SASKATCHEWAN RCMP OFFICER I find that I have to deprogram every cadet that I train when it comes to CFRO checks and their reliability in regards to officer safety.
It does not matter if a gun is registered, if someone is bent on crime they will use a registered or non-registered gun. If no gun is available, they will use something else.
The gun registry places police officers’ lives at risk. The gun registry offers a false sense of security. The gun registry is making criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens. The gun registry is eating up resources that the RCMP and every other municipal or first nation force desperately need.
Saying that the guns are the problem in this society is like saying pens are the cause of spelling errors, or that cars are the cause of drunk driving, or like saying fast food restaurants are the cause of obesity.
CALGARY POLICE ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT AL KOENIG Calgary Police Association president Al Koenig is skeptical of the Alberta government’s plan to have people willingly hand over unregistered guns. “To presume that gangsters will hand over their guns, somebody is living in wonderland,†Koenig said.
RETIRED TORONTO POLICE SGT MICHAEL MAYS Your statement that it is used 5,000 times a day by police is misleading. A check of the registry is done automatically every time an officer is dispatched to an address, wanted or not. From its inception, I was advised not to depend on it to make decisions. It is outdated, inaccurate and completely unreliable. To make a decision at a call based on registry information would be foolish at best and deadly at worst.
SERGEANT BOB COTTINGHAM Not once, however, during my career do I recall using the gun registry to solve a major crime. Simply put, the vast majority of criminals use firearms which don’t come close to being included in this bureaucratic jumble of information. Letter-writer Wendy Cukier may also be disappointed to know that I observed that most front-line officers have little faith in the gun registry, and see it as another bloated and failed attempt by the former government to appease its constituents.
CPL. MARTIN GAUDET In dangerous situations, city police preferred to rely on their own information rather than call the registry office in Miramichi. Cpl. Martin Gaudet said officers responding to a potentially dangerous situation always assume there’s a firearm involved. “We don’t check with the registry during a gun-related incident,†he said.
CALGARY POLICE ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT “Wiping the slate clean and not making responsible gun owners into criminals is a good start,†said association president Al Koenig.
A.B.J. (BEN) BEATTY: 23-YEAR VETERAN OF THE ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE I have however been involved in the investigation of countless offences such as robbery, where handguns were the weapon of choice and I must point out Sir, that the firearms registry did not assist in solving one, nor obviously in deterring one. The reasons that the firearms registry is so highly ineffectual are, I believe obvious, but basically it affects the wrong people, law abiding citizens and not criminals.
LEN GRINNELL, RETIRED RCMP STAFF-SARGEANT I have grave concerns about the reliance on the registry for data which could result in death or injury of a police officer.
My experience has told me that the greatest hazard to police officers is complacence and I found it prudent to continually remind my staff of that fact. Relying on a flawed system for officer safety will eventually lead to a tragedy. It is unfortunate that the CACP did not take the time to consider the consequences of their position and the safety of the men and women they represent.
GILBERT YARD, RETIRED RCMP SUPERINTENDENT I am appalled at just how much has been spent to date on the firearms registration process. But perhaps even more disturbing is the misplaced focus on legal firearms.
During my 37 years of policing I carried a handgun as a tool of my profession. I was also exposed to a wide cross-section of collectors and target shooters who used, stored and transported their weapons in a legal and responsible manner. They are not the problem. The misdirection of time, effort and funding is unforgivable. I believe that Canadians are much too astute to believe that either Bill C-68 or the proposed handgun legislation is anything other than a waste of time, effort and money. Wasting public funds that could really make a difference in acute justice issues, in my view, borders on criminal activity.
ERIC W. FERGUSON, Retired Chief of Police and RCMP Officer I was 75 years of age on Dec. 31, 2005. Part of my life’s story was serving 24 years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and four years as Police Chief for the City of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. For the past six or seven years I have stood by and watched the Liberal Government of Canada mishandle gun control and in the process not save one life, but encouraging criminals to commit more offences and yes, help to turn good honest Canadians into criminals. Now Prime Minister your plan to banish all handguns is real “dumbâ€.
DENIS COTE, PRESIDENT OF THE QUEBEC MUNICIPAL POLICE FEDERATION: “How come if you have a ban, you’re not allowed to possess a firearm for 10 years, how come you can allow it for the hunting season?†asked Denis Cote, president of the Quebec municipal police federation. “If you’re a threat for everybody, make sure you’re a threat for all 12 months in a year.â€
LEO TONEGUZZI, RETIRED CHIEF OF POLICE: Mr. Martin, your government promised that the foolhardy gun registration laws you initiated would end the high amount of violence throughout Canada. That plan failed and now to get votes in the greater G.T.A. area you propose an entire ban on all handguns.
Name n/a “I met with an RCMP officer this week who was told by his superiors to stop sending requests to the gun registry before attending domestic disputes because he ‘was putting his life in danger’. The RCMP officer was told the usual ‘no guns’ response to his query ‘creates a false sense of security’. The young officer was also told that if he ever criticized the gun registry publicly his career would be over,â€
AL KOENIG, PRESIDENT OF THE CALGARY POLICE ASSOCIATION: “The ironic thing is after spending $2-billion-plus trying to register them, the best the government can come up with is to outright ban them — it doesn’t solve the problem,†he said.
JOHN GAYDER, SERVING POLICE OFFICER IN ONTARIO The registry is great at telling me what LAW ABIDING people duly registered their guns. These were never the people I needed to worry about. I don’t trust the registry because it will never be able to tell me what I need to know about the riskier anti social [expletive deleted] I may potentially be pulling over at 3am. Criminals and kooks DON’T REGISTER their guns.
MURRAY GRISMER, SERVING POLICE OFFICER IN SASKATCHEWAN As a police officer with 19 years experience, the last thing I am willing to stake my life on is the information contained in the Firearm Registry. Not only is the information unverified and inaccurate, it has little to do with where a firearm is possibly stored or located. Of greater value is the licensing of owners for this at the very least is an indicator of who may potentially have a firearm in their possession; and yet I would still be a fool to risk my life on negative hit to a query of this information. As a police officer who represented the Saskatchewan Association of Police Officers in opposition to the Firearm Registry, I have spoken with police from across Canada who see little or no value in the Registry. Many have gone so far as to question the rational or motive of the Canadian Professional Police association’s continued endorsement of it.
Name n/a When they went to process my registration for the new firearm they were told that the one I traded in was never registered. Another waste of taxpayers’ money. As a police officer that just confirmed my faith in the current gun registry system and that the current government is doing nothing to protect our members and the general public.
… from a very personable guy named Fred, who works for the Conservative Party of Canada’s fundraising office (one of them, anyway). He was calling to say that they noticed that I’d made a pledge of support a few months back and, well, it seems to have slipped my mind.
“Nope, Fred, it didn’t,” said I. “I remember it quite well and, to tell you the truth, I have no intention whatsoever of sending the Conservative Party any money at all for the foreseeable future. I’ll even tell you why, if you like.”
Fred said that, sure, he’d be happy to hear what’s on my mind; so I told him. I was nice about it, mind you. After all, Fred didn’t set this malignant machine in motion, he’s just a guy working on the phone, trying to do his job and do it right. He doesn’t need cranky SOBs like me taking a bite out of his ass for things that aren’t his fault. Besides, like I said at the start, Fred’s a pretty personable kind of guy. Sounded a lot like me when I’m not pissed off about anything.
So I told Fred that I’ve had a bit of a burr under my saddle lately; bee in my bonnet, if you will. Actually, more like a whole hive of the damned things. I told him that the (laughably called) “human rights commissions” of this country, every last one of them, have long since gone rogue and that they are, in fact, in the business of trampling people’s rights, not protecting them. I told him that these show trials and the censorious legislation they auspiciously operate under look more like something I would expect to find in the Weimar Republic than in Canada.
“Ah,” said Fred, “section 13.1.”
Did I mention before what a smart guy Fred is? He knew, right off the hop, what I was talking about and he didn’t sound too happy about it, either. Gee, I wonder if he’d heard it before?
I told Fred that these commissions need to be scrapped altogether. Not reformed, not given new mandates, not restaffed; SCRAPPED. They are abominations in a country like mine, which has given so much blood for the cause of freedom. The laws that allow such things must also be scrapped altogether. They must be replaced with amendments to our Constitution which truly protect the real rights of people, things worded more along the line of “The Government Shall Not” than of trying to tell the people of this great nation how they should or should not think.
I told him that, while all these things bother me, what I have heard from the Conservative Party of Canada has bothered me even more: a silence as profound as when the whale swallowed Jonah. This is NOT how a party which believes in people’s freedoms, rights and liberty behaves.
I told Fred that until something real and concrete is actually done by the Conservatives about these Machiavellian thumbscrews, all the money that I would normally be giving them will be going elsewhere (see a few of the places at the bottom of this post). I told him that I wasn’t alone in this. Fred sounded about as surprised as a guy who wakes up in the morning and finds that his head is still there on his shoulders where he left it.
“Well,” said Fred, “part of what I do here is that I keep a list on my desk of everything that I hear about that irks the folks I talk to. At the end of the day, I pass it on up so that this higher-ups actually have an idea of what’s on peoples’ minds.”
“Well, Fred, now you know what’s been irking me. Have yourself a good day, now.” And that was about it (DAMNIT! …forgot to plug my blog to him. Oh, well). I hope the rest of Fred’s day goes better. Fred’s a nice guy, I like him.
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… Let the sorry son of a bitch have it with both barrels. Again.
As a little follow-up to one of yesterday’s posts, it’s interesting to see that Tarek Fatah isn’t the only one polishing up the cluebat to beat would-be jihadi uber-censor Mohamed Elmasry over the head with. The Waterloo Record, from Elmasry’s hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, let the arrogant prick have it from their trenches too, the other day (tip o’ the chapeau to Ezra for this one). You know that you’re really buggering something up when even the paper in your home town is ripping you a new one.
[Exegesis: My apologies to the good folks of Waterloo. I know that your city isn’t really his hometown, Cairo is. Waterloo’s just a place where he has a house. In fact, no place in Canada is Elmasry’s home. If it were, he wouldn’t be giving one of our most cherished liberties the back of his hand. Sorry for any offense at being lumped in with that turd. -D]
For five depressing days in a nondescript courtroom in Vancouver last week, one of the most important rights in Canada — the right to free speech — was repeatedly kicked in the head.
It was a shocking, demeaning and unsettling spectacle that would be more at home in a totalitarian state than a country that claims to be a liberal democracy. But the attack on Maclean’s magazine for daring to publish the Oct. 20, 2006 article, The Future Belongs To Islam, was entirely permissible under British Columbia’s human rights laws. It is time those regulations, indeed the nation’s human rights regulations, are rewritten. Much depends on this.
The hearing before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal came in direct response to complaints made against Maclean’s by two members of the Canadian Islamic Congress. It is obvious that those two individuals, one of whom is congress president Mohamed Elmasry of Waterloo, were sincerely offended by the article in question.
Meanwhile, the National Post took a little time out of its busy schedule to deliver a good swift kick in the nuts to Elmasry’s favourite sockpuppet / sith apprentice for his peculiar notions about what value freedom of speech should have:
Apparently, Khurrum Awan doesn’t have much respect for those ideals. A recent graduate of Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto, Mr. Awan has put his name to various human-rights complaints against Maclean’s magazine and writer Mark Steyn, whom the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) accuses of Islamophobia. Mr. Awan and his coplaintiffs demand that the magazine provide a pro-Islamist writer with space equal to the amount devoted to Mr. Steyn’s work.
At a conference over the weekend, Mr. Awan betrayed just how thoroughly he and his fellow travellers misunderstand the concept of freedom of speech. He told the Canadian Arab Federation that Muslims must “demand [the] right to participate” in national media. “And we have to tell them, you know what, if you’re not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it’s time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars.”
Can you say “ambulance-chasing shakedown artist,” boys and girls? I knew you could. Favourite parts right here:
Perhaps what truly irks Mr. Awan is that the CIC’s position — pro-censorship, pro-Islamist, anti-free speech — has been so roundly disparaged in the mainstream media. He doesn’t just want his ideas floated in the general Canadian marketplace of ideas: He wants uncritical acceptance.
Sorry, but that’s not the way things work in Canada — or any other democracy: People with bad ideas are mocked, ignored or refuted. You have no “human right” to get your bad ideas taken seriously. […]
If someone were actively seeking to stir up the worst stereotypes Canadians hold in regard to the repressive political cultures being imported into Canada by Arab and Muslim immigrants, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job than Khurrum Awan.
Aw, don’t feel too bad, little sockpuppet. You’ve still got some friends out there. Yes you do. Quite the fan club…
When you see us, you think that you are superior to us. Even a prostitute thinks she is superior to us because she is white. You don’t know the real initial. I mean you don’t know the real man who played to your mother, but you think you are superior to us. You say you are rich. How did you become rich? By steeling our oil and the third world. Right?
Your men (army) are fighting oversees, and you say their wives are waiting for their husbands. Do they really wait for their husbands? I don’t think so. Why? Because she has her neighbor or the dog to look after her. Yes, the dog will do the husband’s job until he comes back from the mission. This is why many white women have dogs to have sex with or to clean the front part. You know what I mean (p—y).
This is actually by a cartoonist named Igor Kodenko, from the Ukraine. To be honest with you, I had NO idea that they knew anything at all about our HRCs over there. Go figure…
For those of you that don’t go there much, pop on over to the National Post’s Full Comment blog and get a good look at Tarek Fatah letting Machiavellian maggot Mohamed Elmasry — and “his political apprentice Khurrum Awan” — have it with both barrels. Fatah, for those of you that don’t know, is one of the few Muslims in Canadian media (Salim Mansur is the only other one that I know of) who has absolutely zero tolerance for Islamofascist bullshit. His basic message: if you have some kind of problem with freedom of speech… don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!
When Mohamed Elmasry declared a few years ago that there was more press freedom in Egypt than in Canada, it took me some time and effort to lift my jaw up from the floor. However, since then I have become accustomed to the outlandish statements and claims of the good science professor from Egypt.
Here we have a vid from Dartmouth, NS, showing how three of these little YCJA-shielded pricks ganged up on and robbed a lone kid. They’re always brave in packs, aren’t they? No doubt, the usual suspects will bleat away that they’re just misunderstood, they didn’t have a basketball court nearby, Mike Harris is to blame (even though this is NS, we’re talking about), the little dears shouldn’t have their lives ruined over this, blahblahblah… Tough.
After leaving the victim the three older attackers are joined by four more young boys, the smallest of whom appears to be younger than 10.
The group can be seen quite clearly, hanging out at the corner of Mountain Avenue and Lakeview Drive.
But police say without hearing from the victim, it’s hard to say exactly what happened. Halifax Regional Police spokesman Const. Jeff Carr said the call came in at 7:26 p.m. but the victim was gone from the scene when officers arrived.
“It’s not clear whether it was a robbery,†Const. Carr said. “It’s clearly an assault, but whether it resulted in injuries, you just can’t jump to conclusions.â€
Of course you can’t. After all, it’s not like there’s any friggin’ EVIDENCE or anything now, is it? Well, the vid is out there, everybody knows who they are, and the genie’s not going back in the bottle. All the thug-huggers on the planet aren’t a match for a few folks with camcorders. Suck it up.
… from a very personable guy named Fred, who works for the Conservative Party of Canada’s fundraising office (one of them, anyway). He was calling to say that they noticed that I’d made a pledge of support a few months back and, well, it seems to have slipped my mind.
So I told Fred that I’ve had a bit of a burr under my saddle lately; bee in my bonnet, if you will. Actually, more like a whole hive of the damned things. I told him that the (laughably called) “human rights commissions” of this country, every last one of them, have long since gone rogue and that they are, in fact, in the business of trampling people’s rights, not protecting them. I told him that these show trials and the censorious legislation they auspiciously operate under look more like something I would expect to find in the 
Damn!
… what the odds are that 
