Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Canadian Gun Laws Empower Criminals




There was another shooting on the Toronto public transit system yesterday. This time, it seems a man in his 40s saw fit to brazenly shoot and pistol-whip a 17 year-old boy in full view of a busload of witnesses.

Once again, David Miller has come out to 'work the numbers' and try to convince us that the TTC (and Toronto by extension) is still 'relatively' safe. Compared to what? Darfur?

Miller has also repeated his semi-retarded call for the banning of all handguns. Apparently nobody has let him in on the fact that handguns are already considered prohibited weapons across Canada.

There are two problems with this approach:

1. It assumes that the very few people who are permitted to own antique handguns or participate in sport-shooting through an exhaustive process of police checks are the source of handguns on the streets of Toronto, through a combination of break-ins and poor storage practices.

2. It ignores the fact that criminals BY DEFINITION do not feel constrained by the law!

Ask yourself, what's more likely... That a criminal will break in to a random home (in which there is probably not a gun) and crack a safe (in which there is probably not a gun) with the potential payoff of someone's great-great-great-Grandfathers black powder musket, OR that he will take a drive across the border, walk into a store with some fake ID, and buy a Glock for $500 he earned dealing weed?

See where this is going?

Canada can pass laws all day long. Guns exist. They cannot be un-invented, and we share the world's longest undefended border with a country that has a constitutional guarantee to provide easy access to guns. Criminals don't give a damn about our gun laws. The crimes of armed robbery and murder (which they ostensibly plan to commit WITH their guns) carry far worse sentences than simply possessing a prohibited weapon. One cannot rationally argue that ANY Canadian gun law, no matter how 'strong' will deter criminals from using the tools of their trade in this country.

So this is the point where the (mostly Liberal/NDP) people at the dinner party (who have been fed a steady diet of 'put the genie back in the bottle' gun control) admit they don't have a solution, and ask for mine.

They never like what I say, but here it is: ARM THE GOOD GUYS.

"Oh but more guns mean more shootings!" They cry.

"Oh but you're advocating for vigilante justice!" The outrage mounts.

Poppycock. We need more guns, and we need to put them in the hands of the right people.

How likely would Marc Lepine have been able to complete his deliberate execution of 14 women in 1989 if just one or two of them were armed? Look at all the other high-profile examples: Dawson College, Taber, Jane Creba's boxing day murder on Yonge Street, as well as the recent TTC shootings...

If these guys knew they'd probably be shot dead within seconds of firing their first round, they might actually find alternative ways to resolve their conflicts/mental illnesses.

Instead, gunmen are increasingly having running gun battles in our streets in broad daylight because they know the flock of sheep around them will do exactly nothing. They don't have the means.

Case in point - Vermont is a U.S. State where there are virtually no gun laws. You can buy one in a store, and while you're in Vermont, you can carry that gun, loaded or unloaded, concealed or on your belt, wherever and whenever you like. Vermont is the second lowest for violent crime in the U.S.

The number 1 state for violent crime is California, which also happens to have some of the toughest gun laws.

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