As it stands, handguns (and firearms in general) are the nest tool available for self defence. That’s why millions of police officers (and civilians) carry them every day.

Trying to ban them (or register them) will not make them go away… They are man-made items…

For all we know, criminal organisation could be producing thousands of illegal handgun using ‘legitimate’ serial numbers and marking… and there is nothing you can do about it…

I find it odd that you feel that exercising of homophobic judgment is a demonstration of peoples ignorance, but that exercising of hoplophobic judgment is a well grounded in research.

That is seriously disturbing behavior

Do you really believe that providing the limited evidence you see supports the conclusions you want to hear, it is valid?

That is unacceptable.

In doing so, you validate the equally limited mindset of every homophobic and hateful person roaming the planet.

The only thing you have successfully demonstrated to me from your post is that is that you strongly support one camp and have little to no interest in examining the findings of the other.

I’m sorry, but that is doesn’t exactly ground you as someone with an open mind.

It is almost crass for you to use schoolyard shootings as an example. Schoolyards are the ultimate product of failed social engineering.

We’ve had well over a decade of “gun free zones” and every time there is a shooting at a school, it is an absolute massacre. Teachers in inner city schools would question your sanity if you told them that schools were safe because they were declared gun free zones.

Except if you consider the ones where students were armed like at the Appalachian School of law.

Disagree all you want. The fact of the matter is that Concealed Carry rights are being spread to all manner of locations including campuses, because years of empirical evidence support the conclusion that citizens are better off armed.

Yes, I watched the dreadful puff piece on 20/20 where they pitted students with no real experience in silly clothes with gloves and helmets, made drawing impossible, and pointed out to the SWAT trained officer who the defenders were.

It was so badly rigged, it was painful.

We can certainly at least agree on one thing though. It is a deadly serious matter.

@ Dr. Ramirez.

Thanks for your contribution. While we can never replace the squandered funds paid friendly partisan contractor companies, we can ensure that future funding goes to useful civic ventures.

Here’s a novel idea. Enforcing the laws we’re already got and holding humans accountable for their actions.

“My support for the gun registry is one based on the facts and data provided by IANSA that show the immense benefits the registry will create.”

You see, the problem here is that there is currently 11 years of in-force legislation for the Registry in Canada, and it has not made any bit of difference. You can bear down on all the stats you like, they are quite conclusive in this respect. This is tempered by the fact that there is an estimated 1/3 to 1/2 compliance rate, and this is not not likely to change anytime soon.

So, when will these benefits be created, and at what price? 10 years more, and another $1 Billion in operations expenses alone, 20 years and another $1 Billion, a lifetime and countless billions? You can own a car that you could survive in any accident, but it might cost you $250,000. Is it worth it to you, and more importantly, is it worth it to the 15 million other taxpayers in Canada? The answer is no, and rightly so. Cost-benefit analysis applies everywhere.

Natasha also wrote:

“Personally I believe in stopping the problem before it happens rather than buying a mop to clean the mess after it has occurred. Guns aren’t a joke. They are tools of murder.”

I absolutely agree with you. If 20 students had been armed at Virginia Tech, perhaps the only death would have been Cho himself. Guns are not a joke, but they are not a tool for murder. A gun can be very useful, even if it is never fired, and can be useful even if it is not loaded. It’s use can be as much for the threat of force as in the use of force itself. This is the reason Police and the military openly carry their weapons.

When criminals know for a fact that citizens are not armed, they are very bold, and will make a victim out of anyone, at anytime. If they are given cause to think that they may in fact encounter an armed citizen, and that their activity might cost them their lives, well, survival instinct says they will look elsewhere. This is the reason why states in the U.S. show very marked reductions in violent crime when “Shall Issue” CCW laws come into effect. This is also why gun-free countries like the U.K. show very marked increases in violent crime when disarming laws come into effect.

A world without guns is simply impossible. Now that this is put to rest, the reality is that unarmed citizens are victims to armed criminals. Good luck disarming the criminals.

“Your blog, your rules.

Her blog, her rules.

Censorship is practiced by governments. Free speech is practiced by people, but that doesn’t mean you can go into their house and spout off whatever you want.”

When I wrote my first response, it was lengthy. And frankly I was pissed off that it did not appear.

Elizabeth wrote the following above in the main article, which I mistakenly took to mean that ALL comments without offensive material would be published.

“Since writing that entry, I have received over fifty comments, and have posted many that are respectful and polite. However, while engaging in debate with those whose opinion varies from mine is healthy, helpful, and appreciated, I made the decision to delete comments that are disrespectful and derogatory to me or to those who have written in defense of the registry. Calling someone an idiot, Hitler, uneducated, childish, or a liberal self-righteous fascist is not the type of dialogue I like to engage in, and because of this I refuse to post such comments, no matter how many times the same individual submits a comment.”

Now, its obvious that I do not agree with Elizabeth’s opinion on gun control.

I don’t even think it is a good idea to moderate comments where you hope to appear to have open feedback. Believe me; a fine mess that can create.

I WANT comments posted here. I WANT discussion on this topic. But if the only way it occurs is because the author feels she is being pressured to do so, I will respectfully take my comments out to other forums.

We MUST respect a first amendment right as much as we support a second, else they are not human rights at all.

Her forum, her rules.

But lets all agree to keep it clean, and on point about gun control so it can be discussed in the clear.

We ALL have a strong interest in seeing what we believe is best for Canadians.

The various entities conducting such sociological studies produce reports that are invariably uninteresting to the general public, because they are invariably the product of political bureaucratically

A layman can usually tell which ideology’s report it is by glimpsing at the same old, tired out conclusions drawn in it. If generated by conservative dominated segment, they will produce conservative conclusions. If generated by a Liberal dominated segment, they will produce Liberal conclusions. Lets be honest here. If this principal were not true, Liberals would be lauding the outstanding Auditor General’s report the waste generated by the long gun registry, and there would be nothing to rally against.

And they must thank God each day for having that, as they have had little else as a party to run on as a wedge issue these four years gone by.

This is the simple reality of the bureaucracy.

To survive, the bureaucrats in management must surround themselves with underlings most likely to take all measures to achieve the political objectives they have been commanded to produce.

The very continuation of their career is at stake. It has the effect of producing individuals most often notable only for their singular ability to act out of an instinct for self preservation.

This practice is so common that it might as well be filed under “business continuity”.

Your claim to validation of your point of view through sociological reports is about as comical as the court royals in the film Braveheart loudly proclaiming the rightful claim to land titles. About as probable too.

As stated by others, for every report you raise we can counter with five. And we’d all look more the fool for it.

I’m sure someone will be along shortly to pooh-pooh this notion. And that will be a lot of casual Sunday fun to address too. But in the meantime I’ll reflect on gun control outside of the realm of statistical interference; which is so obviously poisoned as to border on ludicrous.

Point Two: Gun control in the world failing

The stress cracks in the facade of what once appeared to be absolute ‘impenetrable wall ‘ of common sense for gun-control and community safety as presented by various globally orchestrated gun-control groups are beginning to show

Badly.

And you are a long way out of touch with the common citizen if you don’t understand how clearly they see this.

Just read today’s news from countries like England. Countries that foolishly abolished gun ownership a decade before sinking into a proverbial toilet of crime and civil unrest. Again, I’ll reference no statistics about how many gun crimes are committed daily on this relatively easy to secure Island nation. Its a fools errand to chase these.

But please explain just how is it that that violent crime occurs in such unprecedented numbers there? After examining the effects of gun control in post ban Britain, it is baffling to understand how anyone could believe gun control works. The only guns there now are in criminal hands.

Bravo Ms. Peters.

We don’t need to dwell on England though because, quite frankly, English crime reporters are doing enough of that for us already, and they’re growing sick to death of the official party line. Their bosses don’t mind, and are letting more and more of these contrary articles through, because they can smell the epic fail. And nothing sells newspapers like scandal.

Point Three: Gun control in the US is failing

Never mind that over 20 States in the Union to our South officially confirmed in State Legislature the legal right of the individual to one form of carry or another. Those same States have also repealed duty to retreat legislation as well.

These two actions spawned numerous Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) campaigns against those States. And those FUD statements sold a lot of news print, as scary tales always do. But I need to stop and take a minute to thank those behind that FUD plan, because it actually did more to help our case than any amount of full page news print.

Think about it. People paid attention to those articles because they WERE worried. But a great amount of time passed by and yet there was no emergency. Where was the blood in the streets we were warned about?

In the end, there was no case to be made against gun ownership. Even better, nothing needed to be sold to the public to prove it because it was already bought, paid for and well advertised in the media.

Their was no crisis. In State after State, the crime rates nose dived.

It has now become apparent after more than a decade of operation of these laws in places like Florida that these States have a far better track record of reducing crime than any state mandating gun-control.

Once again, I’m not going to play the stats game. But are you aware that the higher a State scores on the Brady scale, the more likely it is to have the worst violent crime rates in the nation? As someone advocating the protection of women against victimization, doesn’t that give you any pause for thought regarding your current hypothesis?

Maybe not.

But here’s a small strategy tip for you guys. FUD campaigns have a very nasty tendency to backfire, because the worst case never happens without forcing it. And like all things forced, you don’t want to get caught in that kind of lying or you’ll never make good with your word again.

Don’t get offended, because some in my camp screaming about Obama taking our guns need to learn this lesson quite desperately too.

For the time being, it is sufficient to state as fact that the second amendment was re-confirmed in the SCOTUS in DC vs Heller much to the dismay of radical groups such as the Brady campaign.

For the future, gun ownership rights remains in the hands of the patriots who have not and will never rest on this all-important issue.

Point Four: Gun control in Canada failing

Lets talk a bit closer to home now.

If you familiarize yourself with the growing number of cases such as Pogson v. Alberta, you’d be far more aware that judicial decisions are now being made here in Canada in recognition of the alarming institutional tendency to overly-ambitious political bias against gun ownership.

Thanks to the uncensored nature of the Internet, Canadians are learning more about their individual rights and entitlements than at any other time in history.

Here’ s the source article:
http://www.canlii.org/ab/cas/abpc/2004/2004abpc41.html

According to Honourable Judge D.E. Demetrick:
“one prominent if not fundamental characteristic of a free and democratic society …is that the citizens of such society generally are “at liberty”or “free” to possess and acquire property without first having to obtain permission from a governmental bureaucrat or the judiciary.

In a free and democratic society any exception or deviation from the general rule deserves close scrutiny even though mandated by law.

Casual or ambitious administration of the law’s exceptions to the general rule could endanger substantially that prominent, socially important, and historically ingrained characteristic of Canadian society.”

This contemporary ruling is directly on net with the majority views of Canadians.

I could spend the better part of my day here responding with similar if not identical precedents. But that would be non-productive. The more salient point to be made regarding official statistics and political bias is that the majority of common Canadians KNOW that violent crime is worse now than it ever has been despite the well-funded presence of the long gun registry.

We are incensed that such a great sum of money was wasted chasing the ideas of a failed ideology. Instead of fighting real crime, this ideology targeted duck hunters. Instead of helping women, this ideology stole the funding to underwrite a socialist agenda.

I’m here along with two million other Canadian gun owners to stand up and tell this agenda “no more”. Not on my dime.

As gun-control advocates, you have had your say for over a decade.

Now you have the opportunity to hear our voices. You will be hearing them in vastly growing numbers over the coming decade. In the words of Ingrid Newkirk, we are a movement. And movements NEVER disappear. They only ever grow stringer and stronger.

In my personal, regular observations of online media ‘polls’ discussing abolition of the long-gun registry, I have noted a disturbing trend with certain vendors. These polls tend to always split the yay vote, and yet they tend to lose so catastrophically as to magically disappear every time the results come up over the last year?

I can help you tackle that one. It is because they rarely display any less than 80% popular support for dismantling that particular white elephant. Wouldn’t it be sort of fun to track a few here. You and me? Just as an experiment?

Maybe while you’re explaining why THOSE statistics tend to disappear you could take a run at explaining why the opposition in Canada need to force a whipped vote to beat the minority conservative government on the issue of abolishing the long gun registry? It is fairly clear to me that many opposition MPs represent ridings where the idea of a long gun registry is not very appealing.

Or perhaps you could explain why the opposition feverishly tried to kill C-301′s successor while moving the hearing committee in camera?

I guess I’d just be satisfied if you could answer the main question for me Elizabeth. If gun control is such a great idea, why does it require such sweeping lies?

Here’s a couple of statistics for you: Senator Anne Cools discovered, after much browbeating and considerable delays, that in 1995 there were 23 women who were shot to death by their spouses. *23*! Do you really think it is fair to blame and hold responsible the other 2,199,997 gun owners who did not kill their spouses for the actions of these few individuals? I think not.

There were already a number of legal remedies to take care of those miscreants who use guns or other objects to threaten, intimidate or even kill other people. If the justice system only took such crimes seriously, and punished such people to the full extent of the law, we’d be much further ahead.

Think how many women might be safe if the billion dollars that had been wasted on this boondoggle had been put towards helping them. How many women might be safer if *they* had access to firearms for their own defence against these criminal thugs – which is what they are.

Another statistic is that Canadians use firearms to defend themselves, others and their property from both four and two-legged predators some 80,000 times per year. For every life lost to a gun, 40 are saved. Read Mauser and Buckner’s “Canadian Attitudes Toward Gun Control: The Real Story” (1997).

Hope this helps!

As the chief of a very busy ER close to the GTA, I can attest that the registry is a useless tool with nothing but wasteful plundering of our tax dollars. I follow evidence based medicine to provide the best care for my patients. Until recently we did not have a simple CT scanner (1969 technology!) – can you imagine how many CT scanners could have been added, or as another reader stated, MRI units that help in diagnosis and treatment – real life saving devices – rather than the useless registry? I have called the resgistry many times to report that a woman, child or man is worried about their safety because someone that abused them has a gun. Each time I get the answer…call the police. Why? Because the registry is useless and has no power to do anything that the police already can do! I cannot fathom how anyone in their right mind would support an illogical system that has a pointless, useless registry and an illogical, ill-conceived act to back it up. C-68 has to be the most dimwitted piece of legislation ever written!
Sorry about the rant, but people have to realise what a real waste the registry is!

Dr.O.Ramirez B.Sc.MD.CCFP