08.12.2015 11:11 AM

Would you invite kids to a fundraiser at a shooting range? Colin Carrie did

Oshawa MP Colin Carrie is doing just that.  Quote (and from the Sun, no less):

TORONTO – Conservatives in Oshawa are hunting up donations with a “family friendly” fundraiser at a shooting range.

Oshawa MP Dr. Colin Carrie is the advertised special guest at The Long Range Target Shoot Fundraiser to be held Saturday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the Orono Fish and Hunt Club.

“Join us for a family friendly day at the range including a demonstration by trained staff and the opportunity to safely discharge a wide variety of firearms,” the invitation says.

Images accompanying the invite show a long gun and a handgun.

Look, I’m no an anti-gun fanatic. I own at least one firearm, and I’ve got all the training and licensing to do so.

But inviting children to a fundraiser to shoot guns? Seriously?

I’ve heard from several Tories who are very, very unimpressed by this move by Oshawa Conservatives. And it is therefore no surprise that central campaign declined to defend it.

What are you thinking, Colin Carrie?

22 Comments

  1. bobbie says:

    Not a great move. When my son was 7 he was invited to a birthday party where the parents of the birthday boy took the kids to a shooting range. Just north of London Ontario. Our son did not attend.

  2. Lance says:

    In Ontario you need to at least 16 (15 with parental consent) to hunt. But to take the Canadian Firearms Safety Course, you can be as young as 12. If there are any children there below the age of 12, I say forget about it and that this is a stupid idea; if the children attending are all above 12 and have taken the course, then this is a complete non-issue.

  3. DougM says:

    Children and guns are a parental choice in terms of age appropriateness. I am an avid sport shooter (not competition, just personal enjoyment) but my wife and I feel our 9yr old is too young. Perhaps when he is 12. Either way he will need to demonstrate a certain maturity level as safety is paramount. But for other parents that age is much younger and that is fine. And despite the tragedies we’ve seen in the news regarding children and guns in the US, this is Canada and our sport shooting safety record is outstanding.

  4. Ted says:

    “at least one gun”?

  5. P. Brenn says:

    dumb ..what would be the point …now a meth lab ..that would be something

  6. Dean says:

    It will be noise that will distract from any other messaging for the day at minimum. I don’t think it’s the actual event (kids at the range was my childhood) but if it enters media coverage and gets replayed, the Cons will lose the messaging for the day. If the Cons are smart (and they seem to be), whatever announcement/photo-ops they make in the AM will not emphasize the event. A safe-streets announcement, for example, would make the gun event more of a story than it needs to be.

    If the Libs/NDP are smart, they will make an announcement that contrasts with the event. Forcing it into the news. They might be too scared of gun registry talk to go there, however.

    Anyhow, if Justin touching a candidate’s belly somehow gets above the fold billing, so should this story.

    • doconnor says:

      Today it is all Nigel, all the time.

      Maybe it will be raised again some other day.

      It’s odd that they would have a fundraiser like this all day when their volunteers should be out canvasing. Maybe it was booked before the election call.

  7. The purging of crazy people from the Conservatives must continue. (And probably the NDP too)

  8. Tony says:

    The cultural perception and narrative of guns is one of the starkest dividers between the GTA/Quebec/Ottawa part of Canada and the rest of Canada. In the ROC, a parent taking their child to the range, to teach about guns, safety around guns, handling of guns, is a non-issue. It really isn’t a big deal. There is even a full gun range at the West Edmonton Mall, and Calgary has one next door to a farmers market.

    In the GTA/Quebec/Ottawa, guns in general are political dynamite. Only some of that politicization is the result of gun crime. There are also cultural issues involves, which can include less availability of places to shoot, greater comfort in government solutions, greater media/civil servant concentration, less open space, and even anti-Americanism.

    So yes, if this event was in the Prairies it wouldn’t be a big deal. But it is in the GTA, home of Canada’s media establishment. This wasn’t wise.

    • Adam says:

      Why do you imagine that you are the only one who has ever been outside of the GTA, Tony? I grew up in Edmonton, and I have never met anybody who took children to a gun range. Not one. No doubt there is a subculture of gun enthusiasts in Edmonton also, but don’t generalize about the ROC.

  9. Tiger says:

    Thirty years ago, wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

    Out west, still wouldn’t think twice about it.

    Now in the GTA? Not the smartest. Agree with HQ that it isn’t worth defending — people either think it’s self-evidently no big deal or it’s self-evidently really stupid. So don’t bother repeating anything to do with it.

  10. bobbie says:

    Doesn’t matter. Your boy Trudeau just trumped the day’s stories with this Economic from the Heart thingy.

  11. Herman says:

    What a dumb idea in today’s gun crazy world

  12. Al in Cranbrook says:

    I started going to the range with Dad when I was about 8 or 9, and even shot ( Lee Enfield .303 British) in a turkey shoot with the adults when I was about 10.

    Once read a study, commissioned by the NRA, looking into a comparison of delinquency rates between youth whom participate in hunting and shooting sports, compared to those whom don’t. The rate of delinquency among you involved in these activities from a relatively early age was statistically immeasurable. Bottom line was, they understand firearms, life and death, and learn responsibility that goes with it all.

    Optically, whatever. In this day and age, it’s all about…tragically…political correctness.

    I’ve mentioned it before: My Dad, living in Chilliwack and circa 1926, at the age of 12 packed a .22 rifle to and from school to hunt rabbits, etc., along the way. The kids parked their guns in a corner of the coat rack at the back of the classroom. Nobody ever dared point a gun at another because they knew for a certainty that all hell would come down on them in a heartbeat…and then again when they got home.

    Guns were just as potentially dangerous back then as they are now, and just as available. So what’s changed?

    Lots! And it has nothing to do with guns.

  13. Fred says:

    When I was growing up, my Grandfather was a gunsmith. Bonding over learning about guns, hunting, and yes, how to stay safe when hunting/shooting, was what gave us a relationship. Some of my fondest memories as a young kid is going hunting with my dad, or going to the range with my grandpa and his friends.

    There is literally nothing wrong with this event. I guarantee many of the people here complaining would think it was just terrific if families took their kids to watch men in thongs twerk at Pride or wave dildos in the air dressed in BDSM gear.

    “MY cultural norms are a-ok! But YOU disgusting conservatives and your hunting and gun culture! Absolutely abhorrent!”

    What ever happened to “to each their own”? Have respect for other people’s culture. Especially rural/country culture, which YES, means GUNS AND HUNTING ARE COMMON!

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