Cdn-Firearms Digest Saturday, December 14 2002 Volume 05 : Number 434
Subject: submitted letter to the editor re: "Poll show Canada, US split
over owning guns" (Gazette December 12, 2002)
The un-credited article, "Poll show Canada, US split over owning guns" (Gazette December 12, 2002) should raise some serious questions. First off, the timing. A few days after the Auditor General blasted the Firearm Registry, the Gazette publishes poll results from "last year". Second, the reader isn't privy to all the questions which resulted in a miraculous result of 63% of Canadians favouring the abolition of private firearm ownership. Before firearms can be confiscated ( without compensation, as prescribed in our gun law) they have to be found; that takes an accurate registry. Do Canadians support the continuance of their error ridden firearms registry even though it will surpass $1 billion ? In a letter to the Globe and Mail , Darrell Bricker, president, Public Affairs, Ipsos-Reid wrote (regarding Koyoto but the principal applies): "while Canadians may not know the "facts" about these issues, it doesn't stop them from forming opinions" he continues "So, why do the opinions of the misinformed matter? Well, because the misinformed vote, the misinformed write to their MPs, the misinformed boycott products and the misinformed march in the streets."
In essence, the government and its partners (the government funded Coalition for Gun Control) feed cooked facts, cooked books and voodoo science to the public then trumpet the legitimacy and public support for a gun registry.
A sterling example of manufactured consent. Forced to can an additional $72 million for the registry, Martin Cauchon announces he'll raid funding from other Justice projects to carry on the registry, thank you very much. Has sound fiscal and public policy become a masquerade? This isn't value for money spent, its damn the cost, agenda politics.
CTV Vancouver: 6,000 suspected Vancouver-bound guns seized in Italy
2:47
Associated Press
ROME Italian police have intercepted a shipment of 6,000 assault
rifles that was apparently destined for Canada, news reports said
Friday
These so called assault rifles are just plain SKS rifles.
Juxtaposition
Madame Laplante Edward's letter is poignant in a couple of respects. As
the mother of one of the victims of the tragic incident she is entitled to
be heard, and to whatever opinions she holds. Those would subvert her
pain to their own political ends do not share the same moral authority.
She has my utmost respect and sympathy.
Alas, the Firearms Registry would not have saved her daughter. Nor will it
ever save any Canadians, as has been shown to be the case with the handgun
registry in place since 1934.
I fear that like most Canadians, and all politicians, Madame Laplante
Edwards has confused the Firearms Registry with effective gun control
measures. Licensing with proper background checks and safety curriculum
requirements, along with safe storage and transport provisions will have a
direct effect on the public safety. They are reasonable and equitable
measures, both cost effective and meaningful.
If the Ministry of Justice spent as much effort in deterring the real
criminal use of firearms that they do in creating a brand new class of
criminal (the law abiding kind), then perhaps other mothers might be
spared the grief.
Sincerely,
Robert S. Sciuk
Oshawa, Ont.
Are these the same, semi-automatic SKS carbines that dealers like
lever Arms have sold for years for a little over $100? Last time I
checked, I though that an "assault rifle", by definition, was capable of
full-auto fire. Looks like someone beating the bushes to try and give
the Lieberals some "damage control" ammo to support the registry to
their Politically-Correct bumpkins and their moronic buddies in the
media being anxious to assist.
Is there no media representative out there who cares enough about
reporting the facts to get things straight? A revolver has a cylinder,
an assault rifle is selective fire, a converted machine gun is no longer
a machine gun - this is not rocket surgery, folks! There are several
million of us out there willing to help you report the truth - how about
taking us up on the offer? If you started reporting downed jumbo jets as
Piper Cubs, would you expect to retain credibility?
Rick
ASSULT RIFLES???? five round clip, semi-auto, can't easily mount a
scope and not pistol gripped????
-----Original Message-----
Dec. 14, 2002. 01:00 AM
Seized gun cache Vancouver-bound
SANDRO CONTENTA
LONDON Italian police have seized a shipment of thousands of
assault rifles on a ship destined for Vancouver.
The shipment of 6,000 Russian-made assault rifles was reportedly
seized in the southern port of Gioia Tauro yesterday morning. The cargo
apparently included an undisclosed number of grenade launchers.
Gioia Tauro's police chief, Antonio Militello, confirmed the seizure
in an interview with the Star last night but refused to give details.
The 4,600 gross tonne ship, sailing under a Croatian flag, was
scheduled to stop at Norfolk, Va., before proceeding to its final
destination of Vancouver.
The ship's waybill declared it was transporting antique rifles, but
police became suspicious when they noticed weapons that did not fit the
description.
Italy's Ansa news agency said a search of the ship uncovered the
stash of Russian-made SKS military assault rifles; among them were an
unspecified number of modern weapons.
The ship's captain insisted the shipment was legal, and neither he
nor the crew were under arrest as of late last night.
Italy has been used as a major logistics base for Osama bin Laden's
Al Qaeda network, and several of the group's suspected operatives are
currently being tried in a Milan court.
But late last night, a police investigator dealing with Al
Qaeda-related activities in Italy told the Star his unit had not yet
been notified of the seizure.
Sharon Gill, a spokesperson with Canada Customs in Vancouver, told
the Star's Allan Woods that port authorities there are aware of the
discovery but she could not say if the shipment will be investigated in
Canada.
Guns being brought into or leaving Canada must be accompanied by a
permit, available only from the Department of Foreign Affairs, she said.
Andrč Lemay, deputy director of trade for foreign affairs, said the
department is aware of the shipment but isn't involved in the
investigation.
And RCMP spokesperson Constable Danielle Efford said the Mounties
"don't comment on other agencies' investigations."
Sheldon Clare, president of the B.C. branch of the National Firearms
Association, said the powerful rifle is quite popular in Canada among
deer hunters.
With files from the Star's wire services
Subject: Re. Ben Affleck and PETA
You are what you eat--which is why PETA supporters usually
demonstrate the intelligence of a turnip.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We
ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed
you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that
ye were our countrymen." Sam Adams
Subject: Need help. lost newspaper email addresses
Could you please send me email addresses for newspapers in Canada, Ontario
or any lists you have. Computer ate mine. Thanks
Dan Baron
Subject: Re: Updated Canadian homicide stats
Oops - URL I gave was wrong, it should be:
Boris Gimbarzevksy
Subject: RFC Ottawa: Tip of the Hat
RFC Ottawa/FED UP Canada
Dear Firearms Owner, December 14, 2002
I would like to thank Rick Lowe, personally and publicly, for his
unsolicited, constructive and wonderful letter to my Liberal MP, Marlene
Catterall, Ottawa West-Nepean, Government Whip. I spotted Rick's
submission on the Digest for the first time.
His letter penetrates through the facade of spin doctoring,
emotionalism and deception that spawned C-68/FA.
It illustrates how all Members of Parliament, federal or provincial,
need to be better and more accurately informed on firearms legislation.
That omission is our collective error.
Without a doubt, the information with which Mrs. Catterall has been
provided comes from an anti gun source. This demonstrates that firearms
owners need to make accurate "information giving" a major priority of
the RFC.
That is why I requested a direct meeting with my MP, immediately. I
urge you to do the same.
The bulk of quality scientific research and evidence lies clearly on
our side.
Rather than being reactive and waiting to see what is going to happen
next, the RFC needs to be more proactive in educating key politicians,
the media and the general public.
An Ottawa Office of the RFC would do precisely that!
Professor Al Dorans
Director, RFC Ottawa
..........................................................................
Subject: Support For The Firearms Act.
Mrs. Marlene Catterall, MP
Ms. Catterall:
Mr. Al Dorans has chosen to share with me your response to a letter
he wrote.
While you are not my MP, my degree programs were in criminology and
criminal justice administration, and I would like to address what you
have said from that perspective. In addition, I spent 12 years in law
enforcement working with two different forces, so I have some
familiarity with those concerns as well.
You said:
I am not sure to what research you are referring. What I have seen
comes to a different conclusion. For instance, research by an
international police association comparing different countries shows
that the more stringent gun legislation is, the lower the rate of deaths
by guns.
As you are probably aware, the scientific community places little
value on "research" that does not pass peer review in a refereed
journal. The reason for this is simple and obvious - it eliminates
faulty research that is either deliberately skewed to arrive at a
foregone conclusion or flawed in methodology.
I am not aware of the unnamed research you refer to or the similarly
unnamed police association that supposedly did it. However, I am
willing to bet that the methodology that was employed did not eliminate
demographic dissimilarities between countries - which essentially leaves
you comparing apples with oranges.
Furthermore, a few countries quickly come to mind that directly
contradict what this anonymous study claims to have found.
Switzerland and Israel have both a heavily armed citizenry (often
with those terrible "assault rifles" no less) and firearms legislation
much more lenient than either the US or Canada. Yet their murder rate
is lower than Canada or the US - even in Isreal with their civil strife.
In comparison, right at the top of the "murder rate by firearm"
ladder sits South Africa and Jamaica. In comparison to our neighbor to
the south at 6.2/100,000, South Africa sits at 26.6/100,000 and Jamaica
at 18.2/100,000 (figures are for last year available, 1997). If you
take the time to research South Africa and Jamaica's firearms laws, you
will find it is extremely difficult for a citizen to pass police
scrutiny and obtain permission to own a firearm. With a disarmed law
abiding populace, it is obvious that the criminals are having little
problem obtaining and murdering with firearms.
While I am sure you do not want an exhaustive review of all country's
firearms laws and murder rates, I would hope you will agree that the
above shows there are some pretty large holes in this unnamed survey
claiming stringent gun legislation in other countries results in lower
firearms homicide rates.
Furthermore, instead of comparing apples to oranges using different
countries, perhaps you should compare apples to apples. Stay within one
country - compare states in the US with lenient firearms legislation to
states with restrictive firearms legislation. If you take the time to
do that, you will find that almost without exception the states with the
most restrictive firearms legislation have the highest murder rates
while the states with the most lenient firearms legislation have the
lowest.
Unless you dispute that fact, how does the police survey you refer to
explain such an absolute contradiction of its' findings within the
borders of one country?
Does this not at least cause you to question the accuracy of the
study you referred to?
I would be interested in being referred to the study you mentioned,
by the way, and the journal it can be read in.
Other research shows that someone who owns a gun for their own
protection is more likely to have their weapon used against them in the
commission of a crime.
This comment of yours leaves me particularly concerned about the
"research" you are being provided with. Is this a package given to all
Liberal MP's?
The study/studies you are referring to were done by Dr. Arthur
Kellerman. Dr. Kellerman is a medical doctor and not a criminologist or
social scientist of any kind.
I can give you the problems that were found in Kellerman's "research"
if you are truly interested, but suffice it to say that Kellerman's work
has been repeatedly rejected as both flawed and biased in every
criminology journal where I have seen reference to it. It has been
condemned by the most prominent criminologists who deal with the issue
of firearms and crime. Kellerman himself has publicly admitted that the
"research" was done with personal bias.
Prominent criminologists have done research into the Kellerman
contention that firearms kept for self defense are more likely to be
used against them; there has quite simply been no evidence found to
support that contention. That includes whether the firearm is kept in
the home or is in the form of a concealed carry permit as presently
allowed by so many states.
If you wish to put it in a simple math perspective, peer reviewed
research has established there are approximately 2.5 MILLION defensive
uses of firearms in the US each year - incidentally, in all but a few
percent of those instances, simply producing the firearm is sufficient
to chase the attacker off without even a warning shot being fired.
Now, if there are 2.5 million defensive uses, we can fairly safely
say there are 2.5 million firearms being owned for defensive use aside
from anything else. If Kellerman's claims that the firearm is more
dangerous to the owner than the criminal are true, then it follows that
there have to be more than 2.5 million Americans each year who "have
their weapon used against them in the commission of a crime".
I don't see any evidence of in excess of 2.5 million murders and
criminal woundings with firearms each year in the US. Do you see any
evidence of criminal firearms murders and woundings being as high as
Kellerman's research says exists?
The bottom line in my comments on these studies is that whoever is
supplying you with the "scientific studies" that you are basing your
position on is either ignorant of the concept of peer review or is
deliberately deceiving you with biased research.
I would not expect you (or want you) to make a decision based on
biased and fraudulent research from a pro-firearms lobby group that has
failed peer review. At the same time, I think it is equally
unacceptable when biased, flawed, and fraudulent research is accepted as
authoritative simply because it supports the Firearms Act.
Perhaps the most compelling information is that the rate of deaths by
guns in the United States is ten times the rate in Canada.
I expect you have a university degree and therefore the invariable
first year statistics course. Can I remind you of what you were
repeatedly told in that first year statistics course? "Correlation does
not equal causation".
Comparing us to the US in defense of firearms legislation is an
apples and oranges comparison. Such a statement would not survive for
ten seconds in any first year criminology course.
However, if you find country to country comparisons acceptable,
Canadian firearms owners can probably live with that. If you find the
US comparison compelling, then surely you find comparing us to
Switzerland and Israel even more compelling.
After all, both countries have firearms murder rates lower than
Canada's - yet both allow people to keep fully automatic firearms freely
in their homes, retain their military assault weapons after retiring
from the armed forces, etc.
If you find country to country comparisons to have the "most
compelling information", would you push for allowing Canadians to keep
fully automatic weapons at home, retain their military weapons after
retiring from the armed forces, carry handguns and submachine guns for
self defense, etc?
I suspect you wouldn't agree with that compelling comparison... But
why not, if you find comparing us to the US so compelling?
To summarize - and in particular in view of the billion dollars
wasted to date - I hope that at the very least you take the information
you are presently relying on to a reputable school of criminology and
ask them for their assessment as to its reliability. The school of
criminology at U of T is probably the closest decent criminology program
to Ottawa, and may I recommend Philip Stenning in that program? If
memory serves me correctly, Prof. Stenning has spoken to Parliament at
least once about the effectiveness of C-68 when it was still in the bill
stage.
Other than that, if you really do care about how much money is spent
on "gun control" and whether it is effective, may I suggest you have
your research assistant obtain the work done by Gary Kleck and James
Wright for your benefit. Both have been frequently published in
refereed criminology journals on the subject of firearms, their control,
and their relationship to crime. Neither are on the side of either "the
gun lobby" or "the gun banner lobby"; both are among the most respected
researchers in the field.
I look forward with interest to what you intend to do from this point
forward.
Respectfully yours,
Subject: letter
Taking a cue from Dr. Mike's excellent submission, "Who is
Responsible?", I sent the following to two local papers and the London
Free Press. Since it is well over the meagre 200 word limit for a letter
to the Free Press I asked that it be printed in the Vox Pop slot where
word restrictions are not so strict. I'm nopt expecting to see it in
print.
Whose Fault Is it? Since the release of the Auditor General's report
on the cost of the gun registry there has been more finger pointing in
Ottawa than if an errant snowball from a kids' snowball fight had broken
a neighbour's window. Anti-gunners blamed the Department of
Justice. The Department of Justice blamed the provinces and gun
organizations. Allan Rock hinted Paul Martin should shoulder some of the
blame because he was Minister of Finance at the time. Paul Martin
accused Allan Rock of being "emotionally involved with the
issue". Everyone blamed the government. So, whose fault is it?
First on the list is the federal government. In the wake of the
tragic events in Montreal on December 6, 1989, the government was
pressured to do something. Enter C-68, the Firearms Act, a feel good,
knee-jerk exercise in public relations to make us believe that the
government was actually doing something to fight crime. Against the
advice from firearms organizations and even from the government's own
advisors that the program would be impractical to administer, too costly
and would meet with resistance, the government persisted. The result is
over $1 Billion for 124 pages of badly formulated law, with only 7
dealing with criminals and 117 dealing with law-abiding citizens.
Next are the special interest groups such as the Coalition for Gun
Control who are vocal supporters of the United Nations agenda to disarm
all law-abiding citizens of their legally owned property. These social
engineering elitists believe they know best how firearms owners and
citizens should live their lives. Forgetting that criminals will never
register their guns, they support this flawed legislation regardless of
the cost.
Firearm owners must share some of the blame as well. We were not
proactive enough in this fight. We were content to preach to the
converted and hope the federal government would eventually listen to
reason. The latter happens with the same frequency as Halley's comet
coming into view. All the while urban Canada turned a deaf ear to our
pleas.
Then there are the Liberal MP's who appeared shocked when the Auditor
General's report surfaced. Don't believe them when they say they had no
idea of the costs. MP Garry Breitkreuz hounded the government almost
daily on cost overruns. Recently Sarnia-Lambton Liberal MP Roger
Gallaway described the Firearms Act as "a joke, a shambles, a 1250% cost
overrun". If one MP was aware of the fiasco, they all were.
Neither should Canadian voters be left off the list. Firearm
organizations have been warning us about the flaws in this legislation,
especially the potential for horrendous costs, for the past ten
years. Nobody listened, choosing instead to trust a government which
used bogus polls, flawed statistics and spin doctors to further its own
agenda. You can bet, the Minister of Truth, David Austin of the Canadian
Firearms Center will be working overtime spinning the "safety and value
to society" themes.
Nor is the media without blame. Until the Auditor General's report
came out only a few noted journalists dared to speak out or write
anything criticizing the Firearms Act. Now every journalist and network
in the country is on the bandwagon. Where were they the last seven
years? With those same noted exceptions reporters were too busy
referring to two firearms as an "arsenal, a firearm as an "assault
weapon", burglars, murderers and rapists as "gunmen", firearm owners as
the "gun lobby", a handgun as a "semi-automatic revolver" and an
anti-gunner as an "activist or advocate". They ignored our pleas to
investigate this scandal.
Last but not least to blame are Allan Rock, Anne McClellan and Martin
Cauchon. Allan Rock started this fiasco, promising it would not exceed
$85 million and vowed to scrap it if the costs exceeded $150
million. Anne McLellan perpetuated the spending and refused to release
272 pages of budget documents citing "cabinet confidences". This
information has still not been released. Martin Cauchon, current
Minister of Justice, continues to hide figures from parliament. Had this
happened in business or industry, all three would have been fired on the
spot.
But rest assured the system is working! The Department of Justice
just issued bulletins to police departments demanding they aggressively
seek out and prosecute those hunters and target shooters who fail to
register their firearms by January 1/03. Now this is serious crime
fighting! Our $1 Billion tax dollars at work! Street gangs, drug lords
and other assorted criminals must be rolling in the aisles laughing.
So, whose fault is it? All parties are at fault to some degree but
the federal government should bear the vast majority of the blame for
wasting $1 Billion. The bottom line is, this Chretien government
couldn't fiscally manage a dog fight.
Home Page | Links
| Calendar of Events | Bringing
You the Facts | Saskatchewan |
RFC
Sask
Subject: arms seizure
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1039841619361_8///?hub=World
Legal to buy, sell, or trade in Canada.
The CTV sound byte compared them to full auto and restricted firearms.
They certainly don't let truth interfere with their newscasts...
Propaganda is alive and well on CTV
Subject: Unpublished letter to National Post ...
Subject: Re: Assault Rifles Seized
Subject: RE: Seized gun cache Vancouver-bound
Subject: Seized gun cache Vancouver-bound
6,000 SKS assault rifles found on ship Italian police suspicious of cargo
EUROPEAN BUREAU
http://drgimbarzevsky.com/Guns/Canadian_Homicide_Trends_sequel.html
(html extension instead of htm that I mistakenly used)
Protecting Canadian Freedoms
Chairman, FED UP II
Government Whip
2571 Carling Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
Mr. Rick Lowe