[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

So assault rifle ban. Those of us not currently in Alberta agree this is good thing?

It's pointless and gives a false sense of security to the population.

How many crimes have been commited, over the last 10 years, by legal owners of these weapons?  0.

The problem comes from illegal guns smuggled from the US.  Secure the border, give more than a slap on the wrist to offenders, keep them in jail instead of releasing them after a couple of months for good behaviour and it will be less of a problem.

While living next to the US brings with it many problems, including illegal guns entering the country, it is not accurate to say that guns legally purchased in Canada have not been used by their owners to commit a crime - exhibit A, Marc Lepine purchased the rifle he used at a sporting goods store.

[Malthus]

Yes, rare but not unprecedented.  Laws change & you gotta respect them. It sucks when it's not in your favor but that's not a reason to not act. Especially when it comes to gun control.

So you've gone from it happens "with all kind of new laws" to "rare but not unprecedented".

What is the reason to act here?  There's been no suggestion the Nova Scotia shooter legally purchased his firearms.  There's no suggestion that he wouldn't have been just as deadly if he had used different firearms that aren't being made illegal.

I'm not overly fussed about these new laws. Seems to me that the point of them is to narrow the legal availability of certain types of guns, which is a reasonably minor infringement on one's freedom to own what one wants, while having a correspondingly minor impact on the "pool" of guns widely available.

It isn't an answer to note that this would not have prevented the Nova Scotia shooting, because he got his guns illegally. The idea is that if certain types are not available legally, that will indirectly impact the illegal market as well - by reducing availability generally. As we all know, the illegal market is made up of guns stolen from legal sources, and guns smuggled in from the US. You can't stop either (any more than you can stop, say, illegal drugs) but you can make it more difficult - the question is whether the cost of such prohibition style measures are worth it.

The other objection is that this will turn thousands of legal gun owners into criminals overnight. I suggest this is not the case. My understanding is that this will be accompanied by buy-back and grandfathering provisions, to allow current owners to comply.

This sort of thing isn't unprecedented: the same thing happens every time a regulatory system is tightened on any activity - for example, the introduction of food & drug legislation around the turn of the last century, or on cigarettes. Possession of certain products are outlawed, licensing is required, the concern becomes that previously allowed activities are no longer allowed and that this is too great an imposition on freedom, you can get the prohibited stuff on the black market so what is the point, etc. I'm guessing that many a peddler of patent medicines was annoyed when drug licensing and ingredient prohibition was introduced.  A more directly applicable example is the introduction of pollution controls on cars - suddenly perfectly legal owners had to get their vehicles checked out, and couldn't use them if they failed to pass emission controls.

The measures may in some cases be petty or cosmetic, or even not very effective, but the idea is to slowly move social perception in a certain direction - away from widespread acceptance of whatever socially-harmful activity.

Most Canadians view gun use, outside of target practice or hunting, or for the cops or army, as socially harmful. Thus, the idea is that guns should be restricted to those activities alone, in both form and function. These laws are much-derided by gun advocates because the actual function of the gun isn't at issue, so much as the form - they look "scary" or "military-style". To advocates, though, that's the point - there is little benefit, and some harm, to allowing the availability of frightening-looking weapons; they can more easily be used to intimidate, for example — and intimidation isn't considered, by them at least, a legitimate use.

The people this will harm most are legal collectors of interesting weaponry, but that is a pretty tiny demographic and their hobby is not considered as a particularly significant loss.

[Barrister]

Yes, rare but not unprecedented.  Laws change & you gotta respect them. It sucks when it's not in your favor but that's not a reason to not act. Especially when it comes to gun control.

So you've gone from it happens "with all kind of new laws" to "rare but not unprecedented".

What is the reason to act here?  There's been no suggestion the Nova Scotia shooter legally purchased his firearms.  There's no suggestion that he wouldn't have been just as deadly if he had used different firearms that aren't being made illegal.

The answer then is to ban all firearms

We could do that.  We don't have a second amendment after all.

But then you have hunters.  You have first nations who have treaty-guaranteed rights to hunt.  You have farmers and ranchers who need to protect their animals from predators, and to occasionally put down their own animals.

I don't think banning firearms works in a country as large as Canada, with as much wilderness as we have.

[Barrister]

We've criminalized drugs that used to be legal for the common good, haven't we? cocaine and the like wasn't always illegal, hell it was over the counter medication lol. is this much different? sure it was long ago, but it still happened. We've even criminalized firearms in the past which used to be legal. It happens. And we're not the only country that does so. Australia did it in 1996.

I can't find the exact date that Canda made cocaine illegal, but in the US it was 1914, and Canada would have been roughly the same era.

[crazy canuck]

Yes, rare but not unprecedented.  Laws change & you gotta respect them. It sucks when it's not in your favor but that's not a reason to not act. Especially when it comes to gun control.

So you've gone from it happens "with all kind of new laws" to "rare but not unprecedented".

What is the reason to act here?  There's been no suggestion the Nova Scotia shooter legally purchased his firearms.  There's no suggestion that he wouldn't have been just as deadly if he had used different firearms that aren't being made illegal.

The answer then is to ban all firearms

We could do that.  We don't have a second amendment after all.

But then you have hunters.  You have first nations who have treaty-guaranteed rights to hunt.  You have farmers and ranchers who need to protect their animals from predators, and to occasionally put down their own animals.

I don't think banning firearms works in a country as large as Canada, with as much wilderness as we have.

I would be fine with providing exemptions for people to have access to hunting rifles which are signed out from secure locations and then returned after their hunting trip.  No need to permit private ownership to accommodate the small percentage who actually use guns to hunt.  Same could be done with firing ranges.

If private ownership is permitted then the guns can be stored for a fee at the secure locations.

[garbon]

We've criminalized drugs that used to be legal for the common good, haven't we? cocaine and the like wasn't always illegal, hell it was over the counter medication lol. is this much different? sure it was long ago, but it still happened. We've even criminalized firearms in the past which used to be legal. It happens. And we're not the only country that does so. Australia did it in 1996.

I can't find the exact date that Canda made cocaine illegal, but in the US it was 1914, and Canada would have been roughly the same era.

Has Canada not banned any modern drugs? I was thinking of K2 but saw Canada hasn't declared that illegal.

[Barrister]

I would be fine with providing exemptions for people to have access to hunting rifles which are signed out from secure locations and then returned after their hunting trip.  No need to permit private ownership to accommodate the small percentage who actually use guns to hunt.  Same could be done with firing ranges.

If private ownership is permitted then the guns can be stored for a fee at the secure locations.

That completely ignores who it is that actually hunts i.e. it's not people living in cities.  It's people in rural and northern communities.  And for a lot of hunters a "hunting trip" is just going out after work on a Tuesday.

Plus first nations and farmers / ranchers.

[Barrister]

We've criminalized drugs that used to be legal for the common good, haven't we? cocaine and the like wasn't always illegal, hell it was over the counter medication lol. is this much different? sure it was long ago, but it still happened. We've even criminalized firearms in the past which used to be legal. It happens. And we're not the only country that does so. Australia did it in 1996.

I can't find the exact date that Canda made cocaine illegal, but in the US it was 1914, and Canada would have been roughly the same era.

Has Canada not banned any modern drugs? I was thinking of K2 but saw Canada hasn't declared that illegal.

Sure but it's a very different thing to ban a novel drug, than banning something that has been legal for decades.

[crazy canuck]

I would be fine with providing exemptions for people to have access to hunting rifles which are signed out from secure locations and then returned after their hunting trip.  No need to permit private ownership to accommodate the small percentage who actually use guns to hunt.  Same could be done with firing ranges.

If private ownership is permitted then the guns can be stored for a fee at the secure locations.

That completely ignores who it is that actually hunts i.e. it's not people living in cities.  It's people in rural and northern communities.  And for a lot of hunters a "hunting trip" is just going out after work on a Tuesday.

Plus first nations and farmers / ranchers.

I heard they have buildings in rural areas and people going out on Tuesday after work can plan ahead a bit. 

[crazy canuck]

We've criminalized drugs that used to be legal for the common good, haven't we? cocaine and the like wasn't always illegal, hell it was over the counter medication lol. is this much different? sure it was long ago, but it still happened. We've even criminalized firearms in the past which used to be legal. It happens. And we're not the only country that does so. Australia did it in 1996.

I can't find the exact date that Canda made cocaine illegal, but in the US it was 1914, and Canada would have been roughly the same era.

Has Canada not banned any modern drugs? I was thinking of K2 but saw Canada hasn't declared that illegal.

Sure but it's a very different thing to ban a novel drug, than banning something that has been legal for decades.

Like banning smoking in bars and restaurants?

[Grey Fox]

Yes, rare but not unprecedented.  Laws change & you gotta respect them. It sucks when it's not in your favor but that's not a reason to not act. Especially when it comes to gun control.

So you've gone from it happens "with all kind of new laws" to "rare but not unprecedented".

What is the reason to act here?  There's been no suggestion the Nova Scotia shooter legally purchased his firearms.  There's no suggestion that he wouldn't have been just as deadly if he had used different firearms that aren't being made illegal.

I don't see these 2 statements has been mutually exclusive. But, you tell me that it is rare. I believe you. Still doesn't matter to me.

Because no one needs civilian versions of military weapons. 30 years ago, 14 women died by fire from a Ruger Mini-14. Why is that weapon still available in Canada?

[crazy canuck]

Yes, rare but not unprecedented.  Laws change & you gotta respect them. It sucks when it's not in your favor but that's not a reason to not act. Especially when it comes to gun control.

So you've gone from it happens "with all kind of new laws" to "rare but not unprecedented".

What is the reason to act here?  There's been no suggestion the Nova Scotia shooter legally purchased his firearms.  There's no suggestion that he wouldn't have been just as deadly if he had used different firearms that aren't being made illegal.

I don't see these 2 statements has been mutually exclusive. But, you tell me that it is rare. I believe you. Still doesn't matter to me.

Because no one needs civilian versions of military weapons. 30 years ago, 14 women died by fire from a Ruger Mini-14. Why is that weapon still available in Canada?

So guys can go out after work on a Tuesday and shoot something.

[Barrister]

I would be fine with providing exemptions for people to have access to hunting rifles which are signed out from secure locations and then returned after their hunting trip.  No need to permit private ownership to accommodate the small percentage who actually use guns to hunt.  Same could be done with firing ranges.

If private ownership is permitted then the guns can be stored for a fee at the secure locations.

That completely ignores who it is that actually hunts i.e. it's not people living in cities.  It's people in rural and northern communities.  And for a lot of hunters a "hunting trip" is just going out after work on a Tuesday.

Plus first nations and farmers / ranchers.

I heard they have buildings in rural areas and people going out on Tuesday after work can plan ahead a bit.

It's not just a building.  After all hunting rifles are already being stored in buildings - usually the hunter's home.  And if they're following regulations they're locked up, either with a trigger lock or in a gun safe.

No, you're suggesting a whole system where there's no only a building, but people staffing those buildings in order to sign out those firearms, and retrieve them back at the end of the day.

And how many of these buildings are you going to have?  For starters, are you going to put one in each of the 634 first nations in Canada?

[PRC]

Yes, rare but not unprecedented.  Laws change & you gotta respect them. It sucks when it's not in your favor but that's not a reason to not act. Especially when it comes to gun control.

So you've gone from it happens "with all kind of new laws" to "rare but not unprecedented".

What is the reason to act here?  There's been no suggestion the Nova Scotia shooter legally purchased his firearms.  There's no suggestion that he wouldn't have been just as deadly if he had used different firearms that aren't being made illegal.

I don't see these 2 statements has been mutually exclusive. But, you tell me that it is rare. I believe you. Still doesn't matter to me.

Because no one needs civilian versions of military weapons. 30 years ago, 14 women died by fire from a Ruger Mini-14. Why is that weapon still available in Canada?

So guys can go out after work on a Tuesday and shoot something.

Some guys go out on a Tuesday to feed their families.  Rural residents, particularly those with livestock of any kind, do have a valid need to protect their livelihoods from predatory animals and guns are a real part of that.

All that being said, i'm for the ban, but a nuanced solution is required for those with a legitimate need for the safe use of these weapons.

[crazy canuck]

Yes, rare but not unprecedented.  Laws change & you gotta respect them. It sucks when it's not in your favor but that's not a reason to not act. Especially when it comes to gun control.

So you've gone from it happens "with all kind of new laws" to "rare but not unprecedented".

What is the reason to act here?  There's been no suggestion the Nova Scotia shooter legally purchased his firearms.  There's no suggestion that he wouldn't have been just as deadly if he had used different firearms that aren't being made illegal.

I don't see these 2 statements has been mutually exclusive. But, you tell me that it is rare. I believe you. Still doesn't matter to me.

Because no one needs civilian versions of military weapons. 30 years ago, 14 women died by fire from a Ruger Mini-14. Why is that weapon still available in Canada?

So guys can go out after work on a Tuesday and shoot something.

Some guys go out on a Tuesday to feed their families.  Rural residents, particularly those with livestock of any kind, do have a valid need to protect their livelihoods from predatory animals and guns are a real part of that.

All that being said, i'm for the ban, but a nuanced solution is required for those with a legitimate need for the safe use of these weapons.

Not opposed to specific exemptions that make sense where a gun is required on short notice.  But those would be rare.  I am much less impressed with BB's argument about not being able to go out with the boys on the spur of the moment after work.