Conservative MP wants more guns in Canada

Adrian. · Mar 19th, 2009, 07:37 AM

	Quote:
	RICHARD J. BRENNAN OTTAWA BUREAU OTTAWA–A Saskatchewan Conservative MP is coming under fire for his starring role at a gun lobby dinner in the Greater Toronto area next month where the raffle prize is a Beretta semi-automatic handgun. Garry Breitkreuz is the guest speaker at the Canadian Shooting Sports Association's (CSSA) annual general meeting and dinner on April 18 in Mississauga, where he's to be lauded for his private member's bill to abolish Canada's controversial long-gun registry and relax rules on prohibited and restricted weapons. The "special dinner draw" of this "very rare and valuable collector's item" is advertised on the association's website. Raffle tickets will be sold at the dinner for $20 each or three for $50. News of the gun prize drew immediate outrage. "We have got to be finding ways to get (handguns) off the streets, not handing them out as prizes," Liberal MP Mark Holland (Ajax-Pickering) said yesterday. "It really is an insult to a community that has seen so much gun violence and where so many people have been killed ... to give that away as a (raffle) prize." The Toronto Star could not reach Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville) or the CSSA. The raffle prize is being billed as a special "Canadian Edition'' of the Beretta, "the most advanced expression of technological and esthetic feature in a semi-automatic handgun.'' The PX4 Storm will be used by the Canada Border Services Agency, but it will not be available to Canadian firearms owners until the Breitkreuz dinner. A spokesperson for Toronto Mayor David Miller said giving away a handgun is "outrageous, inappropriate and insensitive, frankly, to all the families of victims of gun crime in Toronto and the GTA." Stuart Green, speaking for the vacationing mayor, said the so-called prize could easily find its way to the streets, as many privately owned handguns do. "Statistics show that between 30 and 40 per cent of handguns that end up in the hand of criminals are obtained through one-time legal ways and are stolen and sold through the black market," he said. Green said the federal government should not be a party to an event where a handgun is being raffled off. The raffle has left others in disbelief, including an official at Montreal's Dawson College, where a gunman carrying a Beretta semi-automatic carbine opened fire on Sept. 13, 2006, killing one student and wounding 13 others. "As someone who has seen first-hand the wounds – physical and mental – of people who have been victims of gun violence, (a gun giveaway) has no place in my Canada," Donna Varrica, Dawson's director of communications, told the Star. NDP Leader Jack Layton (Toronto-Danforth) said he could not believe that any group would be so "callous" as to give away a handgun in the GTA, which has been plagued with gun problems. Last year, there were more than 60 gun-related deaths in the GTA."It's the kind of thing you expect to hear south of the border ... the fact you could pick one up in a raffle prize sends exactly the wrong message," Layton said. CSSA, which refers to the gun registry as "hated," calls Breitkreuz as a "voice of reason." "The (proposed) Breitkreuz bill will help restore credibility to Canada's firearms controls measures and we strongly encourage all Canadians to support it," CSSA executive director Larry Whitmore stated recently. The CSSA's website carries the following message: "The disarming of citizens has been a tragic failure. Violent crime has increased everywhere it's been tried as it serves only to embolden the still-armed criminal." The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which supports the long-gun registry, said Breitkreuz's bill, up for second reading vote on April 22, "would seriously compromise" public safety. The police association warns it relaxes the control on machine guns by allowing the transport of fully automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons to civilian shooting ranges and relaxes the current restrictions on handguns, semi-automatic assault and tactical weapons. "We are proud of Canada's international reputation as a country with effective gun control legislation, and strenuously oppose any weakening of Canada's current firearms control regime," president Steven Chabot said in a March 9 letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "All guns are potentially dangerous, all guns owners need to be licensed, all guns need to be registered and gun owners need to be accountable for their firearms." Chabot described Breitkreuz's bill as a "retrogressive proposal that cannot, in any way, benefit the safety and security of Canadians." When it was introduced in 1995, the gun registry was supposed to cost $2 million but has ballooned to about $2 billion, giving critics more than enough ammunition to call for the program to be scrapped. Since coming to power in 2006, the Conservative government has twice introduced one-year amnesties for those who haven't registered their firearms. The latest is in force until May 2009. Varrica said she fears some opposition party members will join the Conservatives in supporting the private member's bill. "This is exactly the kind of move we have been warning Canadians about since we went public with our opposition to weakening gun laws in the aftermath of the shooting. And today, here it is on our doorstep, just as we predicted," she said. Varrica noted that since the Dawson shooting on Sept. 13, 2006, there have been 15 school shootings worldwide, including the one last week in Germany, that have left 88 people dead and 56 injured, the majority of these students.

TheStar.com | Canada | Applaud Tory MP, win a Beretta semi-automatic

This is disgusting.

I remember being in Texas, pulling over a truck stop for gas and some food. I went in, there was a convenient store, and behind the store clerk there was a wall full of semi and fully automatic machine guns. No one needs .46 calibre bullets, a scope and a laser guide to protect themselves from being mugged.

That is not my Canada.

EvanPitts · Mar 19th, 2009, 08:17 AM

I don't see what the problem is - it's a raffle and the gun would obviously be legal. I'm pretty sure the Mafia (or whatever gang) isn't going to buy like a thousand tickets in order to get one handgun.

As for being mugged - the bigger the calibre the better, because with a scope, one can pick off the goons long before they rip of a 7/11. And if our "law enforcement" and "justice" system can't do the job, the citizens, duly organized, should.

SINC · Mar 19th, 2009, 08:37 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by Adrian.
	This is disgusting. I remember being in Texas, pulling over a truck stop for gas and some food. I went in, there was a convenient store, and behind the store clerk there was a wall full of semi and fully automatic machine guns. No one needs .46 calibre bullets, a scope and a laser guide to protect themselves from being mugged. That is not my Canada.

This is my Canada when a law abiding group of ordinary citizen gun enthusiasts can get together, socialize and have a draw for a desirable handgun.

It's called freedom and I applaud that Canada allows such things.

People with their gauches in a knot have little or no understanding of this country's history with handguns, nor it's stringent controls in place since the 1930s.

They also have little understanding that most guns used in the commission of crimes in this country are imported from the US by the criminal element and nothing, repeat, nothing we can do will ever stop that from happening.

The only way to even begin to curtail handguns falling into the hands of gangs is to impose life sentences for using or possessing an illegal handgun.

kps · Mar 19th, 2009, 09:07 AM

The article is deliberately misleading and skewed...I'd expect nothing less from The Star.

Let's say you win the prize.

Here are the steps to legal ownership:

1-Obtain an application for a "Possession/Acquisition License" – available at the post office.

2-Successfully complete the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course (or challenge the exams).

3-Forward the License application with proof of Safety Course completion, passport photo and appropriate fees to the Canadian Firearms Centre in Miramichi, NB.
Police background checks will be completed as well as reference and spousal checks. If anything shows up on these checks, even if you were a victim of a criminal act (theft, assault, etc.), the application will be rejected and forwarded to the Chief Firearms Office (CFO) for further investigation.

4-If approved, license will be produced and mailed to the applicant (currently 4 to 6 months).

5-Join an approved handgun club.

6-Complete a mandatory Club level handgun safety course and serve a probation period.

7-Fill out an application for an ‘Authorization to Transport (ATT)' – club executive will forward to the CFO along with their recommendation for processing.

8-Further police checks may be done along with a second computer record check.

9-If approved, ATT will be mailed to applicant.

10-At this point, you may purchase a handgun from a sporting goods store or an individual. The registration must be called in to Miramichi for approval. The information is forwarded to the CFO for final approval and issuance of an ATT for transport from the vendor to the purchaser.

11-Handgun cannot be moved from the dwelling until an ATT is received allowing for the transport to an approved firing range. The permit is valid for one to three years and must be renewed at the recommendation of the Club executive.

12-To transport the firearm to any location other than an approved range i.e. gunsmith, border point for competition in the US, etc., requires the owner to obtain another ATT from the Chief Firearms Office.

SINC · Mar 19th, 2009, 09:23 AM

Good post kps, but I'm not so sure it will help the alarmists who cry the sky is falling over one (about to be stringently controlled) firearm. Most just holler "ban guns" with zero knowledge how that could ever be completed successfully to stem the flow of illegal handguns from the USA. On the other hand, penalizing law abiding and tightly controlled Canadian gun owners with stupid laws gives them great glee.

kps · Mar 19th, 2009, 09:43 AM

I forgot one thing SINC, you have to buy a gun safe before they give you the permit.

About $2000 and up

Macfury · Mar 19th, 2009, 10:08 AM

I think Adrian. knows better by now to put political threads in the politics section.

EvanPitts · Mar 19th, 2009, 10:26 AM

"Stringent Gun Controls" existed before the 1930's - I have a copy of my great-grandfather's gun permit dated 1915, and it was a renewal. As for firepower - the permit was for a Lee-Enfield, so maybe not the swakiest new technology or semi-automatic, but you can still pick something off from a mile away.

Canadians are not savage like Americans - guns are respected and not toted around. Criminals use guns, but no degree of gun control will curb that, only the poroper application of law enforcement and justice can do that. It's high time we scrap such crud as the "Young Offender's Act" (or whatever they call that nonsense now), as well as "Publication Bans". Canadians should know who the scum are, and should also see that they are punished in a severe and timely manner.

Owning a gun has enough hoops to jump through, and because of the hassles, my friend's dad was pretty much forced to give up a few of his classic guns which, though no longer usable, were guns nonetheless under the law. They were pretty cool, war relics that included a Luger, a Mauser and a German Anti-tank rifle that has been used at Kursk - all had been long disabled. But you never kn ow, some triad may want a Mauser...

RunTheWorldOnMac · Mar 19th, 2009, 10:47 AM

The article is WAY askew. So is the title; no where does it discuss that the Conversatives want to bring more guns into Canada.

They won't be giving the gun away to someone unless they are legally able to own it. Many, actually most gun owners are not legally able to own them, and thus we don't. I am included. I cannot own one as I am not licensed for them and thus would not be entitled to win it.

That article was written by the uneducated in the matters...

SINC · Mar 19th, 2009, 11:13 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by RunTheWorldOnMac
	The article is WAY askew. So is the title; no where does it discuss that the Conversatives want to bring more guns into Canada. That article was written by the uneducated in the matters...

The thread title is more indicative of the OPs personal opinion than any actual headline or story content.