Where’s the logic in the Conservative stance on a handgun ban? I have to say, I don’t get it.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/239072
Both the provincial and federal Conservative parties, under John Tory and Stephen Harper respectively, are against a handgun ban. The feds want to scrap the long gun registry as well, but that’s a (slightly) different issue since you can at least say there is a useful purpose for long guns.
I see two ways to look at their objections, both of which don’t make sense to me.
First is their argument that “taking the guns away from the people who legally own them is going to have absolutely no effect on the people who are carrying illegal guns.”
Sure. OK. Strictly speaking it won’t have an impact on those that already have the guns and are ready to use them for illegal purposes. It will, however, impact those who want an illegal gun, don’t yet have one, and need to find one they can steal.
Second is their argument that prohibition doesn’t work and that the criminals will find a way to get guns anyway and that all you are doing is taking them away from law abiding citizens.
Um. Ok. My question here is, how can you take this stance and in the next breath say that your prohibition of marijuana (which also doesn’t work, people get it anyway, and we’re making criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens) is a sane and logical approach? Come on, you can’t have it both ways. Either prohibition works, or it doesn’t. Take your pick.
Of course, some will accuse me of being equally illogical as I would vote to ban hand guns and legalize marijuana, but hey, you can’t kill someone by pointing a joint at someone and lighting it up!
The fact is that handguns have no redeeming qualities and no useful purpose other than to shoot people. They are not useful for hunting. An argument for target shooting might be made, but this would be shooting targets as practice for what? Shooting people?
My apologies to all those law abiding citizens who target shoot and collect hand guns, but my belief is that the greater good calls for the ban. Legal guns are merely targets for thieves. Please find something else to collect. Hockey cards, baseball cards and Pez dispensers seem relatively free of danger…
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I would argue that the greater good argument is hollow when you consider that fast cars, cigarettes, pollution, drinking all kill more innocents each year than do all guns in Canada, hand guns and long arms. If we are going to start banning things that kill innocents’ guns really have much less impact that many other factors.
2005 stats, 222/658 murders were gun related, 107 of those gang related.
Gangs through their access to smuggling networks for drugs will not be denied guns even if every legal gun in the country was seized. These people have the desire to own them, the need to defend their turf and the currency of drugs to pay for their weapons, banning guns will not change gun ownership in this demographic, they will arm themselves even if the have to build zip guns. The gangs will stay armed therefore 107 murders will not be averted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_gun
This leaves 115 gun deaths, some of these are rage related domestics with a simple grab for a convenient weapon, this number will not drop by 115 because hand guns were banned, a bat, a hammer, a lamp cord or a rifle will be used instead of a pistol for these crimes, simple substitution effect.
Where are the stats that show gun killers by poverty, or by immigration status if any? We already know criminal gangs account for ½ the gun murders, they are already criminals and their removal from the streets would decrease gun deaths by 50% before you bother to punish the innocent gun owners. I’m sure a gang clean up would lower some of the other murders by beatings and knives too.
Gun owners are once again scapegoats for poor social planning, poor policing, ineffective courts and the crimes of others.
I have no problem with a registry and harsh penalties for unsafe storage, but when is the nanny state going to make those guilty of criminal activity the ones that suffer?
I think that the internet sales of guns shoulf be illegal. and people who have guns for collecting, need to put them in a bank safe, so they do not get stolen. It doesn’t help if the NRA spokesmen are aadvising Harper and Day. I think MJ should be legally availabel for people with pain.
As I understand it internet sales of guns are illegal in Canada. Canadians must supply a valid PAL(possession and Aquisition liscence) to buy guns or ammunition, thePal is graded showing which classes of weapons you may own or buy.
Safes at firearm ranges makes sense but I’m not too sure banks want encourage people entering them with guns
Many gun thefts are from people who have poorly stored guns either not locked up or placed in locked closets or tin lockers. Full blown gun safes cemented into the ground would require a jack hammer or cutting torch to access. This should be the standard for storage and beyond the motivation of most thieves.
A 100% inspection rate to prove compliance with safe storage laws should be made on all gun owners.
If you don’t want your guns stolen don’t tell people you have them and don’t flout a NRA sticker on your car, or a “from my cold dead hands” baseball cap. etc. geeze how stupid are people.
There is also new technology being added to some guns that use a chip in the handle or trigger to identify the legal owner, no one else can fire the gun. I’m sure it can be cracked but it would certainly curb accidents and suicides in household owning guns.
The biggest issue however is the supply from the U.S., even Mexico is complaining that the lax U.S. enforcement feeds the “iron river” of weapons into Mexico.
“Lax gun laws and lax enforcement in the United States have made it easy for Mexican gunrunners to buy and transport everything from AK-47s to Stinger antiaircraft missiles, which then allows the cartels to use these high-powered weapons against rival gangs or against a military attack. More than 90 percent of the thousands of guns confiscated yearly in Mexico have been traced to US origin”
Christian science monitor. july 20 2007
So r u personally gonna come to my door to get my guns. And are you gonna give me the thousands of dollars they are worth. By banning handguns you will just encourage responsible gun owners to aquire guns illegally, just as the criminals have been doing for years. our proximity to the US makes it too easy for criminals to aquire guns anyhow. Think about where the criminals are getting bullets for these guns, becasue you cant buy ammo in canada without a pal so must be comin from the states. And how can you say that handgun shooting is not a sport it is an internationally recognized sport you moron. All those olympians are just practising for killing someone eh.