On May 17, just three days after the racial-hate-motivated massacre at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, N.Y., the Kenney Government was publicly complaining about new federal regulations intended to ensure that the increasingly frequent mass shootings in the United States stay south of the world’s longest undefended border.
The day before that, Alberta Chief Firearms Officer Teri-Jane Bryant sent a snippy letter to federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino making the highly disputable claim in defence of AR-15s and similar military-style rifles that “prohibiting specific types of firearms is an approach that has proven ineffective in improving public safety.”
Now that there has been yet another tragic and deadly mass shooting in the United States, this time at an elementary school in Texas, does that mean we will have to brace ourselves for another ritual exhibition of public support for gun-nuttery by the United Conservative Party in the next few days?
Hopefully not. The May 17 release, at least, seems to have been timed to appear the day before the new federal rules took effect.
In addition, Mr. Kenney’s embarrassing underperformance in the next day’s UCP leadership review vote, which led directly to his announcement he would be resigning one of these days, may have reduced the UCP’s perceived need for performative attacks on federal gun-control legislation.
Still, neither sensitivity nor good sense have ever been hallmarks of the Kenney Government. Its May 17 effort to wind up the gun-nut element of the party base in response to Ottawa’s May 11 announcement of more stringent rules on the sale and transfer of firearms was remarkably insensitive under the circumstances. So we probably should brace for more of the same, just in case.
“Once again, the federal government is misplacing the burden of public safety on law-abiding firearms owners and retailers with this misguided policy,” huffed Justice Minister Tyler Shandro in the government’s news release that day, seemingly unconcerned by the optics of such an announcement hours after another murder spree in the United States.
“I am glad we created the chief firearms office to advocate for common-sense firearms legislation that avoids wrapping up simple transactions in red tape,” he added self-righteously.
As for Ms. Bryant, a gun collector who was appointed to the post in August 2021, she was quoted in the May 17 release calling the federal gun-sale legislation “a back-door gun registry” and complaining that “distressingly little” had been done by the feds “to prepare individuals, businesses or my staff.”
Why they would pay any attention to her staff is unclear, since the purpose of her appointment and mandate is clearly to obstruct the enforcement of federal law.
As Mr. Kenney himself once acknowledged, the CFO’s job is to uphold the law “in a way that focuses enforcement on criminal misuse of firearms rather than regulatory harassment of safe, legal law-abiding farmers and duck hunters.”* That is to say, to uphold the law by ignoring the parts of the law with which the UCP doesn’t agree.
The point of all the verbiage in the government’s May 17 news release on this topic was Ms. Bryant’s call on Ottawa to “either immediately announce a one-year moratorium on the introduction of the new requirements to allow for proper consultation and refinement, or abandon the entire project.”
Fortunately, the Trudeau Government is inclined to pay little attention to huffing and puffing by the Kenney Government about topics within federal jurisdiction, especially this one.
Since well before its election in 2019, the UCP has been impatient to find a way to impose U.S.-style gun laws on Alberta and Canada, a development that would have predictably deadly results.
In 2018, the then-Opposition UCP’s “rural crime task force” – which included one member who has since spent time in jail – proposed allowing rural residents to defend their property from bad guys, real and imagined, by shooting them up with their firearms. This, obviously, would be a homegrown version of American “stand-your-ground laws,” notwithstanding a weak UCP denial that this was the intention.
In 2020, the Kenney Government created an “Alberta Firearms Advisory Committee” led by Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Michaela Frey (formerly Glasgo), “an avid hunter and passionate advocate for responsible firearms ownership.” It was packed with firearms enthusiasts, gun collectors, gun shop operators, shooting organization elected officials, competitive shooters, and a retired police chief who had entertained conservative political ambitions.
Mr. Kenney hinted at a news conference that the work of the committee might result in his government supporting lawsuits by Albertans “to challenge aspects of Ottawa’s recent regulatory overreach.”
Meanwhile, the unrelenting slaughter in schools, churches, businesses, and homes continues with metronomic regularity in the republic to our south, which now appears to be undergoing a deadly mass psychotic breakdown. It’s unlikely anything can be done in that country to stem the bloody tide.
Some progress is being made in Canada, no thanks to federal Conservatives like leadership candidate Patrick Brown, who vowed Tuesday to “scrap the Firearms Act in its entirety and work with experts – including law-abiding firearms owners – to replace it with a new law that takes protecting our streets just as seriously as does defending the rights of Canadians.”
Y’all know what that means.
Even without the possibility of a wholesale attack on Canadian gun laws by some future Conservative government, we shouldn’t be smug about being on the safe side of the 49th Parallel. Gun crimes are growing here, too.
According to Statistics Canada, Edmonton had a 97 per cent increase in the number of firearms-related homicides in 2020, while the increase in Calgary was 48 per cent. Both cities recorded the largest increase in homicides among all metropolitan areas in Canada.
And yet the UCP is doing what it can to ensure that more guns find their way in to the hands of more Albertans.
*Mysteriously, Mr. Kenney’s reference to “duck hunters” first appeared in news coverage as “God’s country.” Who made that weird mistake in their transcription is not clear. Perhaps the reporter read the premier’s mind. Regardless, I shall leave the reference to God’s country in my original story, which quoted the CBC quoting the premier, and go with the now-official version here. DJC
Perhaps God hunts ducks?
With the UCP’s leadership troubles, they probably won’t have too much time to focus on turning Alberta into the wild west.
The Feds are probably even less inclined to pay much attention to Kenney now, knowing he is seemingly on the way out. So he can go on about gun laws all he wants, although I suspect he is too preoccupied with other things also.
As for the US, it seems things there just get worse and the country continues to be paralyzed into inaction regardless how bad it gets. Unfortunately some of this seeps over the border too.
The chaotic mind is always at work looking for ways to wreak havoc. Didn’t you learn anything from “Get Smart” and ever present vigilance against the agents of KAOS. If there one thing the UCP are good at it’s chaos! Never let your guard down lol!
The UCP are very shortsighted and naive. They want Alberta to emulate America. More guns equals more deaths. Canada isn’t immune from mass shootings, but we have less of a population than America has, so that’s why we have less mass shootings than America does. It’s also our attitude that is different. Having a gun also isn’t going to guarantee someone stopping intruders on their property from causing potential harm, nor is it going to guarantee that a mass shooter can be stopped. The Republican, Ted Nugent, type attitude that these conservative politicians in Canada has is quite nuts. Their base eats whatever they say right up. Sadly, I don’t think things will change in America.
Anonymous: not only do we have fewer mass shootings than the Benighted States, we have fewer per capita.
I love the typical shallow Canadian banter about not wanting to be like the U.S. It’s pointless and without substance but cute. It’s not about the guns stupid. It’s about government politicizing personal property to provide a pretense for confiscation. If you don’t think it can happen to you, you’d be wrong. Public safety isn’t an absolute. No country is safe in which a man’s right to property isn’t protected.
Well, I commented here a few weeks ago on that letter the Alberta Chief Firearms Office, which turns out to be a human and not an office, sent to Mendocino. As usual, Alberta is out of step with the other firearms offices across the country run by responsible provincial governments on behalf of the Feds, but not the wackadoodle Alberta right wing UCP. I’m done with letting the tail wag the dog in my country because some set of anti-societal dolts sit around and moan into their cups in the Western prairies.The whole Reform/Alliance schtick amounted to complaining that Canada wasn’t run like oh-so-special Alberta, and that the goofs running the province had invented some special form of superior governance that Canada should copy. And what’s more, they complained that their voice wasn’t being listened to, over and over again. With good reason they were ignored for years, if one looks at things responsibly. But anyway, we gave ’em a chance and got the social hell of the harper years, an unremittingly bloody awful reign of utter crap and nonsense. Commissars herding federal scientists to make sure they didn’t utter things publicly the grand poobah stevie didn’t approve of frightened many people I know at places like the Bedford Oceanographic Institute. To his credit, Trudeau got rid of that nonsense right away in 2015, and there were many photos of scietists cheering that news. Under harper, might as well have been the Soviet Union of Stalin with commissar thought control. No more of that kind of dictatorship, thanks all the same.
Perhaps, considering that the slaughter of citizens by mentally deranged people in the US seems unending, our Feds may finally get up the courage to tell the Aberta government where to get off. But I doubt it. They are a wee timrous cowering beastie, unable even to tell Legault where to get off on his Bill 96 making it essentially illegal to do anything in English in Quebec, possibly even think. And have 1984 style newspeak officers going around sticking their noses in private citizens’ business and issuing fines. Dystopic. People seem unaware due to the dreck media coverage that the Ukrainian government pulled off the same kind of thing since 2014 on their 25% Russian ethnic population, and it’s one reason why we now have $2.00 gas. People get HIGHLY upset on language issues.
Thank goodness the feds are responsible for firearms control in Canada unlike the US where any jackass state can make its own rules. It should be possible to run the Firearms Office as a federal entity in Alberta if necessary and have federal employees enforce the law. See how they’d like that in Nowhere AB. Perhaps the feds could do the same thing about the language bullsh!t in Quebec and open offices to defend English speakers against unilateral racism. The way things are going, this federation is being slowly pulled apart by dough-heads who give not a damn about what the majority thinks, while the feds are weak pipsqueaks in defence. Boy, do we need a strong leader or three, and not the Skippy type of running jackal dolt, a shite disturber of the first order.
A bunch of yahoos in Alberta who are determined to ignore what the vast majority of Canadians regard as the correct way to “handle” assault weapon ownership, have to wake up and realize they’re living in Canada, not the USA, and no, they’re not special. So there are no special circumstances that Albertan gun nuts can argue for over the rights of other Canadians who have already decided the issue. If they don’t like it, get the hell out of this country and join the mouthbreathers to our south — yeehaw, I’m a Minuteman! Otherwise, shut up, grin and bear it, and act like adults. There are many things people don’t like about governance in our country, but in the spirit of co-operation we get along and accept that we cannot have everything exactly the way we personally want it. This maturity of adulthood is missing in many Albertan minds, in my opinion. They’re more like squalling children whose horizons extend only locally and whose life experience is so limited and “provincial” they cannot grasp a bigger picture.
The comment you made regarding Ukrainian language laws, as you stated was in 2014. It is now 2022. The restrictions of the Russian language being spoken in Ukraine is not a thing anymore. Ukraine has had a dramatic change in Government and Goverance, since 2014. Many Ukrainians are bilingual speaking both Ukrainian and Russian.
Other than that, good points for pondering.
My word! I’ve seldom seen anyone as gifted at piling it as high as you can. You are undoubtedly a member of the eastern tribe of knowitalls who believe that Toronto is the center of the universe, oil from Saudi Arabia is more virtuous than the stuff Canadians produce somewhere west of Kenora, the vaccines actually work and the manufacture of billions of batteries is going to save the environment. Your comments are a sterling example of everything that’s wrong in this country. If Albertans are such rubes, why is it that year after year – recession or not – Alberta leads the country economically? Albertans are conservative in what they value – family, individuality, faith.
Stop killing ducks to make duck tape!
After the school shooting in Texas this week a cartoon appeared on the Twitter feed.
Two elderly gents wearing white robes with halos over their heads are standing at the Pearly Gates. The first one says, “They keep sending up thoughts and prayers.”
The other responds, “And their children.”
Yesterday on the radio, a representative of Calgary’s police force attempted to explain to citizens that the 60 shootings so far this year — compared to 30 last year — are nothing to worry about. This is not a gang war, he said, but criminals who have guns and know each other shooting each other. Okay.
Before anyone says that guns don’t kill people, people do, and before I explain that mass shootings wouldn’t be mass shootings without guns, or that you can’t be both pro-life and pro-assault rifle, here is the best message I heard yesterday.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/25/sport/steve-kerr-texas-shooting-gun-violence-spt-intl/index.html
Guns are not protected in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, people are. As a person who once went out for dinner in a restaurant and saw a young woman murdered by a man with a gun instead, I’m not interested in hearing arguments about easing access to guns, especially assault rifles. Walk in my shoes, or rather, crawl on the floor and hide under a table while glass fragment fly, and your lungs fill with that smell. I’m sorry, I can’t hear you because my ears are ringing from that gunshot eight feet away.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8867357/calgary-student-firearm-bowness-police-report/
Right. Attention. We know how that goes. Reference Texas
Just waiting for the “lobbyists” to advocate for not only teachers and all other school staff being armed so as to “defend” lives, but further that “thinking” to include all kids from the age of 5 on up to also “openly carry” for protection. The gun and ammo manufacturers will be even more giddy with $$ signs lighting up before their glossed over eyes [including the politicians who invest in these companies – along with the heavy arms manufacturers of course] . {I have had such a insidious sarcastic streak from the age of 15!}
“Protect kids from guns by arming teachers” is one of those rare ideas that manages to sound terrible at first while also sounding more and more awful and stupid the more you think/learn about what that would entail. This list of problems is not comprehensive or even particularly well thought-out:
1)As soon as the students know which teacher carries, you have guaranteed that the next mass shooting will happen in their classroom, and that teacher will be the first target. This means that teachers will need to engage in psychological warfare with their own students to try to keep them guessing as to who is or isn’t carrying, which will not be easy and will certainly undermine their effectiveness as teachers.
2)Shooting with a pistol through a chaotic hallway of panicking kids to hit the one kid with a gun and no one else would take legendary shooting skills. Who is going to pay for the training costs of all these teachers, who are going to need to fire thousands of rounds of ammunition per year developing and maintaining the ability to be crack shots at a moment’s notice? Teachers will want danger pay if they are expected to join the brotherhood of arms. The time and effort teachers put into becoming highly effective killers is time and effort they can’t put into becoming better teachers. Effectively, we will pay more for less education.
3)You are going to need to create some kind of mobile cover for those teachers who are packing. “Best” suggestion I have heard is a small set of drawers on wheels that is secretly reinforced with steel plate. Teacher can wheel it to where it is needed then crouch behind it. However, as soon as the students realize this is cover, you have guaranteed that the next mass shooter is going to get some of that for himself, and we are going to start seeing more dead cops. Hallways are really bad places for gunfights, and if the other person has cover and you don’t, you are dead.
4)Teachers are going to need to get paid to spend a ton of time in specialized practice facilities. A firing range isn’t going to be enough for the training they’ll need, they’ll need to be able to do drills similar to professional hostage rescuers. In a big country like Canada, that means we either build live fire rooms in every town that has a school, or we pay rural teachers travel costs while they go to a live fire room several times per year. That ain’t gonna be cheap.
5)In order to succeed, each teacher carrying would need to be willing to, without hesitation, put two rounds into the chest of one of their students, then follow up with a “safety shot” to the head. Plenty of very skilled teachers will be unwilling or unable to become that killer. Are they going to be let go, so that we can bring in a bunch of ruthless killers? Moral problems aside, this is even more wasteful than requiring you plumber to also be a calligrapher, or your prime minister to also be fluent in French, or your investigative reporter to also be a trapeze artist. It’s! So! Dumb!
Anyways, I could give more and better reasons, I could cite sources and give links but this is so, so, SO dumb on so many levels that it seems like a waste of everyone’s time. You have to be all the way to the left of the X axis of the Dunning-Gruger graph to be confident this would work. This is what I could semi-carelessly bang out in five minutes off the top of my head. It is SUCH a dumb idea but it just won’t go away.
Neil Lore: Many years ago, I saw a documentary from one of the American TV channels, that showed that having a gun is still not going to guarantee you protection from another person with a gun. If they suddenly bolt inside, and have a gun, how will you easily stop them, if you have a gun? Where in your office space, or other space, will you store the gun? By the time you try to retrieve your gun, it may be too late. Another thing, outside of the documentary, is what if there is more than one shooter? There are people who foolishly believe that if someone had a gun, these mass shootings wouldn’t be happening, because the shooter would be stopped. Why are there so many mass shootings in America?
For sure. The more you think about what it would be like to have a gun, the more problems arise. Cool, let’s pretend I just bought a gun, now I’m safe and I’m protecting everyone around me, right? Well…
Will I keep my gun loaded? If yes, I have substantially increased the risk of accidental firearm discharge and of the weapon being used by someone else if they find/steal it. If no, I have substantially increased the risk that my gun will not be useful to me in the moment I need it. In either case, I am making a statistical sacrifice of both my safety and everyone around me.
Where will I keep my gun when it is not in use? If I don’t have it on me, I increase the risk that I won’t have it when I need it, and the risk that someone else will find and use it. If I keep it locked up, I decrease the odds someone else will use it while increase the risk I won’t be able to get it in time even more – who likes the idea of fumbling for keys in the darkness while the Scary Bad Guy is getting closer?
Where will I store the ammo? If it’s locked and the gun is locked, me and those around me are safest from my gun, but it will take the most amount of time to be able to get it if the Scary Bad Guy shows up.
This last one is most important – do I take responsibility for my decision to own a gun or not? This includes, but is not limited to:
-know how my gun works and being able to maintain, dis- and re-assemble it
-make an informed choice as to which firearm I purchase and how and when I will use it and store it
-train myself to the point that I can use it to kill, instead of using it to hit paper targets; being good in a range is not even close to being good in a firefight
-know that I will hit what I am aiming at every time, even when I am scared. Every round I discharge is my responsibility, I would not want to miss and have a ricochet make a manslaughterer out of me.
-understand that firearm accuracy is a perishable skill, and regularly make time and purchase ammo so that I can train that skill in the most realistic fashion I can responsibly arrange for.
-learn and practice verbal de-escalation skills. Be a real shame to kill someone who could have been talked down.
-regard my gun as a horribly dangerous tool, not as an identity I can purchase, or a group I can belong to, or proof of my manhood.
The problem with being a serious, responsible adult who owns firearms for self-defense is that it’s a ton of work but is very little fun.
Why are there so many mass shootings, and shooting in general, in the Benighted States? Look at it epidemiologically. They have, by far, the highest rate of civilian gun ownership per capita in the entire world. So, their society is more exposed to guns than any other, and the more guns, the more gun deaths. Societies exposed to fewer guns have fewer gun deaths.
Alberta is the most Americanized province in Confederation. This was deliberate. In the early 1900’s the federal government decided there were enough immigrants from eastern Europe, thank you very much, and it was time to encourage immigration by more congenial groups (white Anglo Saxon Protestants for choice). So they started advertising in the United States, offering homesteads to American farmers. The scheme succeeded, and a significant number of farmers from the eastern US (where farms had been fragmented by generations of inheritance) came to soon-to-be-Alberta for a chance to own their own, large, farm. Of course they brought their attitudes and political beliefs with them. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” came to parallel “peace, order and good [i.e., effective] government” as the foundation of Alberta political practice.
Now, Jason Kenney (or his minions), desperate to distract from the constant string of dumpster-fire decisions, is trying to complete the transition from sorta-Canadian province to full-on-Republican corporate state. The myth of the “right to bear arms” lives on.
OK, I get that rural people are mad as hell that somebody can rob them and the cops never show up in time to catch the bad guys. How does it help them to yammer about federal regulations? Like the provincial parole board referenced in the CBC article, the provincial firearms officer looks like political theatre. A wasteful exercise in duplicated bureaucracy that does nothing to fix problems here in Oilberduh. But they sure do generate a lot of letters to the feds!
Next year, we can hope Notley’s government will repeat their purge of unnecessary agencies, boards and commissions. Kenney’s war room will be the first to go—I devoutly hope AFTER handing over their books for a forensic audit. The chief firearms officer should be next in line.
You are absolutely correct about the recruitment of Americans to settle this province in the early 1900s, my family included. One of them became a land agent to recruit other Americans.
They brought their attitudes and their culture, the good, the bad and the ugly. In 2022, that attitude extends to other things, like Covid. When one of their own succumbed, it was “a brief illness”, “double pneumonia” and “pulmonary fibrosis”. Definitely not Covid. And when the funeral service could not be held in the usual church due to it being closed to in-person services all year because of the high number of Covid cases in the community (still!), they found a location that does not require masks and is not a church. No problem! Just don’t tell the unmasked it attendance that they were part of a superspreader event. Covid doesn’t exist!
A quick thought for any people who buy into the idea of armed, patriotic citizens being the best safeguard for revolution: Can you give one example where that has happened, ever? Maybe, if you want to prevent your country from falling to tyranny, you can be more effective by attending meetings, voting, having good-faith conversations with people who politically disagree with you and generally participating in the democratic processs like an adult than by hoarding a bunch of weapons designed to kill large numbers of people in a short time period.
Follow-up rhetorical question: have you ever thought about what a revolution would be like? If you had a halfway accurate idea of what that would look like, you would cease your strutting and posturing and act with more responsibility. The seeds of civil war have been spread liberally throughout the west, a bunch of entitled know-nothings running around blowing on the embers CAN cause fire.
That said, here’s a great way to find out if individuals are sincere about “opposing tyranny.” Do they support arming persecuted minorities? If the answer is yes, they are well aware that, historically, when societies start to drift towards tyrannny, they do so by first tyrannizing persecuted minorities, so arming persecuted minorities is the best defense against tyranny. If the answer is no, they are either vapid, entitled know-nothings, racists, or just really poorly informed rubes.
As long as the UCP and their current leader (at 51% support) continue to push for opening up gun laws ( and I presume “open carry” to be a part of that support), I’m wondering if BC (which I live in) continues to be many Albertans’ favour playground – and very much welcomed I will add, but it occurs to me we might need a BC border guard to check who is bringing their gun hardware into my province?
Stranger things seem to be happening these days with the collective types of politicians that seem to be getting so much media attention these days.
Fun fact, in Wikipedia’s article on ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws, Alberta is the only Canadian province that has its own section!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law#Alberta
Isn’t it kind of strange how Alberta does not execute someone for the crimes of trespassing, vandalism and/or theft, but Alberta has given its citizens the ability to execute people for those crimes? If the state were killing them, at least they’d get a trial first! If a state makes it legal for its citizens to kill people for breaking the law, can that state claim to be avoiding capital punishment? Is it consistent to tell people ‘vigilantism is illegal’ but ‘you can kill people for trespassing if you think they’re going to commit a crime while they’re trespassing?’
“Stand Your Ground,” like the “War on Drugs,” is just another way to rationalize oppressing/murdering minorities without being called out for it. It is a policy that will be enthusiastically embraced by white racists because they know it is bad for white people, but it is worse for everyone else.
Neil: The only reason Alberta doesn’t execute people for petty crimes is because criminal law is under federal jurisdiction. That’s why white racists in Alberta love the idea of an independent, racist, christofascist, white settler state – which is exactly what groups like the Maverick Party are talking about, have no doubt about it. DJC
I miss those innocent days when I had never heard the word “Christofascist.”
As an aside, Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt realized a long time ago that the Liberal (the ideology, not the party) love of ‘free speech’ could be used by fascists to promote their ideology. This is true for many antisocial ideas, but Fascism more so because it is so hard to define and Liberals don’t bother to educate the public about political philosophy (for much the same reasons the church didn’t teach peasants to read). Most reasonable adults are not really able to accurately point to something and say “this is/isn’t Fascism.” As a result, efforts to expose Fascistic behaviour can be easily derailed. It is a very serious problem.
Two points on an armed population: One is that the US had a civil war and it looks like once a population slips into internecine armed violence it takes generations to stop. Second point: gun violence in Canada is mostly associated with the policy of drugs prohibition. Providing a safe supply to addicts would go a long way to eliminating the gun-toting criminal element and their thieving accomplices and victims. After all, nobody kills cops or rival dealers over cannabis disputes anymore in Canada.
Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown wants “to replace it (the Firearms Act) with a new law that takes protecting our streets just a seriously as does defending the rights of Canadians.”
Y’all know what that means.
Yes, Mr. Blogger, it means that should the CPC select the gibberish spouting Mr. Brown as their leader it would make Justin Trudeau’s sweetest dream come true.
Ban all guns. They are completely unnecessary. The only purpose of a gun is to kill. I don’t care that people like to hunt, use bows and arrows. I don’t care that people like to target shoot, use something else. No more guns. Destroy them all. Ban ammunition sales.
Janna, respectively I disagree.
It’s an excellent way to teach your kids about safety and respect for their environment. Discipline in their own actions. Understanding that objects such as firearms, vehicles, etc., deserve careful use and consideration.
As is attempting to provide meat for a family of 5 year-round with a limited hunting season. I don’t need to sustenance hunt, but considering the out of control venison population, I’m doing what I can to help the environment balance itself. Plus elk is a whole lot healthier for growing kids than beef, pork, and chicken from unhappy, unnatural animals.
If I could only use a bow, it would be result in considerably less success. I’m lucky to get 1 tag filled during archery season (I do bowhunt), but by the end of rifle season I’ve typically filled all but the blackbear tag.
Also, it’s a military sport. Most sports derive from war games, such as our national sport lacrosse. It’s a martial art that doesn’t deserve to be destroyed because of a criminal element that will not cease to exist if we ban ammo sales. The vast majority of martial art practitioners don’t use their craft to kill, only to compete and improve. None of my guns will be used to kill, as it’s not their purpose.
I ask that you please consider the side of heritage, recreation, and discipline. European countries like Austria have a thriving gun culture because they expect perfection when it comes to following laws, regulations, and safety practices. Gaston Glock, namesake & inventor of the Glock handgun used by police worldwide, was Austrian. Today, they can still buy a Glock to compete in 3-gun competitions, with a healthy amount of background checks and safety evaluations. Unfortunately, because I will not be able to transfer my legally acquired handguns to my children when they are of age, they won’t be able to participate in the sport of 3-gun.
Alberta’s aspirations to being a wannabe Texas (or Mississippi, Florida, Alabama or Arkansas) remain one of the more humorous and dangerous aspects of its culture.
It has been long known that certain crazies among the UCP base not only want any type of weapon available to purchase and own, but they are convinced that what they have called the federal government’s overreach is an effort to confiscate all guns. So the WEF orders it, so it shall be done.
Watching the confused and confusing events unfold over the latest school shooting in Texas, leaves me with the immediate impression that not only is Texas completely insane, but it’s leadership is determined to usher in a wholesale carnage in the interest that will quickly bring about the End Times. Yes, Texas is that insane. (Give the people their guns…now, go forth and kill. Kill. KILL!)
One of the biggest complaints against Kenney was that he wasn’t more like Texas Gov. Abbot, who reveals time and time again that more guns are good, but the most guns are better. Texas governors of late are little more than televangelists, propagating every conspiracy myth under the sun.
Decidedly to see what’s being said from the other side (the crazy Republican side) I checked out Alex Jones’ take of the recent school shooting. Clearly taking great pains to not call it a false flag incident (the way he infamously called the Sandy Hook School Shooting) he was determined to maintain the narrative that it was not the gun that caused this latest slaughter, it was the crossing-dressing, transgender, liberal teen that took is legally purchased AR15 and shot up a school. And to add in more insult to the injury, Jones offered up Lock n’ Load Jesus, Ted Nugent, as the voice of reason and expertise. Nugent immediately declared it was not freeDUMB and gun loving Texans who were at fault, but the Satanic, illegitimate president Biden who has blood on his hands. Yes, that the narrative coming out of Texas that the UCP loves and wants in Alberta.
School shootings are rare in Alberta, because of firearms controls. There can be not doubt that if Texas-style gun culture came to Alberta, there would be murder and mayhem everywhere — all in the name of Rambo Jesus, of course.
Here’s the equation: Mental illness + gun = death. Now which part of this can be controlled ? Some would say mental illness, but how would this be done? Test all people? Not likely. What do you test for ? The gun is the tool that can be controlled.
The question is having a tool is more important a persons life?
I. Wonder: one of the bitter ironies of this issue, is that the most vociferous opponents of reasonable gun control in the Benighted States, are also vociferous opponents of a universal single-payer public health insurance system in that country — which might, perhaps, improve access to mental health care for those who need it most.
The Rittenhouse defence?
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/alberta-men-accused-of-killing-m%C3%A9tis-hunters-took-law-into-own-hands-prosecutor/ar-AAXLKk2?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=fc8a3b26b35640f5b58ea43b4c19923d
Its funny how narrative works. Somehow these incidents are all about gun ownership.
The real story is police dont have to protect you and actively stop you from protecting you and your family.
https://reason.com/2022/05/31/if-you-want-protection-for-your-loved-ones-do-it-yourself/?utm_medium=email
The ironic part is that gun ownership amongst democrats in the US is surging.
And there is good reason for that.
I really don’t understand why we don’t bring back the firearms registry.
While it may have cost a fortune to set up, by the time the Cons killed it it was operating on only $1 million a year, and the police used it daily.
We can go much further to make our firearms legislation more in line with countries with less gun crime than we have.