At 3/20/11 03:29 PM, NHT123 wrote:
Canadian society is a little crazy; our gun control legislation designed to protect canadians from crime is a mess of red tape; and has been shown effectively to be useless in stopping crime. In fact, the decline of violence since the early 70's in canadian society can be more attributed to the trends than anything else.
Fact: Most firearm related deaths in Canada are accidental
How does this help your argument? If anything, it could be used to show that lax regulation on personal gun ownership is not strict enough. If that many people don't know how to handle firearms and, then wouldn't the government want to keep track of where every gun is going and who has it? This "fact" could easily be used to impose mandatory gun training for anyone buying a new firearm.
Fact: The second most related account of firearm deaths in Canada is suicide
Again, how does this help your argument? What is stopping the government from saying "holy crap, all these suicides! We should ban gun sales to anyone with any mental health problems!"
Fact: only 1 in 20 guns smuggled through the border are caught by the border gaurd.
Fact: Most guns used in crime are not legally possessed, and smuggled in from the United States.
You throw all these "facts" without anything to back it up. How many guns were legally shipped from the US but were later stolen from citizens or gun shops?
Here are the main provisions in the gun control act meant to keep Canadians safe:
-Magazines pinned to 5 rounds
You should be absolutely certain before ever pulling the trigger at anything - especially if it is an intruder. If you can't hit him in 5 rounds he's either already long gone and you've blasted a bunch of holes in your walls or you've managed to kill a neighbor or family member in the process.
How is this not a reasonable limitation? How is this delving into the area of "crazy"?
-Pistols with barrels shorter then 4 inches are illegal or "prohibited weapons"
This is physics at play, really - shorter barrel = less accuracy. Now we're back to missing the intruder and holes in your walls.
-AR-15's, short barrelled rifles and Pistols are restricted weapons which require an ATT to transport; and you can only transport it from the range and back to your house. Restricted weapons can only be shot legally at a range.
Unless you are mounting a war effort, there is no feasible use for some of those guns beyond collecting or firing at the range. It seems like a no brainer to me that the law will restrict use to firing ranges rather then letting you go hog wild with high powered weapons in the woods.
If I recall from my hunter education course (which was required if you wanted to get a hunting license as a teenager in the state I grew up in), a bullet from a .22 could travel over a 2km. It wont be accurate, but imagine a higher powered bullet being fired hap haphazardly during hunting season.
-If you use a Firearm in defense of your own life, even in your own house; You can, and some instances will be charged with agravated murder with a firearm.
It depends on the law of where you live. Even in the United States in some places they have a requirement that you try to escape before using deadly force (like shooting an attacker). I mere threat of violence is not enough to justify killing a person. Your self defense must be proportional to the threat you face - if an attacker is just pushing you or punching you, it does not mean you can kill him in almost any jurisdiction. Even if you are in imminent life-threatening danger - and in some places you have to try to get away.
For example - many people think that you can shoot any aggressor if they are on your property and being violent - but in some places you would effectively have to be backed against the wall before you can use deadly force - you would have to try to close the door and keep the guy away.
-All firearms are to be registered
This goes to the fears of smuggled guns or stolen guns - if your gun is registered and you keep track of it - you would know right then if it is stolen. It also goes towards making sure people are educated. The registration process may have you get lectured by whoever is handing out registrations about how important it is to keep your weapons safe.
-The RCMP can choose to make firearms restricted, or prohibited based on policy
This does appear to be a little off the wall in my opinion. The police agency really shouldn't have free reign over what it deems appropriate or not. It makes it difficult for citizens to make sure they are legal.
-A license must be obtained to register a firearm to you
I imagine this is to educate and make sure that you are actually fit to register firearms.
- When ever the Liberals are in power and Amnesty is not declareed; you can be charged even if you are trying to register your previously not registered firearm.
- You can be charged with unlawful firearm ownership if your license expires even by one day
You can be charged for driving with an expired license even if it is expired by one day.
The laws were created so arbitrarily, just for cheap votes. You know what? I agree with Licensing, its a damn good way of making sure we don't condone just selling guns to anyone. Problem is, most murderers get their guns illegally from the States. What can we do? Ammend the current laws is all.
What kind of amendments would you propose? Out of all of the things you've mentioned the only one that I could see as problematic is the RCMP being able to make policy on their own rather than deferring to the legislative bodies. And that doesn't exactly the problem about smuggled guns.
I think you are focusing on the wrong set of laws. Maybe you should look at smuggling laws and violent crime laws. As you have said above, if most gun incidents are accidents and suicides, how do these licensing and registration laws not address the problem? You say the problem is smuggling but the first facts you tell us are about how accidents are leading causes of injury. This makes no logical sense to your argument. Most accidents aren't with an illegal smuggled gun - it is by somebody who has legally purchased a firearm and does not properly maintain, uses it in a dangerous fashion or leaves it loaded and in reach of others.