"We need only look south of the border...."
When the only example the most powerful country in the world can serve as is a bad one.
YAY, ‘MERICA!!
It’s been said that the world looks to America for so many things, and it’s true. America has done a lot for the world over the years. It’s what we should be doing. To those to whom much has been given, much should be expected.
Except in this case, what the world is looking to America for is far from positive. So far in 2022, we’ve had far more mass shootings than calendar days. That reads like an Onion headline, but it’s our reality, and it happens nowhere else in the world.
Canada, for instance, has seen enough, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has decided to take action to keep our national sickness from making its way to the land of Peace, Order, and Good Government. And good on him for doing so.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, announcing the new legislation yesterday, said it would cap the total number of handguns in Canada, and make it "illegal to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada." The legislation is expected to become law this fall, and the mandatory buybacks for assault weapons will begin by the end of the year. If someone wants to keep their AR-15 or AK-47 out of a sentimental attachment to their Rambo fantasies, they would have to let the government render the weapon inoperable.
There is, of course, NO rational reason for a civilian to own a weapon whose ONLY purpose is the destruction of human life in combat. There’s been some controversy over whether the end of the assault weapons ban in 2004 resulted in an increase in related deaths. Some studies indicated that deaths increased by as much as a factor of three. Regardless, there’s no credible argument to be made for civilians owning weapons of war.
Many states allow weapons of war to be carried openly in public spaces. Owners of such weapons claim they need to be able to protect themselves and their families…but from what? And what of the not inconsiderable risk of accidental discharge in a public space?
Too many people who carry weapons of war are not adequately trained in the care and handling of such weapons, and such inexperience and lack of expertise could prove deadly.
The new firearms restrictions are the latest in a series of steps Canada has taken in response to mass shootings. After an openly misogynist gunman killed 14 women, mostly engineering students, at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, Canada implemented mandatory safety courses and background checks.
Then in 2020, following the murders of 13 people in Nova Scotia, Trudeau ordered the assault weapon ban, but it allowed owners of the things to keep them as long as they had a permit. Sales, trades, and transfers of the guns were banned, at least.
In 2021, the government proposed a broader program of gun restrictions, which included a buyback program for assault weapons that gun control advocates criticized because it was only voluntary. Time ran out on that bill before it made it through Parliament, but the new proposal is considered likely to pass, thanks to support from Trudeau's Liberal Party and the leftier New Democrats.
No one will claim that banning assault weapons will ipso facto remove the possibility of mass shootings. Someone determined to undertake such slaughter will find a way, but a ban will, if nothing else, make it that much more challenging for someone to carry out such an attack.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s ban shows that it’s possible to take action to protect lives and prioritize public safety.
Of course, Canada doesn’t have the equivalent of our 2nd Amendment, and their system makes it much easier for the Prime Minister to take action to protect public safety. Trudeau has decided that enough is too much:
As a government, as a society, we have a responsibility to act to prevent more tragedies [...] We need only look south of the border to know that if we do not take action, firmly and rapidly, it gets worse and worse and more difficult to counter.
Indeed. As most sensible Americans recognize, we’re a broken society, particularly when it comes to gun rights.
Because of the sloppy manner in which the 2nd Amendment was written, it’s become the most willfully misinterpreted 27 words in the English language. Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes completely ignore the first 14 words, yet they cling to the final 13 as if their very lives depend upon it.
Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes have imbued the 2nd Amendment with meaning that the 27 words of the 2nd Amendment don’t contain- or that the Founding Fathers intended for it to have.
Yet now that the National Rifle Association owns Republicans in Congress, Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes have seen their demands and interpretations carry the day. And they have no intention of letting “Liberal gun-grabbers” seize the narrative.
In addition to the freeze on the handgun market, the CBC reports the new legislation will also increase criminal penalties for firearms smuggling (the Nova Scotia killer's guns were illegally brought in from the US), revoke firearms licenses from people in domestic violence or criminal harassment (aka stalking) cases, and put in place a "red flag" law that would allow a court to order people deemed a threat to themselves or others to turn over their guns to law enforcement.
Canada already limits magazine capacity for semiautomatic weapons to five rounds; the law would further require that magazines for long guns be permanently modified to ensure they can't hold more than that, and would make it a crime to modify a rifle to increase its capacity.
Canada's Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair explained that unlike the USA, Canada gots no freedom, or at least places a higher value on human life than on the illusory liberty Americans think comes with owning machines designed to kill people[.]
Blair goes on to say that “In Canada, gun ownership is a privilege not a right.” That philosophy alone makes Canada’s approach fundamentally different from America, where in some states (Texas, I’m looking at you), babies emerge from the womb with AR-15s.
Canada places a higher value on human life than gun rights. Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes, because of the gun lobby's influence and NRA money, value gun rights far more than human life. That will continue to be the case until there’s a mass shooting in which members of Congress are either killed or lose loved ones. For now, the victims of mass shootings aren’t humans; they’re abstract concepts.
Canada’s new law would ban the importing, buying, or selling of handguns. It recognizes guns as the public health issue it is south of the border. Guns are the #1 cause of death for teenagers here in America, and yet Congress and Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes refuse to recognize the problem for what it is.
Little frustrates me more about the debate over guns than Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes saying nothing can be done. Yet Canada, the UK, and Australia changed their laws in the wake of mass shootings…and things HAVE changed. Would similar laws have similar impacts here in the US? We can’t know, Because Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes refuse even to consider discussing the possibility.
Part of Canada’s plan involves gun buybacks, which have proven effective here in the US. People like getting money, sometimes more than they love their guns.
Trudeau also said yesterday that while in general, Canadian firearms owners are responsible, “Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives. [...] We need less gun violence.
"We cannot let the gun debate became so polarized that nothing gets done. We cannot let that happen in our country. This is about freedom. People should be free to go to the supermarket, their school or their place of worship without fear.”
They sure have a funny idea of what freedom is in Canada. In the USA, freedom means nobody telling us what to do, plus the occasional racist mass shooting, plus gunmen running amok in elementary schools now and then, and let's not forget the 14 mass shootings just over the Memorial Day weekend.
But if Canada's government ever does tyranny, how will patriots ever be able to kill the tyrants, huh?
One of the sillier arguments used by Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes is that “We need MORGUNZ!!!! to fight an oppressive government!” As if your lone AR-15 is going to help fight off the power of the world’s most professional and heavily armed military.
There’s NO reason why an American citizen needs a weapon of war. Perhaps an argument could be made for a handgun in certain circumstances. Still, the criteria should be more robust than “Do you have a pulse?”
As President Biden said the other day, the 2nd Amendment isn’t absolute. Neither is it divinely ordained, sacrosanct, or inviolate. It’s just 27 poorly-written (and too often willfully misinterpreted) words that Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes have used as a roadblock.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s correct. The debate over guns shouldn’t be so polarized that nothing gets done. People should be able to go into public spaces without fear. It’s about freedom.
And yet, only one group- Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes- gets to be truly free because they have no interest in compromise, nor do they care about the interests of any other group. THEY are the only true Americans, and school shootings are simply part of our culture, the price to be paid for THEIR freedom.
That’s a cruel and heartless take on one’s responsibility and relationship with others, but Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes have never been known for their selflessness and compassion.
They’d never make it in Canada.
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