Category: Outdoors

Well, I guess we can just file this one under “Well, DUH!” and move on from there, eh? Anybody who comes here regularly (and has two brain cells to rub together) already knows damned well just what I think about the Farmer Bob Varmint Gun Registryâ„¢. Specifically: we don’t have a gun control problem in this country, we have an asshole control problem. Locking up criminals reduces crime; hassling the shit out of farmers and duck hunters doesn’t. End of argument.

About twice a month or so (more often when I put up a post like this one), I get the usual, snarky email from some anti-gun Froot Loop, accusing me of everything from pro-Americanism a’ la the Second Amendment to plotting the assassination of all things cute and fuzzy. These little tirades invariably end with the assertions that I’m a) the lone voice in the wilderness with whom no one else agrees, and b) crazy as a shithouse rat.

Nice folks, huh? The problem — for them, anyway — is that I’m neither wrong, nor nuts, nor alone. And even the MSM is starting to agree. Laura Czekaj had a bit of an interesting writeup in the Ottawa Sun today, telling us that “Many flout firearms registry laws say experts“:

In neighbourhoods across the city, people are flouting the law by storing unregistered firearms in opposition of the federal gun registry.

No! Impossible! Not in Ottawa!! 😯

It’s impossible to tell how many people have opted not to register their guns with the Canadian Firearms Registry, but police and members of the firearms community get the sense that there are many gun owners who subscribe to this passive form of resistance against the controversial registry.

Impossible? No, it isn’t. As a matter of fact, I can tell you myself: it’s about four out of five long gun owners!

“On the whole, we do have records and people have registered firearms, but there are always firearms out there that we are not going to know about, registered or not registered,” said Sgt. Anthony Costantini of the Ottawa police guns and gangs unit.

Um… weren’t we told that having the registry would mean cops would know? About the registered ones, at least? 😕 The Grits didn’t lie to us, did they??

It becomes a concern if police are called to a residence and are confronted with someone carrying a gun, which officers didn’t previously know was in the house.

“But until you are confronted with that, you will never know,” said Costantini. “It’s like walking into a situation where you don’t know what’s behind the door.”

Um, guys? According to the cops that I know, EVERY call is like that: you don’t know what’s on the other side of the door. That’s where that whole “hope for the best but prepare for the worst” thing comes in handy…

It was that exact situation that played out in a Woodroffe Ave. home on Wednesday when Gatineau officers executed a court order to retrieve 14 registered firearms from Siva Yogi Shanmugadhasan, 48, and discovered additional guns that were not properly registered. Ottawa police were called and the weapons were seized.

Shanmugadhasan is facing several weapons-related charges, in addition to being the subject of a domestic dispute investigation that led Gatineau police to his door.

The weapons seized from the house included AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles and an array of inoperable guns, such as a grenade launcher and handguns.

Ah, yes, the obligatory references to the top favourites of the anti-gun hit parade. Nothing scares the bejeezus outta the city folk like a reference to “AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles.” And hey, how can you have an article about guns without trotting out the Domestic Violence Boogeyman®? You can’t, right?

We’ll cut Laura some slack here. After all, she’s writing for an Ottawa newspaper. There’s just a few little problems with this little bit of slight-of-hand…

Lie#1: the AR-15 is an assault rifle. No, it’s not. The M-16 (which is also based on Eugene Stoner’s design) is an assault rifle but the AR-15 isn’t. Yes, the ’15 looks like a scary piece of hardware, but the anti-gun crowd, and the MSM in general, rely heavily on the fact that most of the general public haven’t got the foggiest idea of what an “assault rifle” actually is. Don’t believe me? Alright then, smartass, take a look at the picture on the right (click on it for a better look) and tell me: which one is the “assault rifle?”

Go ahead, take your time; I’ll wait. I’ve got the time.

Okay, think you’ve got it yet? Which one did you choose? The top one? The bottom one? That’s what I thought. Would you like to know the answer? The answer is that neither one is an assault rifle. Nope, not either one; neither one. All those are are just a couple of little ol’ .22s. Sure, they’re all gussied up to look all big and bad, but they’re still only a couple of .22s, just the same.

Lie#2: there are no Kalashnikovs in Canada. This is also bunk. There’s one (Chinese made, I think it is) sitting in the display case of my local gun shop. I think they want about $800 for it, or somewhere in that area… Try actually walking into a gun shop sometime and taking a look around.

Lie#3: there is a quantifiable connection between guns and domestic violence. Sheer and utter bullshit that has grown more and more popular in Canada ever since we experienced our first incident of Islamist terrorism in Montreal. Even if there is a gun in the house, when some woman-beating sack of maggot shit decides to kill his wife, he usually grabs whatever’s closest at hand at that moment: a knife, a blunt object, a cord, his fists… Yes, it’s vile, but it has nothing to do with guns.

COURT APPEARANCE

Shanmugadhasan will appear in court later this week to answer to the charges.

Speaking in general, George Perrin, a member of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, said there are many gun owners across Canada who have decided not to register their firearms either as a sign of defiance, or because they’re collectors who have guns that are now prohibited under federal laws.

“There is a fair number of people who have not registered and have refused to register because of the stupidity of it (the registry),” said Perrin.

The Canadian Firearms Registry contains data related to licensed firearms owners and to the registration of all firearms in Canada.

Can we kill that damned waste of money yet? We could have used the cash to build some new prisons…

Okay everybody, gather ’round and check out this guy here on the right ( no, bonehead, not the one with his thumb in the air; your other right 🙄 ). This guy’s name is Marc Patterson and he has totally got my nomination for the Biggest Balls In British Columbia Awardâ„¢ after what he did.

I’ll bet you’re wondering what’s got me so impressed, aren’t ya? Well, it’s like this:
Marc and his family went on a camping trip a few days ago, along with a 12-year old friend of his family’s named Colton Reeb. Things were all fine and dandy until Colton needed to make a short trip to the thundershack after dinner. On his way there, Colton bumped into a cougar. The kind that doesn’t wear lipstick (watch the story here):

Colton Reeb was bitten on the head, face, neck and upper chest before a family friend wrestled the big cat off the boy, but his parents told CBC News on Thursday evening their son is resting and in good condition.

[…]

“I see the cougar with his mouth on top of the young boy’s head. [There’s] nothing but blood everywhere,” said Marc Patterson, a Reeb family friend who eventually fought the cougar off the boy.

“I jumped down there on the cat, grabbed him by the neck and started squeezing him from behind. I tried to pull the cat off and it took a few seconds. Finally the cat did let go and then we tumbled,” Patterson said.

“The cat was so strong he just pulled himself out of my hands. Then he’s a metre in front of me, looking at me with his ears back.”

Yeah, you read that right: “wrestled the big cat off the boy!” 😯 This guy must clank when he walks or something…

Five soccer kicks to the head of a cougar weren’t enough to wrench a 12-year-old boy’s head from the mouth of the big cat, says the man credited with saving the lad’s life.

So Mark Patterson put a chokehold on the cougar that had ambushed his young neighbour Colton Reeb, who was on his way to an outhouse near a cabin about 100 km northwest of Kamloops late Wednesday afternoon.

“The cat had Colton’s head in its mouth …blood was squirting out everywhere,” said Kamloops resident Patterson, 45.

“I’m a soccer player and I kicked the cougar in the head five times and it didn’t flinch so I grabbed him by the throat and squeezed as hard as I could and he finally let go.”

Patterson then wrestled with the 70-pound male cougar, which broke free, fixing him with an evil glare and growl, he said.

“I growled back at him and said, ‘I’m ready to go,’” said the five-foot-six, 210-pound Patterson, adding the entire melee lasted up to a minute.

As his wife stood nearby armed with a meat cleaver, the cougar then slinked away.

“I was scared but I don’t remember … I love this little boy and I didn’t want him to die,” said Patterson.

And Colton? Well, I get the feeling that he’s going to be just fine (thanks in no small part to his buddy Marc):

Colton Reeb was in good spirits but feeling “ripped off” after a planned five-day camping trip with his family was cut short when he was attacked on Wednesday near Clinton, British Columbia, the BC Children’s Hospital said.

Yup, got mauled by a cougar and mostly feels bummed that his camping trip got cut short. Ain’t the resilience of kids amazing? All Colton’s thinking about is getting back up there so he can have some time on his new dirt bike. I’ll let Colton’s dad and Marc have the last words today:

An emotional Robin Reeb, Colton’s father, said Patterson deserves a medal for heroism.

“If it weren’t for him, my son would be dead,” said a tearful Reeb, who was in Kamloops at the time of the attack .

“He attacked this thing with his bare hands and kicked the s–t out of it – it’s amazing.”

Said Patterson: “I guess they’re calling me a hero now – I thought soldiers were heroes.”

Holy crap. 😯 Yes, I know that this has not a bloody thing to do with politics, Canada, or any of the other things that I’m usually in the habit of going on and on about but still… Holy crap. 😯

Now, I know that the kangaroo is something of a national symbol in the Land o’ Oz — kind of like our beaver — but seriously, people, there is such a thing as too much being too much. This would be a good example of that, I think. It seems that there is a bit of a population problem with the little Skippies on the outskirts of Canberra…

The Defence Department wants to hire professional shooters to cull the kangaroos at two of its properties on the outskirts of Canberra, where some areas have as many as 450 kangaroos a square kilometre — the densest kangaroo population ever measured in the region.

That’s right: 450/Km²! For those of you that think a little old-school, like I do, that’s close to two ‘roos per acre. That’s one helluva lot o’ boomers and does. There’s so many of them that they’re starting to “eat through the grassy habitats of endangered species.”

Now, you’d think that when one animal becomes a problem like that — especially when, let’s face it, humans have contributed to the trouble by killing off predators — a cull would be a no-brainer. There’s too many of one species and they’re posing a danger to another. Cull the excess of the one and restore the balance.

Simple, right? Hell, to a conservationist like me, that’s just common sense. But common sense just doesn’t come very easily to the sanctimonious, busybody, “animal rights” crowd now, does it?

Under the plan, 3,200 of the common eastern grey kangaroos, which can grow as big as a human, will be shot by July.

But Mary Hayes, president of the animal rights group ACT Animal Liberation, warned that such an action would earn the local government an international reputation for cruelty.

“It is a very cruel, violent way to treat animals,” she said on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Pat O’Brien, an activist with the Queensland state Kangaroo Protection Coalition, rejected the government’s argument the kangaroos risked starvation if there is no cull.

“This is just an excuse to kill them,” he said.

Oh, EEK! Nasty men with guns just wanna have fun. Right. Let the argumentum ad hominem get into full swing. 🙄

The fact of the matter is that there are two kinds of animals: the eating and the eaten; AKA predators and prey. When a prey population grows unchecked by predation, they will breed and increase until they start to starve. Period.

So my question to the smartass little busybodies at the Kangaroo Protection Coalition, ACT Animal Liberation and other such bunches, is this:

How do you want them to die? Quick and relatively painless (a bullet) or slow and suffering (starvation)?

Because those are the choices you’ve got. Those are the ONLY choices you’ve got; whether you have the stomach for that fact or not. Neither reality nor natural law give a shit about your delicate sensitivities.

So, what’ll it be?

Okay, most folks that come here already know that I’m a firm supporter of firearm owners’ rights. No, I’m not a “gun nut” — well, okay, maybe just a little — but I’m one of those guys that enjoys a little relaxing time on the range and unlike the urbanite “eek!” crowd, I believe that the best way to deal with firearms is not to stick your head in the sand and hope Big Nannyâ„¢ will make it go away, but rather through proper education. This means taking the time to teach your kids — realistically, not hysterically 🙄 — just what guns are capable of and how to properly deal with them; especially proper gun safety. Which is one of the reasons I got my boy a little something for his graduation this spring (if his marks are good enough, that is; we’ll wait and see). Nothing fancy, mind you, but a nice little Cooey model 75 for a starter…

If anybody out there is thinking about a first rifle for a young boy (or a young girl, for that matter), this is just the kind of thing that you should be looking for. It’s just a .22, so it’s not too much gun for a kid. Single-shot, bolt-action means that the rifle needs to be reseated in the shoulder and carefully re-aimed every time you want to fire and the manual cocking after the round is chambered (my favourite feature on this weapon) provides a little extra insurance against the kind of carelessness that, let’s face it, kids can be susceptible to sometimes. You just can’t be too careful.

Buuuuttt…. That being said, every now and then it’s just plain fun to crank away at some serious, kick-ass, testosterone-induced, don’t-screw-with-this-bad-boy firepower. 😉 And it sometimes really bites my dingleberries that the Yanks are the ones that get to have all the fun in that department.

Some of you might remember R. Lee Ermy as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from the movie, Full Metal Jacket, or any one of his numerous other “cranky drill instructor from hell” roles. But hey, even the big bad Gunny needs a little relaxation every now and then, right? So how do you figure he does it? Well, the answer was to be found, of course, on YouTube. Seems he likes to go to Knob Creek, KY about twice a year… 😆

A little warning, though: this is a pretty big vid, so it might take some time to load…

Oh, don’t look at me like that. You all know damned well that I wouldn’t be able to resist…

Well, since I seem to be in a video kind of mood today, let’s add this one to the pile. SDA had this earlier and it’s pretty damned dumb.

Ah, ecotourism, isn’t it just wonderful? Happy little tree-hugging granola-grinders getting themselves back to the loving, gentle embrace of Mother Nature, where nothing nasty ever happens, there is never any violence, and all the goddess’s happy creatures live in perfect harmony with one another. Probably because there’s no conservatives around.

Memo to the Ecotardsâ„¢:
Nature isn’t politically correct. Nature isn’t pacifist. Nature is downright violent. Nature has a word for vegans and that word is: “FOOD.” Animals fall into two categories: those that eat other animals and those that get eaten by other animals. Neither one gives a shit about you, how many petitions you signed in college, or how much you hate the east coast seal hunt. They do, however, give a damn about their young. And ELEPHANTS are something that, if you had two brain cells to rub together, you would stick right up near the top of your “I don’t wanna screw with that” column.

These idjits aren’t that smart, though. The price of their stupidity? I’m not 100% sure, but the quoted stat of “two were injured and one was killed” doesn’t stretch the imagination too much. Can you say “Darwin Award,” boys and girls?