’t understand about anti-gun people – a gun is a gun, is a gun. A semi auto AR-15 is no more dangerous than a semi auto WWII SKS, so why make it seem like it is more dangerous by calling it an “assault weapon”? To be an assult weapon it has to be able to fire in full auto, which none of the guns available to the Canadian public is capable of.

          • Ted says:

            There is a somewhat arbitrary legal definition to what is and what is not an assault weapon and banned.

            But the distinction I draw is between guns intended for hunting and guns that cannot be described as hunting but for killing humans, i.e. assault. A body armour piercing bullet and the gun that is capable of shooting it is not a hunting rifle, but an assault weapon and Harper just made it easier to own it.

            Worse, he is not re-instituting laws that were in place before, and replaced by, the gun registry that were used by cops to track down a gun’s history. It’s asinine. And dangerous.

      • Attack! says:

        Well, the differences between the original “assault” vs. the slightly modified civilianized military weapon versions of them is often just a matter of the clip size, isn’t it?

        At any rate, here’s the way the actual guy who SELLS these sorts of weapons to many of you Rambozo “sports shooters” describes the ones some of us are flagging as worth being worried about when they disappear from the authorities’ ability to track who owns them:

        “Chris Youngson, a leading Canadian firearms retailer, does a healthy business through his Vancouver-based website CanadaAmmo.com. He says the consumer behaviour of Canadian firearms enthusiasts is clearly changing. Selling only antiquated hunting rifles and shotguns is no way to keep business afloat, he said.

        “The growth industry in this country is not hunting,” he said. “Hunting is a declining activity.”

        “In reality, the average customer is a young person who wants something they see in a video game,” he said. “A modern semi-automatic military rifle, or a short barrelled shotgun, or a Glock handgun or something like that. And that’s what we offer.”

        ——–

        And look, for just $199, you can buy an ACTUAL military production Chinese SKS Chrome-Lined Semi-Auto Carbine: 7.62 x 39 calibre with a spike bayonet: the type of rifle China created in the 60s for its army to, you know, kill people with (which’ve been in storage all this time):

        http://www.canadaammo.com/product.php?productid=291&cat=0&page=1

  23. K1A0A6 says:

    How about the fact that the shooter in Montreal was a radical Islamic who believed in “Honor Killing”

    Why does that never get mentioned? The man behind the trigger.

  24. liar says:

    The Star has deleted the article, probably because it was wrong.

  25. Brad says:

    I will never understand how Steve thinks loosening gun control will make us safer. Nor do I understand what pleasure grown men get from sitting in a tree with bait scattered all around to entice animals so that they can shoot them, that’s not “hunting”, thats target practise. To each his own I guess.

    • Jon Powers says:

      Vegetarian, I assume?

    • bob says:

      I will never understand how its OK to bash on one “lifestyle choice” like hunting, while questioning any other activities in the bedroom is a NO-GO.

      Personally I am neither a hunter, nor gay, I only hate hypocrisy. I find the hypocrisy overwhelming, and quite sad, because this is Canada “Land of Tolerance”

    • Opie says:

      Please explain to me how stopping normal, law-abiding people from owning firearms keeps criminals, thugs and gangsters from using firearms to commit violent crimes? Furthermore, how does a registration database achieve this?

      • Ted H says:

        All illegal guns start out as legal purchases. Then some are stolen, sold, traded, whatever. While not perfect, the registry at least minimizes or makes more difficult the transition from legal to illegal weapon and helps the police track the weapon if it is eventually used in a crime. Why would normal, law abiding people be so much against this tool that helps the police and has the potential to help minimize gun crime. Why are normal, law abiding people so insistent on buying guns and not wanting the government, police, or fellow citizens to know what they do with them? Why do normal, law abiding people really need guns?

        • Opie says:

          Again, you have no right to dictate what people need Ted. And the reason I’m against it is because it’s criminalized. Learn the law, why should one spend 5 years in prison for a lapsed licence? If you get pulled over and can’t produce a drivers licence, you get a ticket. If you can’t produce a gun licence, you are in violation of section 91 of the criminal code of Canada, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Same goes for registration. Would you tolerate those kinds of criminal laws for automobile licencing and registration?

  26. Mike says:

    Warren, the Steyr is huge, not concealable, and is a single shot firearm, meaning you have to reload by hand every round. Not exactly the type of firearm desired by gang bangers in downtown Toronto. As for the Mini 14, it fires the .223 caliber centre fire cartidge, which is one of the weakest centre fire cartridges on the market today. Your grandfather’s .303 British packs twice the punch at a further range.

  27. Attack says:

    Ok, fine, so WK misread the To. Star article a bit…

    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1079145–tory-gun-bill-delists-sniper-rifles-semi-automatics

    which showcased 3 non-restricted weapons which are currently legal to buy in Canada and so will be a helluva lot harder, if not impossible, to trace the last legal owners of, if they’re implicated in crimes, thanks to to C-19:

    1) The armour-piercing (and thus likely to be cop-killing) Steyr-Mannlicher HS .50 sniper rifle pictured above

    …which, acc. to the unfriendly neighbourhood gunnutz swarming the joint, hasn’t actually been implicated in any Cdn crimes, yet

    [tho’ that could be ‘cuz they’re not used in murder-suicides or going postal events, but only in cold-blooded murders & cowardly random shootings like the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks !]

    2) the Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle used in the 1989 Montreal massacre and this summer’s Norway bloodbath, whose

    “short barrels and overall short length make them favorites in any application where maneuverability and ease of handling are priorities”

    http://www.ruger.com/products/mini14/index.html

    like, er, massacres of innocent victims in close quarters.

    3) the L115A3 Long Range Sniper Rifle, which can accurately hit a target 2 kilometres away

    http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/support-weapons/1459.aspx

    Which really puts the ‘sport’ back in sports hunting, eh, whackos?

    Meanwhile, our civic-minded hunting & sports shooting lobby groups & communities — along with the kowtowing CPC Gov’t — have been actively blocking international efforts to keep these very sorts of weapons out of the hands of rebels, gangs, drug dealers, and other menaces in other countries, in order to preserve their members’ freedom to menace us with these weapons here at home, and because they frankly don’t care what happens abroad,

    http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/15/canada-tries-to-exempt-hunting-rifles-from-un-arms-trade-treaty-negotiations

    http://www.cbc.ca/thehouse/news-promo/2011/10/15/getting-involved-in-a-labour-dispute-jeopardizing-an-arms-trade-treaty-and-life-after-the-wheat-boar/

    even though that very weapon (1) pictured above found its way to Iraqi rebels and was used to kill a U.S. officer.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,466284,00.html

    • You know what kills cops? Car accidents. Sad but true.

    • Opie says:

      So it’s safe to assume when some drunk kills a family while driving you blame the car?

      • Attack says:

        I don’t usually praise OR blame inanimate objects, no.

        But there’s been a whole range of government regulations and practices brought in which have reduced the rates of deaths caused by drunk driving which I suspect you may be opposed to, including DUI laws, check stops, liquor liability laws for servers,* and increased safety standards on the vehicles themselves, incl. seat belts and airbags (& maybe better brakes, & collision impact)..

        AND the licensing & registration of both the drivers & the vehicles, to deter it from happening by making them more accountable / likely to be caught even in hit & runs, by enhancing the ability to track vehicles seen by witnesses or leaving trace evidence: i.e., the very thing you gunnutz are sabotaging here.

        * http://www.ibc.ca/en/business_insurance/risk_management/liquor_liability.asp

    • reformed liberal says:

      Obviously you have absolutely no idea how much training and shooting a military sniper goes through in order to achieve accuracy at those ranges. The average shooter couldn’t hit a man-sized target at 300 yards, let alone 600 or 1,000 yards. The rifle doesn’t make the shot, the shooter does.

      • Attack says:

        So? I was just making a joke about how the ‘Don’t criminalize the innocent farmers and duck hunters’ meme gets stretched pretty thin when it comes to defending why a weapon like this should be allowed to disappear from our authorities’ radar.

        Because even well-trained sports shooters and ex-military can become unhinged and use them for ill; and,

        even untrained people who can’t hit what they’re aiming at with them can still manage to hit and kill something else with them, which is, after all, the main point of concern (i.e., random or accidental killings, too: not just targeted assassinations).

        But I love how the gunnutz think exposing their critics’ lack of knowledge about specific guns somehow invalidates all their points about guns being able to — you know — kill people.

        • Philip says:

          Good post! Like the minutia of their particular fetish is important to the larger questions which arise from owning an object/tool whose only function is to kill things.

        • reformed liberal says:

          The entire basis of your argument hinges on your irrational fear of guns, and the ridiculous notion that people are so prone to becoming “unhinged”. It just doesn’t happen.

  28. Ted H says:

    The original post and photo were confusing, but, they sure generated a lot of dialogue on both sides of the issue. Isn’t that what this site is all about?

    That being said, no one other than a few farmers and ranchers, the police when on duty and the military REALLY needs to have a gun. They are not necessary in a civilized society and their widespread presence in turn makes society less civilized, especially in the USA. If the gun lobby has their way, Canada may not be far behind.

    There are a lot of so called LAW ABIDING citizens who want to obtain guns and they would prefer that no one knows about it, especially the government. The question is, WHY?

    • reformed liberal says:

      Because of confiscation issues.

    • Attack says:

      There’s a whole whack(o) of them in an arrested state of development whose knowledge of history, advanced weaponry and international affairs seems to have stopped at the American Revolution or so, who think:

      They need to stockpile weapons to overthrow our government, if it quashes their liberty too much &/or becomes too corrupt;

      and so if the govt already has a list of who has said weapons, it’d defeat their purpose, since the Reich would make preemptive seizures &/or targeted arrests just before they invoke the latest beyond the pale measures, to ban their precious, liberty-savin’ guns.

      I’m not making this up: this is really what the ones most ardent about opposing the registries & the UN treaties on marking & restricting small arms believe: the ‘tin-foil’ set.

      • JStanton says:

        …yes …strange but true.

        But here is where it gets confusing. What with Mr. Harper’s penchant for by-passing our democratic institutions and practices, and his habit of unilateral opinion-based decision making, one would expect him to be INCREASING controls over the ability of citizens to withstand such behavior, which would necessitate their disarming, and therefore require an increase in the practices of surveillance.

        Instead, he is enabling people to acquire more easily and with stealth any number of long guns, which could theoretically be used to withstand his over-reaching.

        So, how does one reconcile this? Is he after all just an odd stick, trying to over-compensate for a difficult adolescence? Or does he have no intention of deleting registry records, and will he instead launch a cunning plan?
        .

        • The Doctor says:

          Yes, Evil Lord Harper is probably sitting in his lair, stroking his fur-less cat, sending disobedient minions to the shark tank, while he cooks up his next cunning plan . . .

  29. GPAlta says:

    There is nothing wrong with the Star article. It clearly makes the point that until the Gun Registry, merchants had to keep records of who the original purchaser of the firearms it discusses was.

    That way if it turned up in a criminal investigation, police could track down the original purchaser, and find out when they last saw the gun, perhaps then leading the police to the person who eventually used it illegally, they might even be able to determine if it was transferred illegally and stop an illegal weapons dealer.

    The Gun Registry made that record keeping on the part of merchants obsolete, and so there is now no requirement for the merchant to record anything, the gun went into the gun registry, and as soon as the registration stopped being maintained by the legal owner, the police could in theory go looking for it, so that it wouldn’t fall into the hands of criminals, if the legal owner was for some reason not acknowledging its existence any more.

    The new law takes away the registration of these firearms, but does not restore the record keeping requirement, so guns like this are untraceable from the time they leave the store. Anyone with a license can buy them and immediately give, trade, or sell them to anyone else who can’t get a license, or who doesn’t want to be known to authorities, and the article suggests there would be no way to know or prove that transaction had ever happened.

    But that’s illegal! some might scream in my face. But the coverage of this law seems to suggest that even if it is illegal, the law prevents there from being any evidence collected that such a crime could ever occur, much less that could prove any such crime did ever occur. It suggests that the new law creates a whole new market in the illegal (but structurally unprovable) trade in certain firearms that are falling through the cracks of this bill. Destroying the records also retroactively makes all such firearms bought since the gun registry came into being similarly untraceable, and suddenly available for illegal sale to anyone with impunity.

    That seems to me to be the point of the article. The new law leaves us less able to track the flow of certain firearms into unlicensed hands than we have been since 1977, and I am concerned about that.

    Warren is right that any of these guns described in the article will be easier to get. All you need is to find someone who has a license or, if you are the organized crime type, hire and train someone who is eligible to obtain a license. No license on your part required. And no inconvenient risks from smuggling or other provable illegal activity.

    This should increase sales volumes for merchants, and profits for manufacturers of both firearms and ammunition. It will also be great for the Conservatives law and order profiteering, as more and more crimes will be committed with “illegally obtained” firearms, meaning more public fear, more profits for private prisons, less accountability for their friends in the firearms industry, and less public confidence in gun control of any kind.

    This is the party that has consistently and without exception ruined the economy in its every administration, and yet it continues to campaign on the “you can trust only us with the economy” message. Now they will extend it to public safety, “the world is getting more dangerous, so you can trust only us with law and order”

    • Cynical says:

      Your first point is the one that concerns me most. As a licensed gun owner (RPAL) I value the registry because it makes me and every other gun owner accountable for what happens to our firearms, whether we sell them on, fail to store them safely, or have them stolen. Without the registry, this accountability does not exist past the licensed firearm vendor that initially sells the gun. Bummer that it cost so much, eh?
      My own attitude to the registry is therefore ambivalent. With it gone, I will be slightly less inconvenienced, but slightly more insecure. It’s a bit of a “meh” issue for me. On the other hand the anti-registry types who fulminate about confiscation belong to the tin-foil hat brigade, and those who complain about the difficulties of transferring a gun obviously have a very low threshold of frustration and probably should not be given a license on that basis alone. Theirs is a higher plane of wankerdom, IMHO, than most.

      HOWEVER (sorry for the caps, Warren), the Star article is so wrong (and inflammatory) on so many levels that it is difficult to criticize. As Wolgang Pauli is reputed to have said, “That is not right. It is not even wrong.” It is factually in error, and uses terminology, specifically “delisting” in a way that is incorrect in the context, where the term has a specific meaning. I am not sure about the sniper rifle, but the Mini-14 is NOT restricted or prohibited, and the elimination of the registry makes it no more or less likely to fall into criminal hands than any other firearm, whether it be Grandpa’s .22, Dad’s .303 or Cousin Ezra’s 12-gauge. The body text of the article is more accurate on this than the headline. The article also uses modifers like “powerful” and nouns like “bloodbath” that are, in my opinion, over the top.

      It is articles such as this that feed the frenzy of the anti-registry types, who are, as far as I can see, witting tools of the CPC. It plays to their worst prejudices regarding (pick one) journalists, Easterners, academics and politicians of any stripe other than Blue.

      Shooting sports should not be inherently political. I blame it on the Black Panthers, the NRA, and our own Rovian manipulators. I am sure that gun owners have as broad a spectrum of political belief as any other enthusiast group, but they’ve lined up with the CPC on what is, to me, a non-issue. Leaves me puzzled, eh?

      • GPAlta says:

        I don’t disagree that the article could have been more carefully written, everything could be more carefully written.

        I do disagree with the logic that they will be no more or less likely to fall into criminal hands than any other firearm. Unless I’m mistaken, all of your examples are long guns, which are equally likely to fall into criminal hands because they are all facing the same loophole as the three that were profiled in the article. But they would seem to face a difference in availability to criminals than restricted firearms which will continue to be registered will face.

        Registered restricted firearms need to have their registrations maintained, as I understand it, and the identities of the purchasers are known, so starting a large black market in restricted firearms in Canada through legal first purchases would require a massive fraud and permanent, regular covering of tracks to avoid discovery. Starting a large black market in unrestricted firearms in Canada from legal first purchases after this law takes effect will be easy, untraceable, unprovable, and not even worth investigating, since there will be no evidence available whatsoever. It saves the manufacturers and merchants from dealing directly with “criminals” but opens a much wider market for their products on the secondary (illegal) market.

        Who knows what uses people who can’t or won’t obtain licenses could find for such an opportunity, one that they haven’t had since 1977.

      • Opie says:

        I don’t need a registry to make me accountable for my property. If criminals steal it, punish them, not me. Would it be just to charge a vehicle owner for improper storage of a car if it is stolen?

        • Attack says:

          if you left it unlocked, running, with the keys in it, while you went in to a 7-11, and some kids took it for a joyride & hit someone with it…. YES! you irresponsible clown.

        • GPAlta says:

          I’m not talking about criminals stealing guns. I’m talking about criminals buying guns illegally from licensed accomplices. The Government has chosen to make that particular crime undetectable. This loophole is like taking the VIN numbers off of cars when they drive off the lot.

          • Bill says:

            How often do you suppose that this “licensed loophole” is actually used – and more importantly, do you have any statistics to support your assertion?

          • Attack! says:

            It’s more than a ‘loop’hole: it’s a gaping chasm which applies to ALL non-restricted / long guns just as soon as C-19 is put into effect and the long gun records are purged.

            Because the effect of that is – poof! – no more records for who last owned all the long guns since the stores last had to keep & submit records of their sales, in, what, the late 90s?

            And no new records for the ownership of all the new long guns being sold, once they leave the stores.

            Or of all the long guns changing hands privately.

            That’s probably, what, 80% of the 7.1+million long guns now in the system disappearing from the gun tracing radar and the maybe half or million or so that were legally acquired or exchanged a year…

            * @ ‘Firearms Registered as of September 2011’ at http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/facts-faits/archives/quick_facts/2011/se-eng.htm

            It’s quite worrisome that so many people here are in denial over the fact that this will put a major crimp in the police’s ability to deal with gun-related crime are, considering how most of them are such ardent gun owners. (Weren’t they supposed to be screened for rationality to get their license?)

      • The Doctor says:

        Speaking of the Black Panthers, there’s an interesting article in a recent edition of the Atlantic Monthly about the key role they played in the 1960s in OPPOSING gun control, while then-governor of California Ronald Regan was advocating gun control.

  30. Ron Vachiyer says:

    this gun is immense, and in no means desireable to anyone wishing to commit a crime. Cumbersome, difficult to purchase ammo, heavy, non-conceable.

    Warren, did you know that even with our current draconian laws, anything larger than 50mm is not registered? People in Canada are legally allowed to own Howitzer cannons, capable of delivering nerve agents and even nuclear ordnance from a distance of 20Km. Yet nobody has ever mis-used a privately owned Howitzer. Same goes with this Steyr. Your point is moot.

    • Attack says:

      Since you gunnutz lot are so caught up & indignant about the big expensive sniper, so how about the:

      “Dominion Arms Outlaw Double Barrel Shotgun, which is easily concealable. Sawing down barrels to make such a gun in Canada is illegal, but the “Outlaw” is classified non-restricted because it was never sawed down: it was manufactured this way. It retails for $299.”

      http://www.canada.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/Canadians+legally+wide+range+powerful+guns+they/5594882/story.html

      Does ‘zat seem a better fit for armed robbers & gang bangers to get from corrupt or negligent gun dealers with impunity?

      The point is, sniper rifles, concealable weapons, & the “civilianized,” slightly converted military assault weapons that whack-job Dawson College & PolyTech types raised on Rambo & ‘Red Dawn’ are drawn to, can all be bought in Canada, and now there’ll be much less incentive to comply with the requirements that they only be sold to people with valid firearms licenses, AND there’ll be far less ability to trace who owns them or where they came from when they DO get used in crimes.

      Thanks, freedom lovers.

  31. Liana K says:

    For every bit of sane, moral objection, the pro-death gun lobby spews out the same old argument.

    I am tired of the racism inherent in the claim that only “gang bangers” cause gun crime. It’s not true, it’s an easy villain, and this sort of gun crime is not what long gun laws are intended to prevent. I grew up in “gang banger” central. I’ve done documentary segments with “gangsta rappers”; there are no more eloquent philosophers on the real root causes of this sort of crime than the people perpetrating it.

    It’s easy for the gun lobby to say that those opposed to looser gun control don’t know what they’re talking about. But that which is simple is rarely accurate when it comes to the brutal truths of why people take the lives of others. The huge problem with this debate is that there weren’t enough studies done on the true impact of the gun registry and the associated laws. There also wasn’t enough education done in the areas where long guns are common.

    I’ve spoken to women who claim the gun registry saved their lives. I’ve personally used our current laws to help protect women from abusive boyfriends who went out and got their FAC after thinking that these women had done something that offended their manhood. And that’s a part of this discussion that no one is talking about: guns as phallic extensions. The orgasmic response that gun enthusiasts have to the sound of a loaded gun discharging is nothing short of fetish, and a sex-like thrill unplugs people’s brains.

    Does firing a gun make you feel powerful? Hell yes of course it does. But that power comes from the fact that you are in supposed control of a weapon intended for only one purpose: destruction.

    The problem with a patchwork, provincial system is that people and guns fall through the cracks that run across every provincial border. I find it mind boggling that a so-called “tough on crime” government thinks that easing gun laws will do anything but get people killed. This isn’t an across-the-board anti-crime movement. This is a “let’s rig the system in favor of those who vote conservative” movement. There’s a glee in castrating a major reform by a Liberal government.

    Those of you who are flinging out debunking catch-phrases need to stop and listen to yourselves, because you’re objecting to the very thing you are utilizing to ram this rotten legislation through: powerful images. You’re tossing out words like “freedom”, “cost-effectiveness”, and “gang-bangers”. These are all tropes that are intended to bypass the brain and go right to the gut.

    But when Warren beats you at your own game by showing an image that makes it clear that these long guns are not hunting rifles, but military-style weapons, you freak and start spewing your garbage all over again, like it will be any more relevant than the first time you said it.

    And you claim freedom while advocating for a weapon used to menace and bully.

    And you claim to support fiscal restraint while agreeing that billions of dollars in government spending should result in… absolutely nothing.

    This is nonsense, and I think you know it. But you want your guns, so you lie to yourselves, and ignore any piece of information that might make you feel a bit guilty when you pull the trigger on something that makes you feel like you matter. You’re okay with the culture of fear that these attitudes create, because you’re products of it, participants in it, and you can’t see beyond it. You’re too invested in a patriarchal state of arrested development that determines that what makes you important and powerful is how much damage you could do to someone for reasons that seem heroic, but really are just horrendously irresponsible.

    You may get your legislation, but I won’t sit idle against your lies. What I’m not seeing from the pro-gun movement is any sort of empathy for the people who fear that they will be potential victims of these changes. You’re waving your metaphorical guns around and whooping your war cries, thinking that a divided, inept opposition makes you morally correct instead of just better organized. You’re channeling a brutal history and claiming it’s the future.

    Keep fighting the good fight, Warren!

    • just tired says:

      Interesting you use the “term culture of fear”, 25 years ago in Downtown Vancouver no less I purchased a then 75 year old rifle. Parking being the joy it always has been I walked rifle in had to my car,some 3 blocks away. No SWAT, ERT or even police patrol car attended, people not run and cower in corners terrified that I would start randomly shooting them. Yet to perform the same act today would likely result in ERT teams deployed, streets closed and terrified people.

      That culture of fear that is the gift gun control in Canada has given to all the law abiding gun owners in the country. We as a group are so terrifying that many of our basic rights have been suspended simply for owning piece of steel and wood. Our homes open to search and inspection without warrant because we choose to own firearms, no criminal even the most heinous wife beating repeat offender suffers that.

      You ask us to feel empathy for those terrified of firearms, that is a two way street the vast majority of firearms owners do feel empathy for those you speak for. Where is you empathy for our suspension of basic rights for the to use your words culture fear that now surrounds us.

      What we do not understand is how you stood by and let the government of the day spend vast amounts of money on a system that does nothing and should have cost a fraction of the cost. Money that should have been spent on shelters, perhaps on tracking and managing those commit rape, beat their spouses etc.

    • Tiffany says:

      Liana, you wonder at the pro-firearm people’s apparent lack of concern for potential victims.

      As a woman who also owns firearms, I personally would feel others had plenty of concern for me – if they’d only allow me a real means of defending myself.

      Because let’s face it: pepper-spray and rape-whistles are no substitute for a real means of self defence against even an unarmed attacker. And I really, truly do not want to risk being a victim.

    • Matt says:

      “I’ve spoken to women who claim the gun registry saved their lives.”

      I’ve spoken to people that claim the Q-Ray bracelet cured them of arthritis. Just because someone claims it doesn’t make it true.

  32. I have several unregistered cars, and an unregistered F-150? Should I go to jail?

    Should be the same with long guns.

  33. Mike B says:

    What exactly are all these gun nuts defending? It quire literally took 5 minutes to register a gun, and yet you all still cried about that. Why don’t you sepdn all this time and energy defending important things like child poverty and funding cancer research. And what’s this rediculous comparison with vehicle? Drivers must undergo extensive testing to be Licensed and even then their vehicles have to be (wait for it) RESGISTERED. Not to mention cars are meant to be driven, not used as a weapon. Regardles of what context you use a gun, whether it be in hunting or for sport, it’s inherent purpose is to kill. But I can see why you wouldn’t want things like that to be licensed. Why stop there, why not say “more people get injured by paper cuts then by guns.” Just move to Texas already.

    • Nate says:

      The difference is that Firearms registration is part of the criminal code. If your car registration lapses, you might get a ticket. If your firearms registry lapses even for a minute, you face years in prison.

      The tories being stubborn on bill C-19 isn’t a result of an american NRA conspiracy, or rediculous pro-murder organizations. It’s being pushed so hard because the registry adversely affects a great many Canadians pointlessly.

      No-one is against gun control, but it should be fair and reasonable. Fearmongering, such as in the Star article and Mr. Kinsella’s post here, doesn’t help anyone.

  34. nine-nine says:

    The best part of this is the fact that the ones most likely to use this gun are the inuit up north.

    They are already except to the registry as per court challenge.

  35. Graham says:

    Exactly how will it be easier to get Warren?

    You would STILL need a PAL. The licensing system is not being touched.

    Could you also expalin to me what makes the Ruger Mini 14 semi-auto a more POWERFUL semi-auto than any other semi that uses .223 or 7.62x39mm?

    Wendy Cukier and the Coalition for Gun Control are trying to blame the Ruger Mini 14 for the shooting at L’ecole Polytechnique instead of the PERSON responsible. She believes anyone who owns one should somehow feel guilty because they have the same type of firearm used in a crime.

    Several years ago, a man used a Dodge Caravan to run down his daughter and her boyfriend in Scarborough, Ontario. By Wendy Cukier’s logic, I should feel guilt and share responsibility because I aslo drive a Dodge Caravan.

    And yes, I have sent a note to bothe the Star and Tonda McCharles.

    Have a good day.

    • Dave says:

      Warren, how about you and the rest of your anti-gun crew respond to this comment? Logical, clearly thought-out, and full of facts. You could learn a thing or two from this. How exactly does banning a particular model of gun make people safer? You do know that the Ruger Mini-14 only shoots the .223 cartridges, one of the smallest available in all rifles, right?

      The object should never be the center of attention in preventing crimes, but the people should. Look at the UK, they banned all handguns and guess what? Criminals started using knives. You ban knives they will find steel pipes. You ban steel pipes they’ll find rocks…. it goes on and on.

      Focus on the people, not the object.

    • John says:

      I would very much like a response also, how exactly is it easier to acquire?

  36. willy4 says:

    LOLZ

    the stupid…it make my head hurt

  37. Michael H says:

    There’s no “so-called”, I AM a law abiding citizen.

    For someone who knows literally nothing about guns, or gun ownership you claim to know the deepest hidden thoughts of the pro-gun lobby….

    It has nothing to do with owning guns that we don’t want people to know about; and who the hell should know about it anyway? You have to be licensed, as soon as your licensed any cop with 1/2 a brain is going to assume you have guns. Under the current system I could have 10000 registered guns, and none on my property; or have 0 registered guns, and have 10000 on my property. It’s USELESS.

    It’s about liberty and freedom to live how I want as long as I don’t hurt other people, I would think most liberals would be in favor of this (LIBERAL; LIBERTY… but I guess liberty is only granted to those who follow YOUR choice of political leaders.

    Liberty isn’t something that can be taken away because of a few bad apples like disciplining a child; it’s intrinsic to what makes us Canadian. Granting anti-gun people a minor sense of safety by restricting the freedom of other people should be a no brainer. It’s a placebo effect.

    • Ted H says:

      I do know something about guns, I admire their technology, the solid click of finely machined metal fitting together, the history of cartridge development. As a youth I was on a rifle team and was a good shot with iron sights, not a scope. However I am baffled by the choice of a firearm as a means of expressing liberty and freedom. Is that the only way to express freedom? You say “as long as I don’t hurt other people” but a gun is a device designed specifically to hurt or kill other people or things. Target shooting is only a way to improve the efficiency of being able to hurt or kill. Am not anti-gun but I no longer own a gun, I don’t need one and I am baffled by this linking of freedom and guns so prevalent among anti-registry individuals and so prevalent in the United States.

      • reformed liberal says:

        Ted, there’s your irrational fear of guns again. They were designed to shoot bullets. What you aim those bullets at is of no concern to the rifle, it’s done by the shooter. They were not designed to ‘kill people’.

  38. Duke P says:

    I am one of the people in Canada who actually OWN an HS-50, its about as portable as a 1971 cadillac eldorado. You can’t even hold it up to aim and shoot it as a typical hunting rifle.

    The availability and ability to purchase these weapons will not change from what it is TODAY, with the end of the long gun registry. The only difference is I won’t be a criminal simply by owning this firearm if my license expires and I am late renewing it.

    • Lily says:

      Yes, but what should your practical experience have anything to do with our high-level discussion?

      • Duke P says:

        I would say first hand experience with the “evil” looking object in question, its capabilities and limitations. I am also a firearms owner and semi-competitive target shooter, so I am guessing I have firsthand knowedge of how useless and wasteful the LGR is, how it makes law abiding citizens into instant criminals for paper crimes, and how statements like the OP are full of misinformation and fear mongering.

        What is your area of expertise on this particular subject? Let me guess, you saw a scary looking picture and decided to make an emotional plea of how evil it is and how it should be banned?

  39. .... says:

    How do gun owners fear that image? It is an image of an inanimate object. The only people that could possibly fear that image are the ignorant, uneducated, fear mongering antis. That firearm, or any .50 caliber rifle for that matter, have never been used to commit a crime in Canada, so why fear it? It is available to licensed firearm owners today, just like it was yesterday and years before, and will continue to be available( It is non-restricted just like a bolt action .22.) Provided you have the $6000+ to buy it.

  40. .... says:

    Actually Warren, the Nazis were well known for their “utopian” DIS-armament tactics. They wanted their public to be unarmed so they could not protect themselves and rise up against the crimes Hitler committed. Just a little tid-bit of info for you. Why do you think it was so easy for them to round up millions of people and kill them? They were dis-armed.

    • Warren says:

      You’re a psychopath.

    • Ted says:

      Perhaps a phsychopath. Perhaps not.

      Historically mis-informed though. That’s for sure. Take it from this historian.

      It wasn’t gun control that killed millions of Jews, bud. And to say so is pretty offensive.

      • Jody says:

        The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto risked their lives to gain even a signle additional firearm with which they could fight off the Nazis.

        Make NO mistake, the systematic disarming of a people – in Germany, Africa or Britain – all too often leads to horrific results.

      • Duke P says:

        An unarmed population is easier to round up. Less chance of messy resistance that way. Its historic fact.

      • .... says:

        I am far from historically misinformed, take it from this historian. By that logic it wasn’t simply a gun that killed those women at Ecole Polytechnique. It was a crazy man behind the trigger of an inanimate object. To say otherwise is pretty offensive bud. Furthermore, please explain how Switzerland, a country with one of the highest per capita gun ownership rates, has such a drastically low crime rate.

    • Karen says:

      One can only imagine how much a Jew in the death camps wished for a means of self-defence.

      Systematic gun-grabbing can lead to horrible, horrible things.

  41. .... says:

    The difference between the two is that you automatically become a criminal for possessing a firearm. Not only that but gun owners automatically have fewer rights than a real criminal. A piece of paper keeps you from being automatically prosecuted, essentially a gun owner is guilty until proven innocent. How’s that for a democratic system of freedom? Do you research.

  42. reformed liberal says:

    I wouldn’t trust a government which has disarmed the civilian population and thus has a monopoly on force via the police and military. That’s called a police state.

    • Dan says:

      no that’s called a state.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

      any government that no longer has a monopoly on violence is essentially a failed state.

      if you hate that so much, take your hard earned dollars and buy a ticket to somalia and get out of my country.

    • dave says:

      So, you figure the citizenry should be able to arm themselves to the same capacity of arms that the state has so that citizens can take on their own state?

      • Sam Crenshaw says:

        Dave, why are you proposing that citizenry be confined to more-outdated technologies?

        If government cars have 4-wheel drive, does that mean civilians should only be “allowed” access to front or rear-wheel drive automobiles?

  43. smelter rat says:

    Wow, this is better than the Kraft Dinner debate!

    • Warren says:

      Not really. Large number of first-time douchebags, today. The funny thing is they’re providing gun ownership info that I’m passing along to my brother-in-law.

      Who is a cop.

      • Derek Wagner says:

        Warren, hopefully your brother is a practical front-line officer with common sense, and not a member of the Bill Blair anti-firearm fraternity.

  44. james Smith says:

    Seriously, WTF in the 21st century do we need private gun ownership? Ban em all.

    • James says:

      Why would increased bans, registrations and restrictions be signs of “progress” for the 21st century ?

      • james Smith says:

        Seriously WTF do people need a thing that has one use; (ie killing)?

        • Lauren says:

          The “one use” of any firearm is that it is designed to be shot – just like a knife’s “one use” is to cut, and a car’s “one use” is to be driven.

          What or who is shot/cut/driven upon is ENTIRELY at the discretion of “user” – even the earliest Greek philosophers cherished this concept.

          • Philip says:

            What or who is shot/cut/driven upon is ENTIRELY at the discretion of “user”

            All you have done is replace the word “kill” with “shot”, presumably in an effort to disguise the only purpose of a gun.

            What or who is killed/cut/driven upon is ENTIRELY at the discretion of “user” – I fixed that for you.

  45. Richard Wakefield says:

    Warren, please. This 50 cal rifle has aways been available to anyone with a non-restricted licence. That does not change with the LGR being history. One still has to show their licence to buy one. So what if someone wants to buy a 50cal? When was the last time a 50 cal was even used illegally? It’s a damned expensive rifle to shoot! What you are doing if implanting fear because of the LOOKS of the rifle. That’s the worse way to have policy.

  46. dave says:

    One of the parts of the debate I have heard is various numbers, in the thousnads, of how many checks per day were being made of the gun registry. If our cops across the country did not like the registry, did not trust it, did not find it useful, then who was checking that registry every day? and why?

    • Phil says:

      Automated checks that were initiated every-time a an address or driver’s license was researched, for whatever reason.

      It’s not an uncommon for an automatic cross-check to be run when a database of this nature exists, regardless of if the check was desired or intended.

    • Richard Wakefield says:

      How many times do people like you have to get it before you understand. The checks are AUTOMATIC, even if you are randomly pulled over on the road. The vast majority of the time the cops would be ignoring that information. So do you honestly think the cops have to deal with gun issues that many times a day? Please…

      • dave says:

        So, what you mean is, that if a cop stop uncovered some long guns in a vehicle, the cops could quickly check their registration.

        And I guess now we go back to the rules before, when very often the back window of the pick up truck was where the rifle hung. Here in Northern BC I remember incidents that happened between guys out in the bush with their rifles handy in the the cab of their pickups. I was at one of them. Pretty exciting, freedom is.

        I hope I am getting to understand.

      • Attack! says:

        You can’t have it both ways, gun community: rightly insisting that you’re no fringe minority but at least 2 million or so strong (with FA licenses), but then complain that those numbers of police checks – a large portion of which are arguably being done deliberately to see whether they ARE dealing with one of the 2 million Canadians WITH an average of 4 guns each — are somehow grossly too high, just because a lot of them have to do with running someone’s plates in a traffic stop.

        Because it IS in their interests to know if they are dealing with a gun owner and what kind of ordinance they might be carrying, even for a routine traffic stop, because as the Juristat report I mentioned previously notes,

        “In more recent years, stopping a suspicious vehicle/person and stopping a vehicle for a traffic violation have resulted in more homicides against police officers than responding to domestic disputes.”

        http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010003/article/11354-eng.htm

        And as Joe Comartin noted in the debate the other day, the police’s uses of the LGR have been going up dramatically as more and more of them get properly trained on how and why to use it for purposes like that. (Even as the Con. MP, an ex-RCMP officer, insisted it wasn’t needed since, um, they weren’t able to use it up North in NWT so he doesn’t know how to use it or what it’s useful for so therefore it’s useless. So there.).

  47. michael hale says:

    Warren, that so many people are writing to attack the post just means you’re getting too close to their comfort zone. Good on you. Keep it going.

  48. Dave says:

    LOL! OP is a twit. Sounds to me your just bitter the NDP didn’t get elected.

    I love that all you anti-gun morons are suddenly comming out of the wood work and barking like someones pampered lap dog.

    We are winning and it’s ABOUT TIME! So cry me a river.

  49. Dave says:

    BTW, I’m also a Seal hunter and proud of it. How do you like THAT ya Granola eating Hippy?

    • Warren says:

      Oh my Lord, this is getting better and better. It is like a stupid parade.

      • Eugene says:

        Must be rather maddening that your detractors’ votes count the same as your vote does.

      • Richard Wakefield says:

        Look Warren. You people are getting exactly what you deserve. You people have attempted to belittle firearms owners, claiming we are all stupid rednecks, blood thirsty hunters, etc. The REALITY is that there are firearms owners in the NDP and the Liberals, so you are offending them too.

        I do not hunt. I do not agree with hunting. It’s not my thing, but I would never think of demanding hunting stop. Not my business to tell others. I do competition target shooting, both long range (1000 meters) and close quarters. Why? For the same reason my other hobby is model railroading. I love building scale models. It requires concentration, dexterity, patience, skill and when I finish it and it’s perfect I’m quite satusfied with my abilities. Competition shooting requires concentration, dexterity, patience, skill and when I finish it and it’s perfect I’m quite satusfied with my abilities. It’s not easy to hit a moving target at 400 meters. I’m happy just to get on paper! It’s not easy to hit a 12″ target at 800 meters, when the wind is blowing at 20km/h. Though some are very slick at this hobby, I have a ways to go to get to their level. Try hitting a one inch by 5 inche target at 35 meters while walking. BRUTAL!! I use both semi-auto rifles and bolt action depending on the competition. My son and daughter shoot with me, it’s a family event. The guys I shoot with are a great descent bunch of people. The anti-gun crowd simply have no clue about our hobby.

        Tell you what. If you have an open mind, I invite you to come to one of our shoots at the Ontario Rifle Association. The last one of the season is Nov 12 at the Langemark range at Base Borden. It’s a close quarters shoot with small semi-autos and pistols. I’ll even let you try my CZ858. Are you game to find out what we really do?

  50. By abolishing the gun registry, the Conservatives want to make it easier for people to kill our children.

    • Paul says:

      It’s nice to see you’ve moved past calling Conservatives “baby-eaters”; small steps, small steps.

    • The Doctor says:

      And eat them too. Don’t forget that part.

    • Richard Wakefield says:

      What an absolutely moronic statement. Do you honestly believe all us firearms owners are itching to kill children? What kind of person are you? You are EXACTLY the type of person that justifies why the LGR must go. I’d hate to live in a country where people like you were in charge, you know, like the USSR, North Korea, Iran, etc.

  51. GPAlta says:

    For everyone who asks “how does it get easier if you still have to show your license?”

    Once and for all- you will not have to show your license to an illegal dealer.

    And the illegal dealer will never be caught, because the government has proposed making the illegal trade in firearms to people without licenses (people who need guns to be “easier” to get) UNDETECTABLE. Impossible to investigate because no evidence of any kind will exist.

    How do we know today what percentage of guns used in crimes come from the US (a favourite stat of all anti-gun control fanatics, even though it should be the opposite, since it proves that lax gun regulations in the US do lead to illegal trade)? Because the rest are either registered or records were kept by merchants pre-registry. Going forward – no information. Conservatives like that, get rid of all facts, so that you can spin freely.

    It will be easy, risk free, and profitable to be an illegal firearms dealer, serving the needs of unlicensable people of Canada. That will make it easy to be the customer of such a criminal.

    • Simon says:

      GPAlta, what your comment is effectively saying is that the Registry is only (potentially) worthwhile in matters of post-crime follow-up.

      Personally, I’d much rather the government spend that LGR money in crime prevention – something about an ounce of prevention and a pound of cure.

      • mGPAlta says:

        I’m not saying that it is only that. This whole thread is discussing an article that simply pointed out the loophole that this law creates.

        The gun registry and the record keeping schemes that preceded it were ALSO excellent preventative measures, especially where long guns were concerned

        Long gun homicide rate has decreased by over 80% since the early 1980s, over 40% since 1995 when the Long Gun Registry was created. That seems like good prevention to me. Thousands or tens of thousands of lives saved by gun control of long guns alone, and we are now returning to the level of access that was available when long gun homicides were more than 5 times higher than they are now. Remember, we’re not going back to 1994, we’re going back to 1977.

        • Richard Wakefield says:

          Explain how a certificate for a rifle reduces crime. Personal licences is the gate keeper to keep firearms out of the wring hands, not a slip of paper for each rifle.

        • Shania says:

          If you already note that there was a massive 80%+ decrease in crime since the 1980’s, why would you (expensively and unsupportedly) attribute any post-1995 decrease to the LGR, instead of simply being part of an overall crime decrease quite independant of any LGR-effect ?

          After all, there was no LGR when this significant statical trend began (thought perhaps the LGR actually slowed the rate of crime decrease, if you really wish to play with statistics?).

        • Frank says:

          Homicide rates have been falling since 1977, long before the LGR was even introduced. In addition, hand gun related crimes have always been higher, and it has been law to register hand guns since the 1930s. And where do you get your info on how the LGR saves lives?

          Oh right, there is none, because there is no proof to record.

          • GPAlta says:

            The LGR itself is not the point of the Star article this thread is about.

            The Star is reporting that the proposed act to eliminate the LGR not only eliminates the LGR, but at the same time it fails to restore the record keeping situation to the pre-LGR condition.

            So, the measures that were in place from 1977 to 1995 pre-LGR which seem to have contributed to a steep decline in long gun homicides since 1977 are now gone.

            If you all think that 1977 to 1995 was a golden age of appropriate level of gun control, I won’t argue that, but this proposed law does not return us to that period. It returns us to a period prior to that when long gun homicides were much higher than they are now. That is what Warren posted the Star article to show.

            Why can’t anyone read the material that is up for discussion before discussing it?

            As for numbers, there are some compiled at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/10/25/f-firearms-numbers.html

            I’m going to stop posting now because if you still think that personal licenses will have any effect in a market where no one can ever know who the previous owner of a gun is, thanks to the government covering all the tracks for those who wish to buy guns illegally, I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.

            Unfortunately, I don’t think that you’ll understand what has happened once it happens. When you see more crime, and more reports of guns being “obtained illegally” you will all start chanting “gun control is useless, all crime guns are obtained illegally, get rid of all gun control” (or should I say you’ll continue chanting that).

            Every illegal gun starts out as a legally obtained gun (and I hate to burst your bubble, but the illegal gun smuggling market is not fed by people who break into houses to steal one gun at a time- that could be done in Canada without needing the smuggling- it is fed by the illegal transfer of guns that are legallly purchased in the US for that purpose). So why do most illegal guns in Canada come from the US? Because the US system makes it easy for guns to be handed over to criminals. Well guess what? this proposed law makes it even easier in Canada. And make no mistake, this is the model that will be used on restricted firearms when the time is right for this government.

            Public safety is bad for Conservative-friendly businesses’s profits. The Conservatives need more people in prisons to justify the construction and ongoing profit of private prisons, they need more people to have illegal access to guns to make gun dealers and manufacturers more profitable, and they need more crime on the streets to encourage people to re-elect them.

            If you want “proof” of that, there is a giant case study called the U.S.A. running just south of the border right now with all the proof you will ever need, and even though we have very few Canadian-origin illegal guns now, and even though we have very low crime rates now, and even though we have all of our public safety numbers running the right way, the Conservatives are determined to not build upon our success but to tear it down by deliberately copying the measures in the US that have demonstrably failed for public safety. The question is why? and the answer is that those policies have succeeded for Conservative lobby groups! Remember that we are also eliminating public campaign financing, so the money of those lobby groups is now more valuable to the Conservatives than it was before as well.

            Thanks for trying Warren, I’d like my streets to stay as safe as they are now too, but I guess that Conservatives are much easier to fool than I thought, and that they actually can argue against success.

            It is hard to believe, but they actually can say, “sure all of the objectives of your policy have been met, conincidentally with the creation of your policy 34 years ago, but it wasn’t as a result of your policy. How about we try the opposite just to see what happens”

    • DVCMAC says:

      Canada already has illegal dealers of illegal/smuggledl guns – the registry didn’t change that – LOL!

      Why would a licensed individual be interested in purchasing an illegal/smuggled gun when he/she can buy one from a legal dealer…………for significantly less money.

      Who cares where the guns come from. Guns used in gun crime are very difficult, if not impossible to trace because the gun is rarely left at the scene. Usually, suspects are traced by description and once caught, if the gun is found, is matched to the bullet and casings. A gun registry cannot do any of that, even if the gun were registered. Does the criminal have a firearms license? Probably not – if nothing else sticks, at least you have an illegal possession charge.

      Illegal firearms dealers eventually get caught by undercover cops and border services agents. It’s how illegal gun dealers are caught today. The registry is of no help at all. The only thing a gun registry is good for is the quick and expedient confiscation of firearms. Registration leads to confiscation i.e. registration, gun ban/reclassification, then confiscation without compensation. Have you heard the Libtards and Dippers talking about gun bans and reclassifications……….yes! There you have it.

      • Dan says:

        It’s fucking hard to arrest a gang for criminal conduct. Even if you get one shooter, you might be able to investigate the gang they run with, but you might not make any further arrests or convictions. Not without definitive proof that the other members are connected to some kind of crime… beyond a reasonable doubt.

        The gun registry means that if you find a pile of illegal firearms when you search a suspected gang member’s house, game over. No bullshit.

        Honest people shouldn’t fear anything from registering a gun. You still have the right to the gun. You just have a loss of convenience, for a huge addition in safety.

        • Another Brad says:

          I think you missed DVCMACs point. ‘Registration leads to confiscation.’ Just look into a gun called the Norinco Type 97.

          Registration is a huge inconvenience and is not worth the trouble it brings.

  52. Another Brad says:

    With so much fail in that article I don’t need to point it out. I don’t think even the dumbest criminal would go on a shooting spree with the single shot HS50. But maybe you antis should think about this next time your driving to work smoking your cigarette. More people die in 1 month from car accidents and tobacco use (not combined) then there have been firearms related deaths since the registry was introduced as a whole. We already register cars, lets waste some more tax dollars and register cigarettes too.

    • Attack says:

      Hmm, that strikes me as utter BS; dunno about tobacco deaths, but here’s the:

      Total number of Total Medically Classified Deaths in Canada for 2000-8 inclusive for:

      Car occupants (including drivers) injured in transport accidents:

      782 / 788 / 867 / 849 / 843 / 950 / 903 / 816 / 789 = 843 per year, or 70 per month ave.

      which are very close to those by Firearms Discharge, for
      Homicidal Assaults, Intentional self-harm/Suicide, Accidents & Undetermined intent combined:

      870 / 837 / 812 / 790 / 743 / 818 / 774 / 723 / 743 = 790 /yr, or 66 per month ave.

      Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Vital Statistics, Death Database
      Deaths, by cause, Chapter 20: External causes of morbidity & mortality (V01 to Y89), Canada, annual
      http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a05?lang=eng&id=1020540

      • Richard Wakefield says:

        How many of those are by legal firearms?

      • Another Brad says:

        Quote from Heart and Stroke Foundation’s website
        ‘Smoking contributes to more than 37,000 deaths a year in Canada, of which almost 11,000 are heart disease and stroke-related (29% of all smoking-related deaths are heart disease and stroke-related). 21

        Almost 6,300 non-smokers die each year from exposure to second-hand smoke.’

        Thats about 100+/- a day smoking related deaths.

        Pardon my ignorance, but lets assume your firearms related numbers are correct. That totals 7080 over that 8 year stretch. Non smokers are an estimated 6800 a year, smokers works out to be about 3080ish a month. So I guess I’m wrong. Lets continue wasting money on a multi billion dollar list of law abiding citizens that fails to save a single life regarding an issue that carries a rank among the lowest of causes of death in canada.

        • Attack! says:

          Well, if those figures are correct, and if we assume for the sake of argument that ‘contributes to’ means ’causes,’ then you just made a far better argument for banning cigarettes (and by extension, the civilianized assault weapons like the Mini-Ruger) than you do for the abandoning the current regime just by whining about it being unfair that there are other, worse public safety problems that we haven’t registered (even though, ahem, we HAVE restricted its sale in many ways, including prohinting its sale to minors and requiring huge unsavory warning labels).

          So, thanks: “‘Another Brad’ Shows Why Tobacco Should Be Classified As A Restricted Drug in Canada: News at 11”

  53. Jack Belliveau says:

    Dear Sir,

    You confused the HS .50 cal with a Ruger Mini-14. You also believe that the HS .50 cal is somehow now more accessible than before the LGR was dismantled. That’s a good indication you’re not qualified to be discussing “gun-control” issues, or even anything firearms related at that.

    Cordially,
    Jack

  54. Woody says:

    It annoys me to no end when you anti gun folks make such blatantly incorrect remarks.

    Firstly, as its been pointed out, the rifle depicted was NOT the rifle used in the Montreal Massacre. Why the author of this page chose to lie when the information on which rifle was used is practically common knowledge, is beyond me.
    Also, the LGR does NOT stop guns from being sold or given to or stolen by people who are not licensed. The lGR cannot stop those things because it is just a list of guns. Give it a rest. People will always do bad things an quite frankly their are a lot easier ways to get a gun that is unregistered than finding a licensed owner to sell you their unregistered gun. Head on down to Jane and Finch with 700 dollars and you can buy yourself a nice pistol, sans serial number. LETS FOCUS ON REAL CRIMINALS not citizens/ gun owners.

    • Philip says:

      “Head on down to Jane and Finch with 700 dollars and you can buy yourself a nice pistol, sans serial number. LETS FOCUS ON REAL CRIMINALS not citizens/ gun owners.”
      You have no idea what Jane and Finch actually looks like do you? Hint: It doesn’t look like Times Square circa 1980. Sorry to bust your sad little Charles Bronson urban vigilante fantasy you got going there.

    • GPAlta says:

      The LGR does stop you from selling or giving away your gun to an unlicensed individual, because the unlicensed individual will be unable to maintain the registration, so the police can come and ask you what happened to the gun, and if you tell them, then they can go an get it from the criminal and arrest you too while they’re at it.

      That is unless you choose to maintain the registration under the LGR fraudulently for a gun you don’t have control over anymore, which would again argue for you to be arrested and charged if that fraud came to light because of a criminal use of the gun.

      In the future, if you sell or give your gun to an unlicensed individual, the police will not be able to come looking for you because there will be no information anywhere that you ever owned that gun. Even if the unlicensed individual accuses you, how would anyone prove it when no one can ever prove that you even saw that particular gun before?

  55. A.Bo says:

    People really need to focus on the loophole GPAlta is mentioning. It is key to a very serious issue that ALL of us will now be faced with, in equal measure.

    Reread his/her posts.

    • Shirley says:

      I for one tried to read his posts, but he provided no support – only conjecture and “what-ifs”…….

      • Attack! says:

        What part of, “If they’re not registered they’ll be much harder to trace, because there’s no record of who owns them, except for ones with very old paper records from the gun stores” don’t you understand?

        There’s no conjecture: it’s the whole point of the Bill: tear up the paper trail (or electronic version thereof) for long guns.

  56. dave says:

    The only way that you would get more comments on an issue (than you have received on this one) is to suggest that we take fighting out of hockey.

  57. Iris Mclean says:

    Holy Jumpin! Almost 200 comments on this! It’s what won the Reformatories their majority.

  58. Raymond says:

    That’s a .50 caliber sniper rifle.

    Agreed, it’s a potentially dangerous weapon in the wrong hands (just like a knife), but it’s very large, heavy, and unweildy. It is a bolt-action single-shot rifle, not a lightweight semi-automatic as is the Mini-14. It will, however, bring down a helicopter and penetrate armour plate. I’m not sure why anyone would want one, other than for some form of phallic bragging rights.

    Personally, I like my pellet gun.

  59. Dave says:

    Lies, lies, and more lies! Getting rid of the long gun registry does NOT make getting ANY guns easier. You still need to take the CFSC safety course, apply for PAL, wait for background check by the RCMP, wait for minimum 28 days to process, join a club, THEN you can buy one, IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT. I don’t think too many people can afford this $6,000 SPORTING RIFLE to begin with.

    I think people, espeically self-procalimed journalists, need to do some homework first, before posting any of their opinions on a particular topic. Making things up and spreading false information to confuse the general public is NOT good journalism.

    You are also equating any gun owner of having the potential to become blood thursty killers. If that analogy was true, then you’ve just equated all kitchen knife owners in Canada of having the potential to become cold-blooded murders as well.

    Please, THINK logically before you speak, it’ll make your points more valid and trust-worthy.

    • Attack! says:

      Or you can just get a forged PAL license like these http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/06/24/14497076.html and buy it at a store.

      Or buy it from a gun owner like the guy above who said the first thing he’d going to do when the database is supposedly purged is unload his current weapons & buy a new set that can’t be traced to him: betcha some of them won’t be too scrupulous about ensuring they’re only selling to people with valid licenses.

      And now that neither the dealers nor the private sellers will have to notify the CFP, under C-19, no one will ever know what non-black market weapons you just acquired. Thanks, Conservatives!

  60. Pete says:

    The privacy commissioner and the Quebec government have kicked in their 2 cents on the data destruction proposed by the book burning Tories. I think Quebec will launch a court challenge just to make Harpo look even worse in Quebec. I could also see Ontario becoming a part of that case.

  61. DVCMAC says:

    First of all, eliminating the LGR will not make it easier for criminals to get any type of rifle, especially the Steyr HS 50. Unlike cars, a person must have a firearms license to purchase any gun. It’s unlikely criminals would qualify for one.

    Secondly, the Steyr HS 50 isn’t a suitable close quarter crime gun. Let me see…….Joe Dirtbag is going to set himself up a kilometre away, then yell “give me all your drugs and money”………”what did you say?” LOL! It is large, heavy and expensive – $6,000 plus for rifle, $2,000 for scope and $15 per round, if you can find it. The noise and concussion would cause the shooter permanent hearing loss without adequate protection.

    Thirdly, it takes a lot of skill to make that long distance shot. Elevation, wind speed, wind direction, temperature, humidity, bullet drop, etc – even zeroing in the rifle at 100 yards would be a huge challenge for most criminals. Those in law enforcement must be having a good laugh.

    And finally, with the crime bill, criminals will find themselves spending more time in jail.

    C-68 is malicious and abusive. Legal gun owners have been harassed and persecuted for long enough. It’s remarkable how one can make an illegal left hand turn and kill and motorcyclist and get a $140 fine and 3 demerit points. Forget to put your trigger lock on and they’ll charge you under the criminal code with unsafe storage (a criminal record), throw you in jail for a year or two, confiscate ALL your firearms, $30,000 plus in legal fees and give you a 5-10 year firearm prohibition – all without harming anyone. Equal treatment under the the Highway Traffic Act, speeding 1kph over the limit would give you a dangerous driving charge (criminal code offence), 1-2 years in jail, ALL your cars confiscated, $30,000 plus in legal fees and a 5-10 year driving ban. After all, speeding can kill too.

    • Raymond says:

      Well said.

    • Philip says:

      C-68 is a good and necessary piece of legislation. Guns exist to kill living things, the brand name or the specifications are irrelevant. Full stop. Anyone who can’t or won’t store/transport guns safely should have those penalties imposed, including the jail time. Owning a tool created with the sole purpose of killing should be a rare privilege not a right. By the very nature of what they collect, gun owners put society at risk.

      • Michael H says:

        “By the very nature of what they collect, gun owners put society at risk.”

        You can say that about a limitless number of things.

        By the very nature of what they collect, car owners put the entire WORLD at risk. (Greenhouse gases + accidental/purposeful deaths)

        From stats canada;

        From 2000 through 2004, there were
        44,192 accidental deaths in Canada ;
        32% of them (14,082) were the result
        of motor vehicle accidents (MVAs ) .
        In the 15 to 24 age group, MVA deaths
        ( 3,417 ) accounted for 70% of all
        accidental deaths (4,895) .

        More from stats canada;

        Between 1989 and 1996, the average annual rate of firearm deaths in all of Canada is 4.5 per 100,000.

        Never mind the fact that when someone goes “off the rocker” with a gun/rifle and kills them selves and their family, it’s a pretty easy case to solve. When someone goes “off the rocker” and drives their car (with their family in it)
        into an 18 wheeler, it’s harder to prove the intent and in turn, gets demonized less.

        If you guys really want to make Canada safer get tobacco, cars, and McDonald’s illegal in Canada.

        • Attack! says:

          Ah, so the day shift moves the goal posts again, from just car accidents (which, admittedly, I confined to collisions; there’s also ‘noncollision transport accident’ & ‘other and unspecified transport accidents’ which drive those #’s up by another 300 or so a year) to all MVA, eh? (which includes cars, trucks, buses, & motorcycles for on-road use, as well as farm, construction and off-road vehicles) http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2008003/article/10648/5202440-eng.htm

          Okay, I’ll play.

          Of course, there are good, legitimate reasons for using motor vehicles, but in light of their dangers, maybe a good first step to addressing their safety concerns would be to:

          Train, test, and license their operators, and restrict to them to certain conditions of use (e.g., only with corrective lenses, if needed, and not while intoxicated, and within the posted speed limits, and ensuring all the occupants use restraints); and,

          Impose safety standards on (incl. air bags, safety inspections on brakes etc.) the vehicles themselves, and restrict or ban some of them from operating on public roads (if they can’t meet the standards for keeping up with traffic, braking, or protecting the occupants from being killed in crashes (except for motorcycles)); and, of course,

          Register the actual vehicles themselves (to both try to ensure they were of the pre-approved types above, and to be able to connect the vehicles to the licensed users when they may or have been operated illegally or with harmful consequences)

          All to, at a minimum, try to ensure that only legally qualified people are operating pre-approved equipment they are entitled to use.

          But, wait: we already DO all that with motor vehicles, which might account for how the numbers and rates of MVA deaths decreased substantially, by a third or more in absolute terms (from nearly 4,500/yr to about 2,800) and by about half in the rates (from an ave. of 17.7 to 9.1//100,000 in age-standardized rate), just from the ’80s to the 2000s

          (which I just calculated from the data at:
          http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2008003/article/10648/t/5202443-eng.htm

          But now we’re NOT going to do all that with guns. Oh, sure, we’re still going to license & restrict, but without the registering, the link between the licensing and being able to track the pre-approved equipment BACK to the licensed users in the event of harmful use becomes a lot LESS useful.

          • Michael H says:

            You are forgetting one key aspect here.

            We must be licensed and registered to use government owned roads. We do not have to be licensed and registered to drive on our own land.

            When the government makes funded rifle ranges with free membership to anyone with a license, I will gladly register any firearm with them that I wish to use at that range.

            Until then, it’s none of there, or your business which firearm I wish to own. I haven’t committed any crimes and shouldn’t be treated like a criminal just because of something I own.

          • Attack! says:

            Yawn. I didn’t forget that difference; I just didn’t bring it up because it’s not relevant to the point I made, which was:

            Quite sensibly, licensing, product safety, AND registration regulations were all brought to bear on that other risky area you mentioned … to good effect.

            And guess what: in most if not all places, before you can legally putter around with unregistered vehicles on the land you own, you have to register that actual land you own, first! D’oh!

      • Raymond says:

        By that logic we should register fly-swatters and ball-pein hammers at the local abattoir, as they are used exclusively for killing living things.

        • Philip says:

          Ball pein hammer? Really? Pretty weak sauce Raymond. But you already knewthat. Nobody is talking about flies, although I’ll give you credit for actually making the connection between form and function. Personally I would love to see the Chris Rock Doctrine applied to firearm ownership in Canada. Collect whatever ridiculous firearm that gives you that tiny rush of power, but charge $5,000 for each bullet. That way gun owners could sit at home and fondle their guns and the rest of society could go along with their lives.

          • Michael H says:

            It’s not “gun owners” that cause the problems, it’s criminals.

            Gun owners go to the range once in a while, or like to hunt. Maybe they do 3 gun, or cowboy shooting. Maybe they do F-class shooting, or skeet; but “gun owners” aren’t the ones you need to be worried about.

            It’s criminals in gangs, and people who buy illegal pistols and rifles that haven’t been sold legitimately that cause problems. Gun licensing in Canada prohibits violent and unstable people from legally obtaining guns, do you think banning all guns is going to stop them from getting them?

            Do weed laws stop people from growing/selling/smoking weed? Did alcohol prohibition stop people from drinking? No.
            Like it or not, there’s a lot of gun culture in Canada and just because it makes some people, in some places in Canada uncomfortable doesn’t mean you get to decide what we do.

            If there was zero murders in Canada from legally bought firearms, would that be enough for you to stop trying to suspend the rights of your fellow citizens?

            Why is a criminal called a criminal? Because they break the law. So, how is creating more laws going to stop their behavior? The entire point of being a criminal is the fact you don’t care about the law.
            The only thing creating laws does is stop law abiding people from performing an action, the only thing that will stop the non law-abiding person is more enforcement.

            We need to stop making stupid laws that only make it seem like we’re combating crime, and devote the time and energy to actually busting hard criminals, with bad intentions.

          • Raymond says:

            Your fear of gun owners appears to be clinical. Frankly, I’m far more concerned about other drivers during my morning commute than I am about some errant nut with a rifle. You’re grouping all gun owners into the same pile…just as Allan Rock and his party did in the mid-nineties. That’s wrong.

          • Philip says:

            The more I think about it the more I like the $5,000 tax per bullet idea. No additional laws needed, more federal revenue to pay down our debit. Gun owners could own whatever fetish item they wanted and the rest of society would be all the safer for it. If gun owners or criminals wanted to shoot, they would have to pony up actual cash for it, Every bullet in Canada would be the property of the government of Canada, they could sell each bullet through a government run website. Low overheads and bank the cash!! I really don’t see a downside to this one.

  62. smelter rat says:

    Persoanlly, I never make mine with milk…butter only. Maybe a touch of water if it’s too thick. 😉

  63. .... says:

    “Kuntz used a popular police magazine to query officers across Canada if they supported the registry as a useful working tool.”
    Thanks for the mis-quote I said “ANY” officer. Do you or do you not disagree that an officer who bets their life on the registry is asking for trouble? Checking the registry and seeing a gun free residence is a dangerous bit of information for a rookie officer. Do you disagree?
    Also, are you inferring that criminals do in fact register their guns? Because gee Ted if that was the case we’d all be living in a nice quaint alter reality. The vast majority of criminal firearms are smuggled across the border, Ted, an issue the registry does nothing to combat. How’s that for tough on crime. Quit harassing law abiding gun owners and focus your rage on the real problem which is criminals with illegal firearms.

  64. joeyjones says:

    I really wish that people would keep their mouth shut if they don’t know what they’re talking about. You should consider these facts from stats canada:
    http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/111026/dq111026a-eng.htm

    Police reported 170 homicides with a firearm in 2010, down from 180 the year before. This is consistent with a general decline in firearm-related homicides seen over the past three decades.

    Much of the decline in firearm-related homicides since the early 1980s can be attributed to a decrease in homicides involving rifles or shotguns. Rates of homicide involving rifles or shotguns in 2010 were about one-fifth of those seen 30 years ago.

    Handguns accounted for 64% of homicides committed with a firearm in 2010, while rifles or shotguns accounted for 23%. Other firearms such as sawed-off shotguns, automatic firearms or other firearm-like weapons represented the remainder.

    In 2010, one-half of all homicides in Toronto were committed with a firearm, compared with 44% in Vancouver and 33% in Montréal.

    Stabbings (31%) were nearly as common in 2010 as shootings (32%). Another 22% of homicides involved beatings and 8% were by strangulation or suffocation. The remaining homicides used other means such as motor vehicles, fire and poisoning.

    So as it turns out firearms-related deaths are declining, only make up 32% of total homicides, and only 23% of firearms-relates homicides were committed using non-restricted firearms (rifles and shotguns, not including saw-ed off). This means that only 7.36% (23% of 32%) of homicides were committed using non-restricted firearms, for a total of 41 (7.36% of 554 total homicides, rounded up) were committed using firearms that are considered non-restricted. Many firearms used for crime are brought into the country illegally and are unregistered so it is easy to imagine only a small portion of the firearms used for crime to be registered. Will scrapping the long gun registry really make much of a difference when there were only 41 homicides committed with long guns last year?

    • Attack! says:

      And I really wish people trying to minimize these statistics would be required to attend the ER wards and funerals when these victims are brought in.

      And I also wish they’d do the right thing and COMBINE the statistics from the long-gun homicides with those of the sawn-off rifles and shotguns, which are, after all, the same types of weapons, only with modifications.

      When we do, we find the number of homicides from both intact and sawn-off rifles and shotguns combined for 2000-10 were:
      69 / 53 / 46 / 45 / 52 / 70 / 63 / 49 / 51 / 44 / 50

      http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2011001/article/11561/tbl/tbl05-eng.htm

      This works out to an ave. of 56.0 per year for the three year interval 2000-2 while the LGR was being phased in, to
      an ave of 48.3 per year for 2008-10: or 8 fewer a year, a -13.7% decrease.

      Are 8 fewer homicides a year ‘worth’ the $4M it now costs for its administrators’ labour & IT costs a year to maintain the long gun registry,

      http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cost-of-long-gun-registry-a-fraction-of-what-tories-claim-report-shows/article1807833/

      especially in light of the fact that complex murder investigations can cost millions… as can wrongful death suits?

    • reformed liberal says:

      100% of all murders were committed by a human. By your logic, all humans should be registered, banned, or prohibited.

      Take away the intent to murder, and weapons are inanimate objects.

      But release the intent to murder, and weapons are STILL inanimate objects, being held by murderers.

  65. Can you find a link to one person who had been charged with a firearms offence and was not involved in another criminal offence?

    • joeyjones says:

      I would imagine that the only cases of that would be instances of violation of safe storage/transport laws and negligent discharges. I doubt that many of those cases would make it to the news or internet as there’s really no eye-catching harm done.

  66. Ted says:

    I love how the pro-gun violence crowd has been telling everyone for years that the registration requirement was unduly burdensome and now that assault weapons will be de-listed and no one is going to be able to trace them we are being told that the registration was so minimal that we don’t have to worry.

    • Graham says:

      Assault weapons are already banned in Canada.

      Have been for decades.

      The Mini 14 is not an assault rifle. Neither was the REGISTERED Baretta CX-4 Storm that was used in the shooting at Dawson College in 2006, despite what media and anti gun groups suggest.

      That’s correct. The gun used at Dawson was REGISTERED.

      I thought the Liberals said the Long Gun Registry would prevent anything like L’Ecole Polytechnique from happening again?

  67. Domenico says:

    Where did all these banjo playing hillbillies come from? Shouldn’t they all be out shootin’ varmints instead of bothering us sensible urbane policy wonks with their overheated rhetoric?

    • Graham says:

      Typical ignorant, snotty, snobby response one would expect from a Liberal supporter.

      And you wonder why your party has been reduced to 34 seats in the House of Commons.

      • Domenico says:

        Well GRAHAM I just call em’ like I see THEM. Back to your BANJO!

        • Graham says:

          Sorry to disappoint you. I don’t play banjo. Born and raised in Toronto.

          Yup. Urban gun owner. College educated and everything.

          • Michael H says:

            I love the straw men arguments, and ad hominem attacks from anti-gun people, don’t you Graham?

            Domenico doesn’t have anything useful to contribute so he attacks the owners themselves.

    • The Doctor says:

      Domenico is the Liberal Party of Canada’s new outreach co-ordinator for boosting the rural vote.

      • Domenico says:

        Is that a paid position?

        Just happy to be part of the 76% that voted against the braying “guns don’t kill people” “Hitler banned guns” minority.

  68. Me says:

    Good. I don’t trust a government that does not trust me with guns. This law is total win.

    And it will not mean it is easier to get. you still need a license with the same background checks.

    Hopefully we get rid of licensing soon. No need for the government to know who has guns.

    • Philip says:

      I completely disagree. All levels of government should know exactly who has what gun. That information should be available to every police force in the country.

      • Matt says:

        I work for the government and I feel that I should know what you and your spouse keep in your dresser, in the name of public safety… or else you will be charged criminally for not disclosing that information to me.

        Do you feel safer now?

  69. Harlech says:

    Wow! This is absolutely laughable. Bill C-19 will not make it easier to obtain this rifle, nor any other. It will still require the correct license. The only way it would be “easier” to obtain is if the government were to hand everyone who wanted one a cheque for several thousand dollars to cover the purchase price.

  70. Marc L says:

    I really don’t understand the logic behind the arguments that are being served on any of the two sides of this debate. I support the dismantling of the gun registry because it’s a waste of money, not because I like guns. Frankly, I think that gun ownership should be very severely restricted, and anything but hunting rifles should be quite simply illegal. But the arguments on both sides seem incredibly overblown.

    1. Nobody on the pro-gun-registry side has ever even once been able to convincingly explain to me how it actually helps solve or prevent crimes. If they could, I could actually end up supporting it. The argument that police will know when there is a gun in the house and act accordingly is farcical. There could well be an illegal non-registered gun in the house even if the registry says there is none. Would officers act as if the house is gun-less when confronted with a potential crime just because there is no entry in the registry? I doubt it. And it is pure demagogery to refer to Polytechnique as an example. In no way would the registry have prevented that crime. Nor would it have prevented Dawson. The fact that many police chiefs like it is not an argument. If you gave them a cop at every street corner, they would like that too. That doesn’t make it good policy. The issue is the marginal benefit versus the cost. Whatever benefits the registry brings look to be to be exceeded by the cost. And quit saying that this is about eliminating gun control. Gun control existed before the registry and will exist after the registry. You still need licences, background checks etc. etc. As for the article in the Star…talk about fear-mongering.

    2. But aside from the cost, who cares if it remains. Those who are against the registry talk about being considered criminals etc. Puhleeeese…nobody is considering you to be criminals. They are considering you to be people who have very dangerous deadly weapons in your house. So what if you have to have them registered? Nobody is taking away your right to own a gun. You have to register your car, your property for various reasons. Why do you give a hoot about having to register your gun? Nobody has yet been able to convince me that there is a real problem here beyond a misguided matter of principle.

    Just my 2 cents worth…

    • Harlech says:

      Have a clerical lapse with your vehicle license or registration and nobody comes to your door with a hard knock to publicly cart you away in handcuffs. You don’t need to worry about licenses and such if your vehicle repmains on private property. If you have more than one vehicle and forget to renew a license/sticker, nobody comes to confiscate ALL of your vehicles to have them destroyed, while you watch helplessly from prison. No official has ever used the registration of vehicles to come around and announce that you can no longer own a particular vehicle because “we say so”, and then taken it away from the owner. No owner of a vehicle has ever received notification that they may no longer drive that particular vehicle because some official decided that was how it was going to be; and then tried to use the argument that since it is illegal to drive said vehicle, obviously there is no legal reason to own it, and therefore it should be surrendered, for free, to the government.

      So, yeah, obviously registration of vehicles is just like that of cars; and just as benign.

    • Harlech says:

      Have a clerical lapse with vehicle licensing/registration/stickers and nobody comes to your door to publicly cart you away in handcuffs. You don’t need to worry about licensing and such if the vehicle stays on private property. Owners of more than one vehicle have never had them confiscated and destroyed over a clerical lapse for one of them. No official has ever used the registration of vehicles to inform an owner that a particular vehicle can no longer be driven on a public road because “we say so”. And then used the argument that since it can no longer be driven then there is no legal reason to own it, so hand it over. Registration of vehicles has never been used to confiscate vehicles from estates after the owner’s death. People haven’t been charged and arrested as the subject of unfounded malicious complaints because the registry said they owned a fast car.

      So, yeah, I can see why people should not be concerned about registering their guns.

      • Marc L says:

        Yeah, I guess it is a bad analogy. My car is intended to be driven from point a to point b — that’s its purpose. A gun is designed for one thing: to kill. It seems to me that fully justifies a harder line on non-compliance with regulations.

        • Harlech says:

          And you would be wrong. If it were true, then all the firearms owned by myself and the people I know must be defective. That many firearms were born out of military applications is true. However, the same can be said of many other things in life, including personally owned vehicles. Military heritage aside, a vehicle may get you from A to B; again without reference to any military pedigree. Likewise there are plenty of firearms designed specifically to cut little holes in very close proximity to each other at various distances.

          If you feel a harder line should be taken with regard to clerical violations with firearms, well that is all good and well as your opinion, and, you are entitled to it. However, it is another matter entirely to argue that registration of firearms is just like that of vehicles.

        • reformed liberal says:

          Marc L, that’s a pretty lame argument. Cars were designed to be driven into pedestrians. Cars were designed to transport drugs. Cars were designed to move kidnapped children. Cars were designed to help robbers get away. Cars were designed to be driven into canals with three girls inside. Because cars can do all that and more.

          You say guns were designed to kill. Then how did I miss those three ducks the other day? And the clay pigeons I hit this summer were never alive, so how could I kill them?

          Bring an adult argument next time.

  71. tungsten says:

    A squid unabashedly squeezes eggs.

  72. Michael H says:

    No amount of new laws or legislation will stop criminals from doing what they please. That’s the point of being a criminal; you ignore the laws.

    Making laws against firearms will do the same thing it did with drugs, and alcohol (during prohibition); push them underground and give the profits to illegal arms dealers. So, the criminals still get guns, and the sellers make even more money.
    Meanwhile, the rest of the population (except government organizations, lol) are left defenseless.

  73. Matt says:

    I find it amazing then the pro gun-control crowd uses fear mongering as their only argument and actually ends up believing their own lies in the end. Let me ask you this: if cocaine, heroin, LSD and other illicit drugs are… well… illegal, then how come they are still plaguing our streets and killing our youth? Maybe because there are other (unofficial) ways to get those drugs, perhaps? Same goes for the registry and gun control: the more draconian gun control laws you put in place (or maintain), the more people will be likely to go “elsewhere” than the legal channels in order to procure these items – the choice is theirs in the end, not yours. Studies have been conducted and clearly show that over-taxation or over-regulation creates defiance every single time on nearly every level amongst civil populations. So what’s best? Having gun control that actually makes sense or having draconian gun control where your gun-wanting population won’t obey it and/or gets their guns illegally instead? This is exactly why it is estimated that close to half of the non-restricted firearms in Canada were never registered with the Liberal gun registry: people just didn’t care to respect that particular law, and many of those who got suckered into registering would argue those who didn’t were right (especially after large-scale arbitrary seizures were conducted on certain scary-looking firearms with no compensation to their owners – yes, it did happen!).

    It also strikes me that a bunch of people who call themselves “Liberals” would support restricting others’ freedoms in the name of some obscure political ideology or unattainable utopia of a violence-free society (note the capital L, as not to confuse with the concept of classical liberalism, which is all about promoting freedom). The gun issue is not divisive and never has been until the Liberals decided to make it so in the 1990’s, capitalizing on a tragedy that happened at Polytechnique to push their popularity. Although this might have seemed like a good “strategic” move at the time for their political agenda, it has been costing them dearly ever since. What’s funny is that they now actually dare to accuse the Conservatives of creating this “divide” amongst Canadians, which is probably one of the most hypocritical statements in Canadian history.

    Bottom line is, I am a law enforcement officer and I do not support the registry one bit. First, because more than half of firearms in this country are not registered as it is, second because the licensed owner of a hunting or target shooting rifle (yes, even the “scary” black plastic guns you Liberals are freaking out so much about) is not on my priority list when I consider the list of the usual suspects that might send me the bullet with my name on it one day while I’m at work. No sir, the guns I have to watch out for are not registered and never will be regardless of legislation in place, nor are they acquired legally in any manner. Let’s all simply agree that, as far as “saving lives” is concerned, spending the registry money in having more police officers or doctors across the country is a far better idea than having a useless and incomplete hunting & target rifle registry.

    It is such a simple concept, yet so hard for some people to understand… and the fact that some of those people are “Liberal Strategists” might at least partially explain why the LPC has finally reached the bottom of the barrel. A few different and rational decisions in the 1990’s would more than likely assure them continuous support from these same duck hunters and target shooters that are each now making donations by the hundreds of dollars to the Conservatives. Just saying…

  74. Ken Shoup says:

    Look, I don’t know what you’re thinking, Warren. These will in no way be easier to obtain anywhere, including here in the (to you) criminalistic, insane, armed United States of America.

    Even here, rifles chambered for the .50BMG (that’s what the cartridge is called) cartridge are extremely hard to obtain financially. Legality- wise, they are relatively easy to obtain: a simple background check (yes, there are background checks) , some paperwork, and the correct sum of cash and you walk out with a shiny new “mass- murder weapon”(I assume that’s what you call it). As I mentioned before, they are extremely difficult to obtain finance- wise. The HS .50 itself is difficult to obtain here, as they are rare and with import restrictions, won’t become any more common.

    These rifles are typically north of $3000-$4000US for a single- shot rifle (like the HS .50), and much more for a magazine- fed, bolt- action repeater. Want a semi- auto? Prepare to spend around $10000US or more, which I assure you is something the average citizen cannot afford (or dirt- poor criminals, for that matter). Ammunition is also $3US+ a round (that’s very expensive for ammo).

    Criminals aren’t going to be using these types of weapons. In fact, most muggings occur with common kitchen knives. Also, this has probably been mentioned many times to you, but it is true: criminals don’t abide by the law. Only the law- abiding citizenry do. If you disarm the public, only the criminals will have guns. Please, reconsider your stance; talk to some pro- gun people/ gun owners in your area and ask why they own a gun.

  75. Lenore says:

    Agree on you! Fine point-of view

    My weblog tickets for luke bryan concert (Lenore)

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