From: Cdn-Firearms Digest [owner-cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca] Sent: Thursday, 07 March, 2002 10:55 To: cdn-firearms-digest@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V4 #595 Cdn-Firearms Digest Thursday, March 7 2002 Volume 04 : Number 595 In this issue: Re: Guns are a part of life in pro sports, Column: Guns do kill people. Stupidity, too Re: The Terrifying UN... Neighbours shaken by killings Column: Useless people insist on useless security measures at our Witnesses describe scene before officer shot himself in head ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:17:35 -0600 From: Rick Lowe Subject: Re: Guns are a part of life in pro sports, > PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen > BYLINE: Luke Cyphers and Michael O'Keeffe, with files from OhmYoungmisuk, > Frank Isola, Rich Cimini and Anthony McCarron > SOURCE: The New York Daily News I thought the Ottawa Citizen had more brains than to pick up tripe from a New York rag... > Net Jayson Williams, that episode didn't end in tragedy, but it illustrates > what has become a major concern for sports leagues, players' unions and > police: an increasing number of athletes bearing arms, sometimes for > protection, sometimes for hunting, sometimes with criminal consequences. Just curious... but how many athletes have, in comparison, died as a result of alcohol abuse or faced criminal charges as a result of use of alcohol. Did the authors just happen to overlook making that comparison? If this is going to be a parable with a message for us all, wouldn't it be nice to put things in context? I can think of two NHL players alone that have died while driving drunk in the last few years, never mind all the other professional sports. > limo driver Costas Christofi, and at least 20 well-known sports figures have > been arrested on gun-related charges since 1995. That list includes Texas Again... let's keep things in context - share with us how many well known sports figures have faced substance abuse related charges in that same time period? > Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL have taken steps to > discourage their athletes from owning guns, and the Williams case has > provided the latest wakeup call. Be interesting to know if they just as strongly discourage them from consuming alcohol... If I were a pro athlete, whether or not I owned firearms, I would be more than a little offended by such a patronizing "we know what's good for you" attitude. > NHL security chief Dennis Cunningham said the league discourages players > from owning weapons. "In preseason seminars, we tell them that bad > situations -- domestic violence, a traffic stop, a bar confrontation -- is > exacerbated by the presence of guns." I wonder if Dennis also uses the same arguments to discourage them from consuming alcohol? I wonder if Dennis knows his ass from a hole in the ground where the subject of firearms is involved? > One shocking attack involved Giants cornerback Will Allen. The rookie was > returning to his Syracuse apartment last summer when he was attacked by > three armed men, one of whom doused him with gasoline and threatened to set > him on fire if he failed to co-operate. He handed over $150,000 worth of > jewelry. When NHL security chief Dennis Cunningham is scaring the boys about firearms, I wonder what his answer would be if one of the troops mentioned the above scenario to him and asked him how he would suggest they defend themselves in a similar circumstance without a firearm. Should they stay scared away from protecting themselves and just hope that the dirtbags won't light the match after all? Or dial 911 and see if police can get there before the match is lit? I'm sure Dennis has an effective defense solution. > Major League Baseball spring training seminars include a skit featuring a > pudgy, middle-aged burglar being confronted by an armed ballplayer. The > burglar grabs the gun when the young man drops his guard, and instead of > losing an insured DVD player, the athlete loses his life. > The lesson: Crooks know more about guns than you do. Bullshit. The old "your gun is likely to be taken from you and used against you" fiction has been refuted time and again in unbiased research. Maybe they should also see a skit about a young man doused in gasoline, wihout a gun, begging for his life, and hoping they aren't psychopaths who will light him up anyway just to watch him burn... > "You gotta have training when it comes to guns," MLB security chief Kevin > Hallinan says. "Especially if you have children around." That's a fair enough observation. To bad they had to go beyond that and dip into the BS burglar skit. > Instituted in 1996 by commissioner Paul Tagliabue and approved by the NFL > Players' Association, the policy provides for fines and suspension for > anyone violating the rule and discourages the ownership of legally obtained > weapons kept at home. I wonder if Paul and the Players Association also discourages the ownership of legally obtained alcohol in their homes? Or do they like their expensive scotch too much to even consider suggesting something like that to the players? More athletes lives have been ruined by booze than by firearms - and the comparative numbers aren't even close. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:17:39 -0600 From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Column: Guns do kill people. Stupidity, too PUBLICATION: Montreal Gazette DATE: 2002.03.07 EDITION: Final SECTION: News PAGE: A2 COLUMN: Mike Boone BYLINE: MIKE BOONE SOURCE: The Gazette - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- Guns do kill people. Stupidity, too - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- Here's a gun law we can all agree on: losers shouldn't have them. Stephane Boucher, who is accused of murdering Montreal police constable Benoit L'Ecuyer, is the kind of person who shouldn't have a gun. He is, by all accounts, a card-carrying loser - the kind of upstanding citizen who gobs at TV cameras. Boucher was 24 when he was arrested early Tuesday morning. You'd like to think he aged some during questioning, but I'm told that a full tune-up and oil change are no longer part of the interrogation process. Boucher has been in trouble since he was a teenager. Probation reports, quoted in La Presse yesterday, describe him as an impulsive person who is overly fond of . Let's recap: long rap sheet, volatile personality, gun enthusiast. Houston, we have a problem. Actually, Boucher might have been less of a problem in Houston than he's turning out to be in Montreal. Many people have guns in Texas, where an armed loser takes the chance that he may be drawing down on a winner who's a better shot. The U.S. constitution states that "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Proponents and opponents of gun control have spent decades arguing about what a "well regulated militia" means. When America's founding fathers envisioned an armed populace as a bulwark against tyranny, could they possibly have foreseen a modern society in which there are too many guns and not quite enough common sense? Guns are more tightly controlled in Canada. Federal law requires all Canadian gun-owners to register their weapons. Let me go way out on a limb here and suggest that Stephane Boucher probably forgot to register the handgun that is alleged to have been in his possession shortly before he was arrested. I'm sure, however, that it was right up there on his Things To Do list, along with learning yoga and backing up his hard drive. There isn't much lawmakers in Ottawa or Quebec City can do about preventing people like Stephane Boucher from acquiring guns. But maybe the people who sell them ought to be a bit more discerning in their choice of customers. There are brasseries and bars in this city where you can buy a gun. Or so I'm told. These are places where I'd be afraid to order a beer, let alone ask questions about obtaining a firearm. Under-the-table gun vendors don't run background checks or ask for references. There probably isn't a whole lot of paperwork involved - cash transaction, no receipt. A buyer doesn't ask about an extended warranty. If the gun he bought in a waterfront saloon jams, he's not going to have recourse to the consumer-protection bureau. He pays his money, he gets his gun and off he goes to wave it in someone's face while asking for their money. And maybe they give it to him. Or maybe they reach under the counter and pull out a bigger gun, so he drops his gun and runs off into the night like a scared wabbit. In either case, nobody gets hurt. And the person who sold the gun in the first place doesn't have to pick up the paper and read that the goober who bought it shot someone for absolutely no good reason. One of my favourite Bob Dylan lines is a Blonde on Blonde throwaway: "To live outside the law you must be honest ..." Someone with knowledge of the criminal milieu said there was no honour among thieves. But I cling to the Dylan delusion, reinforced by The Godfather, GoodFellas, The Sopranos - a whole body of crime drama, up to and including The Last Chapter, the biker miniseries that started Sunday on the CBC and last night on Radio-Canada. No honour? Maybe not, but the game of cops'n'robbers is usually played by the rules. There seem to be - at least on TV and at the movies - some commonly accepted codes of conduct by which peace, order and good government are maintained in the demimonde where respectable citizens rarely stray, unless they're looking for a gram of blow or a DVD player that fell off a truck. Criminals who know what they're doing don't harm innocent bystanders. And they don't shoot police officers - unless it's a bent cop, like Captain McCluskey in what Tony Soprano's crew calls "G1." There is no evidence to suggest that Stephane Boucher is a member of a criminal organization. He was crewless, probably clueless - and should have been gunless. - - Mike Boone can be reached by phone at (514) 987-2569 or by E-mail atmboone@thegazette.southam .ca. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:17:39 -0600 From: Rick Lowe Subject: Re: The Terrifying UN... augustin said: > Canada has agreed with the UN that only the police and military should > have guns. This is a global drive by the UN. The US disagreed and did > not sign. Can you give me a reference to the UN resolution that declared that only the police and military should have guns? Or are you pointing out that SOME bureaucrates in any of the innumerable committees that the UN spawns feel that way? Can you quote me the declaration of any Prime Minister or federal ministry that only the police and military should have guns? Or are you recalling Allan Rock's statement that he came to Ottawa with the opinion that only police and the military should have guns? Which is not to say that everything is okay, but let's keep things straight here. BTW, seeing as how the US is a permanent member of the UN security council, it will be pretty hard for the UN to mount a "global drive" on something the US won't even consider signing off on. Are there UN committees attacking free access to firearms and wanting extreme restictions on firearms ownership? You bet there are. There are also committees that have been trying to get whaling stopped for decades (ask the Japanese, Norwegians, et al how effective that has been), committees trying to enforce legislation addressing global warming (seen anybody in North America living up to the Kyoto Accord lately?), and dozens of other causes. Some very worthwhile and important, some little better than self serving bullshit, and something nothing less than rampant political correctness. But there is a huge difference between the self-spawning UN committees like the ones Cukier is so fond of, and a UN resolution passed by the Security Council. Time spent worrying about the UN is time wasted; nothing they suggest or want or desire is going to come to pass without the willing and specific assistance of your government passing legislation. > Its not that prime ministers and presidents are looking to kow-tow to > someone who will lead them, but more that they will have influential and > international support in their effort to take care of us. The last time I looked, Chretien, Bush, et al weren't in any particular need for reinforcement or ideas from the UN... In Bush's case, he seems to tell the UN how things are going to be, not the other way around. > The fear is not exactly the UN, but the possibility of a New World > Order. The UN is feared because people believe they are the most likely > to become the NWO. I haven't done enough research to say "yay or nay", Oh geez, now it's the "New World Order" threat. For bonus trivia points, when was the "New World Order" first spoken of in politics and what political leader referred to it? Hint... it had nothing to do with George Bush seniors presidency... > but I don't think it would be the UN. As things are, there is a lot of > counseling that goes on whenever a substantial decision gets made by > what you call "world leaders". That is to say that influential > individuals are conferred with by bureaucrats, presidents, and prime > ministers in order to get advice. I f that's the "New World Order", that's been going on for as long as governments existed and the first trader figured out he could grease his way to better business advantage by making a gift of a particularly nice mammoth skin. As I said, I think people would make better use of their time worrying about what the government of their country who passes their criminal legislation willdo, rather than worrying about the "UN" and the "New World Order". ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:17:40 -0600 From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Neighbours shaken by killings PUBLICATION: The Toronto Star DATE: 2002.03.07 SECTION: NEWS PAGE: B04 SOURCE: Toronto Star BYLINE: Paul Irish ILLUSTRATION: MURDER-SUICIDE: Police say Robert Couperthwaite killed his mother, Margaret, then himself. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- Neighbours shaken by killings - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- Neighbours and friends of an elderly Scugog woman, killed by her 54-year-old son before he took his own life, said she was a caring person who will be sadly missed. The body of Margaret Couperthwaite, 80, was discovered Tuesday in the kitchen of her farmhouse. Her son Robert's body was found in the basement. Police say both died from gunshot wounds and that a number of found at the home are being tested. "It's tragic," said neighbour Bob Campbell, who had known the mother and son for 15 years. "She was always on the go. A lot of people might expect a widow in her 80s to slow down a bit, but not her. They both went on a trip to Australia a little while back and they both loved it. Robert was the type of guy who never complained about anything." Durham Region police Sergeant Paul Malik said a neighbour noticed the woman's cattle hadn't been fed over the weekend and called a relative of the Couperthwaites. The relative then called the police who found the bodies. "We aren't 100 per cent sure when the incident took place, but we believe it may have been Saturday," said Malik. "People say she didn't show up for her usual Sunday church services." Neighbour Nicole Riches was shocked and saddened. "(Margaret) was always coming over with rhubarb or a bowl of berries," she said. "She was always going somewhere or doing something. She was quite a nice lady who was active with her church." Campbell said Margaret Couperthwaite had been suffering from a "heart ailment," but she was still active and would canvass for cancer researchevery spring. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:17:41 -0600 From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Column: Useless people insist on useless security measures at our airports Sender: owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Reply-To: cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen DATE: 2002.03.07 EDITION: Final SECTION: News PAGE: A16 COLUMN: George Jonas BYLINE: George Jonas SOURCE: The Ottawa Citizen DATELINE: TORONTO - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- Useless people insist on useless security measures at our airports - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- TORONTO - The post-Sept. 11 era has arrived at the small Toronto airport that's home field to me and other general aviation types. It actually came months ago, heralded by a uniformed security guard at the glass door leading from the pilots' lounge to the tarmac. By now, guards have become a fixture. They're decent people, working shifts. Soon, most get to know the private and commercial pilots based on the field. The charade of security staff requesting pilots they see every day to show their IDs will cost the FBO (fixed base operator) and his customers, in addition to time and annoyance, an estimated $250,000 this year. The improvement in security will be nil. Guards asking people they know for ID is the absurd icing on a ridiculous cake. The basic waste is making access to aircraft contingent on identification, when the identification itself isn't tied to a condition, such as a pre-authorized list. An ID card tells a security guard nothing about a person or his intentions. Enhanced security for general aviation, as opposed to public transport, may be an intrinsic waste. Even a suicidal saboteur can't do much damage with a small private plane. In any case, to avoid the risk, pilots would have to be psychoanalysed rather than checked for photo ID. As it is, the only saboteurs denied access to aircraft are the ones who can't afford a photo ID -- any kind of photo ID, genuine or fake, as the guards aren't trained or equipped to tell the difference. A photo ID showing the bearer's name as "O. bin Laden" and occupation as "terrorist" would gain anyone admittance to the field. Not all security measures introduced since Sept. 11 are total shams. Some are just partial shams, with their nuisance value exceeding their security value. Only a few make sense. Sensible measures include machines that detect plastic explosives, provided they're handled by skilled operators and don't sound too many false alarms. However, hardly any are deployed at commercial airports. The next best thing, explosive-sniffing dogs, are rarely employed either. What airports have in abundance are metal detectors and X-ray machines: fine for detecting bombs that contain metal, along with harmless objects such as pen-knives or nail clippers. They're useless for finding plastic explosives in carry-on luggage or worn by a suicide bomber. Hand-searches are time-consuming. They'd be practical only in conjunction with profiling, i.e., hand-searching people who fit certain patterns, including age, itinerary, ethnicity, etc. As profiling is deemed politically incorrect, hand-searches are used only randomly -- in other words, in the least effective and most disruptive manner. Armed sky marshals aren't a waste. They're an effective last-line protection against pirates and crazies. I suspect they make too much sense for the bureaucracy, because they're rarely employed -- in Canada virtually never, except on one route to Washington, D.C. Reinforced cockpit doors make sense, though they can create potential problems in case of evacuation or medical emergencies. Giving flight crews the option to carry if they choose would also make sense. Pilots are often military-trained. Needless to say, they don't have that option. Currently, an airline captain who isn't authorized to carry a firearm (or even a nail clipper) to his flight deck might spend weekends on National Guard duty in a fighter jet authorized to shoot down a hijacked airliner with hundreds of passengers -- the same airliner which in his day job as a pilot he couldn't defend with a handgun against terrorists. The mind boggles -- or would, I suppose, if it weren't inured to the folly of officialdom by now. Legislators aren't much smarter. One Senate bill in South Dakota calls for pilot photo ID cards with fingerprints -- as though IDs would have prevented Mohammed Atta and his cohorts from crashing airliners into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Oklahoma's Senate Bill 1321 goes further, making it a felony to give non-U.S. citizens flying lessons. This will really show bin Laden, I suppose. He'll be forced to employ French or Canadian-trained pilots on kamikaze missions, or have his kamikazes take out U.S. citizenship. There is a solution to security: It's to transfer funds and energy from useless measures to useful ones. This won't happen until we shift decision-making powers from useless people, such as bureaucrats and politicians, to useful ones, such as pilots and engineers. George Jonas is a Citizen columnist. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:54:45 -0600 From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Witnesses describe scene before officer shot himself in head PUBLICATION: Edmonton Journal DATE: 2002.03.07 EDITION: Final SECTION: City PAGE: B3 BYLINE: Duncan Thorne, Journal Staff Writer SOURCE: The Edmonton Journal DATELINE: Fort Saskatchewan ILLUSTRATION: Photo: Journal Stock / Const. Gregory Seath - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- 'I froze and wondered if this was a movie': Witnesses describe scene before officer shot himself in head - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---- Allison Johnson froze when she realized the man next to her at a picnic table had a . The grocery store clerk sprinted away only after a police tactical team yelled at her. Minutes later the man with the , suspended Edmonton Const. Gregory Seath, fatally shot himself in the head. Johnson, 23, had been off duty, sitting on a picnic table outside an IGA in Fort Saskatchewan on the evening of May 14 last year when she noticed the man less than a metre from her. "He just stopped walking and he stood there," she testified Wednesday at a fatality inquiry. A police van pulled up and a tactical team, armed with rifles, leapt out. She was ordered to run. "They told him to put the down but he said, 'No,' and he put the to his head." The fatality inquiry, which began Monday, has heard that Seath was suspended after being convicted of perjury over a false affidavit in a child custody dispute. It has also heard that he was upset over his separation from wife Debbie Edwards, and left suicide notes for her and his son, David Seath. Agnes Skinner, who was working at the IGA greenhouse, testified Wednesday that she looked up to see police coming around the corner. "For a minute or two I froze and wondered if this was a movie they were making." She saw Seath five feet from her. "He was standing very calm and I was thinking to myself, 'What a nice looking man.' " Skinner said the police yelled what sounded to her like, "Fred, don't do this. Put the down." She and others sheltered inside the greenhouse until someone yelled at them to get out. They rushed behind the structure and turned a picnic table on its side as protection. Kristi Dlouhy, a young mother, was among those rushing for shelter behind the table. She heard a "pop. "We were pretty panicky behind there," Dlouhy said. Joanne Wachowicz, the greenhouse cashier, heard what sounded like an argument. She stepped out to look, saw the danger and retreated, slamming the door behind her. On the stand, she broke down as she described hearing the shot. "Something that's bothered me very much since that day was whether or not, because I slammed the door, the gentleman was startled," Wachowicz said. Provincial court Judge Doug Rae assured her that other testimony indicates her action was not a factor in Seath's death. Another witness, Rob Harkness, said he saw Seath holding a revolver to his head. "I just thought it was a movie, and everything slowed right down." Harkness said it took him 15 seconds to react when police urged him to hide. "The police were yelling at me pretty good." He ducked behind a car but saw Seath sit down and shoot himself. Shopper Michael Bakke said he saw the tactical team appear as he glanced through a grocery store window. Then he saw Seath on a sidewalk with a in his hand. Seath was still holding the when he turned towards the police, Bakke said. "He just put it to his head and sat down and killed himself." Bryn Marler, an 18-year-old high school student working as an IGA cashier, said he looked up from his cash register to see Seath backing towards the store. Marler could see that police were calling to Seath but couldn't hear them. "I just heard the shot." Marler and most witnesses estimated the whole confrontation lasted about two minutes before Seath shot himself. Seath lived in north Edmonton but spent much of his final day travelling to Fort Saskatchewan on foot. Edmonton Const. Robert Denbraber said he heard Seath had been spotted heading there, and remembered that Seath and he once saw the same Fort Saskatchewan chiropractor. He learned Seath had been there that afternoon. Denbraber said Seath had once been charged with pointing a handgun atanother officer but was acquitted. ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V4 #595 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:acardin33@shaw.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) 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