From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V5 #709 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Cdn-Firearms Digest Sunday, February 2 2003 Volume 05 : Number 709 In this issue: Re: Column: Gun control works - AND IT"S A BARGAIN ARTICLE: Cops probe shooting Tory Leadership Candidates Stance on the Registry ARTICLE: Getting ready for the starter's gun lawyers ARTICLE: Police cameras to spot 'hot' cars ARTICLE: 'Sweeper' sparks privacy fear ...sin index.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 09:47:18 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Re: Column: Gun control works - AND IT"S A BARGAIN Brad Thorarinson wrote: > IMO the letter-writing campaign is one of the successes of the RFC over the > last few years. No antigun propaganda gets published in Canada now without > getting shot at, if not shot down. > > Brad I agree with Brad. It is important to get our views in front of as many Editors as possible, both in quality and in quantity. While most papers have well entrenched views about guns, they still have to cater to public opinion in order to sell their newspapers. If enough gun owners write in to the Editor, there may very well be a shift in their position. If we don't, there isn't any chance. I am heartened to see many, many letters sent to the CFD from people whose names I don't recognize. This indicates a much broader base of support than just the "Usual Suspects", yours truly included. Thank you for writing, and keep those cards and letters coming in! Yours in Liberty, Bruce Hamilton Ontario ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 09:51:42 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: ARTICLE: Cops probe shooting http://www.canoe.ca/OttawaNews/os.os-02-02-0031.html Sunday, February 2, 2003 Cops probe shooting By JOHN STEINBACHS, Ottawa Sun They could have been warnings or simply the handiwork of a truly bad shot. Ottawa police are investigating an early morning shooting on Lees Ave. that left a local man shaken up and hiding out. At about 1 a.m. yesterday, five people arrived at the door of a 169 Lees Ave. apartment to pay a visit to the man who lives there. The five men began to argue with the resident and the resident's girlfriend soon walked in on them, said Ottawa police Det. Dave West. She left the apartment and heard a series of shots as she walked down the hall. When police arrived, they found six small-calibre bullets in the wall, but no shooter or victim. None of the bullets travelled through any walls. The victim is known to police and has spoken to his girlfriend, but hasn't contacted police. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 10:38:14 -0600 (CST) From: "Rick Young & Carol MacLennan-Young" Subject: Tory Leadership Candidates Stance on the Registry The Halifax Sunday Daily News published the answers to a list of questions today by both Nova Scotian hopefuls, Peter MacKay and Scott Brison. To the question "Would you scrap the gun registry?", MacKay responded: "I would immediately repeal the long-gun registry. It's wasteful. It's unworkable and it's been totally bungled in its management. And there's no connection to public safety. The Hells Angels are not going to register their guns, so the wrong group has been targeted." Brison was less committal: "We should be getting rid of the long-gun registry. A billion dollars would have been better spent on health care or education or, for instance, in strengthening the RCMP, which has been underfunded for several years." Not that I hang much hope on the long-term commitment or chances for success of either, at least their hearts seem to be in the right place. Rick ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 10:41:12 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: ARTICLE: Getting ready for the starter's gun Mid-March doesn't give Ontario gun-rights activists a lot of time to get in touch with their MPP, the Premier and the SS Minister and get them to opt out of the Firearms Act, and re-instate the spring bear hunt. Oddly enough, the Provincial Legislature is in recess until March 17th - a coincidence? I think not! http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035777334234&call_pageid=968256289824&col=968342212737 Feb. 1, 2003. 01:00 AM Getting ready for the starter's gun Tories, Liberals and NDP expect a spring election No word yet from Premier Eves, but candidates prepare CAROLINE MALLAN QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF Television ads have hit the air, posters are printed, campaign offices rented and lawn signs are in production. Provincial election fever is beginning to spread in Ontario, as politicians of all stripes gear up for what most believe will be a spring campaign. And even though Premier Ernie Eves has not committed himself to holding a spring vote, most MPPs and those looking to replace them are working on the assumption that everything must be in place by mid-March. In many ridings, the contest has been unofficially underway for months, especially in the so-called swing ridings where the races are expected to be tight. And while many incumbents are confident they have a firm grasp on their ridings after years spent nurturing relationships with their constituents, there is a growing number of seats that all three parties feel are up for grabs. In the Greater Toronto Area, the riding that is mentioned most often is Thornhill, held by Tory Tina Molinari, the junior minister responsible for urban affairs. A former Catholic school board chair, Molinari won for the first time in 1999, beating her Liberal opponent by just 343 votes. This time, the Thornhill Liberals have a high-profile candidate in York Region Councillor Mario Racco, who has been knocking on doors for months and is seen as an aggressive challenger to Molinari. But Tory riding association president Peter Lauwers says Molinari's team is ready to battle the Liberals. A garage is filled with Molinari lawn signs, and volunteers are ready to pound them in as soon as the election call comes, he says. "We're all frankly itching for the fight." Lauwers says Molinari's strong support for private school tax credits helps her in her riding, where many parents choose private school for religious reasons. Although the government has delayed implementation of the next phase of the tax credit, it is still a vote-getter in the riding, Lauwers says. "People are confident that the tax credit will come through, and Tina is one of those who is very much in favour of the tax credit, and I am sure she is making that known at the cabinet table." Liberal party president Greg Sorbara, who is the MPP for the neighbouring riding of Vaughan-King-Aurora, says the 905-area ridings are key for the Liberals if they hope to form the next government. Sorbara notes that most people send their children to publicly funded schools and question the government's revamp of education. He adds that issues such as higher tolls on Highway 407 are having an effect on voters in the 905 area, where the Tories hold 20 of the 21 ridings, and are helping to loosen the governing party's grip. Sorbara says gridlock, a lack of services and a dramatic jump in user fees have caused many former Tory voters to reconsider. The pickings for the Liberals appear to be strongest in Brampton and Mississauga, where backbench Tory MPPs failed to shine and have been targeted as a result. "We'll win the election in the 905," Sorbara says. "We have strong candidates across the province, but the 905 is where voter anger seems to be the strongest." But while the Liberals may be confident in some parts of the province, a few of their incumbents are also vulnerable. In Toronto, NDP candidate Jordan Berger has been campaigning for months to unseat long-time Liberal incumbent Tony Ruprecht in Davenport riding. While the race wasn't even close in 1999 — Ruprecht won by almost 5,000 votes over the NDP candidate — the city's real estate boom means the make-up of the riding is changing quickly. Berger says many traditional NDP voters bought homes in the west-end riding and are lining up to support him. He says the large tenant population is attracted to his party's push for the restoration of rent controls, and the recent publicity surrounding the NDP crusade for public ownership of electricity won him support. "There is an appetite for change out there, and a lot of the older, immigrant traditional Liberal voters have moved on and sold their houses to people who are traditional NDP supporters," Berger says of Ruprecht's support base. And, he says, support for strategic voting — casting a ballot for the candidate most likely to unseat a Tory, regardless of traditional party affiliation — has diminished since the last campaign when it failed to oust the governing Conservatives under then-premier Mike Harris. The Liberals hold 11 of the 22 Toronto ridings, the Tories eight and the NDP three. In Elgin-Middlesex-London, Liberal Steve Peters, a former mayor of St. Thomas, is expected to face a stiff challenge from the Tories in the largely rural riding where, again, the tax credit for private schools is a big issue among those parents who choose to send their children to Christian schools. Even though the Conservatives have yet to nominate a candidate, riding association president Bruce Smith says support is running high for the governing party's policies, and residents had enough of being represented by opposition politicians. Smith, the Tory candidate in the last election, came within 1,200 votes of Peters. "After a decade of opposition representation, people are starting to realize that there is some benefit to having a government member on your side in the House," Smith says. (New Democrat Peter North won the riding in 1990, but the former NDP tourism minister sat as an independent from 1992 to 1999 when Peters took the riding for the Liberals.) Peters' campaign manager Suzanne Van Bommel says the Liberal MPP's popularity remains high while the Tories' move to delay the private school tax credit disillusioned many people who support the move. "The private school question is always an issue here, but I don't think people are pleased with the Tories putting it off for a year, either," she says, adding that there is talk locally of Christian groups running their own candidate under the Family Coalition Party banner. In Eastern Ontario, the riding of Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh is being vacated by incumbent Liberal John Cleary, who is retiring. The Tories nominated Todd Lalonde, a city of Cornwall worker whose brother and father have been active in municipal politics. Lalonde, 35, says he has the energy and aggressive nature required to win a better deal at Queen's Park for the people of his part of the province. "I think with my age and my energy, I can be the face that this area is looking for at Queen's Park. I just think this area is looking for a change and some fresh enthusiasm." But Liberal candidate Jim Brownell, a retired teacher and the former mayor of South Stormont, says people are looking for a change of government and new policies, especially when it comes to rural areas. "We are losing rural schools under their (Tory) misguided education funding formula, and people are saying, enough, it's time for a new government," Brownell says. Still in Eastern Ontario, the Liberals like their chances in Northumberland, where Tory incumbent Doug Galt won by just 900 votes in 1999. The Liberals nominated Lou Rinaldi, a farmer and the mayor of Brighton, to take on Galt, a junior minister in the Eves cabinet. Rinaldi says the issues on the minds of voters in his region include roads, health care and the threat posed to rural schools by the provincial funding formula. The Tories, he says, must be feeling the heat in the riding — and in Eastern Ontario in general — because they recently made big-ticket funding announcements. But Galt says while the school closing issue has been raised by constituents, he is confident the other benefits he has brought to the riding over the past four years, such as hospital expansions and road upgrades, will be recognized on voting day. "We're very, very comfortable," Galt says of his chances. "We have a great Premier and I really feel good about his consensus-building style, acting like a chairman of the board." Rinaldi, however, says voters have become cynical about last-minute spending commitments. "They want to know why their roads weren't fixed three years ago," he says. "They want to know why this government only remembers them at election time." Tight races are also expected in Prince Edward-Hastings riding, where Liberal Ernie Parsons snapped the seat away from the Tory incumbent in 1999 by just 56 votes, and in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, whose long-time Liberal MPP, Sean Conway, is retiring. A contest to watch in Northern Ontario is in Nipissing riding, where Tory Al McDonald beat the Liberal candidate by just 19 votes in a by-election last year. In Western Ontario, the Liberals have expressed some concern about Sarnia-Lambton riding. Incumbent Caroline Di Cocco is expecting a strong challenge from the Tories, although recent publicity about plans to ship toxic sludge from Nova Scotia to dump sites near Sarnia could bolster her re-election chances. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 10:53:46 -0600 (CST) From: "Trigger Mortis" Subject: lawyers >In short, the idea that if lawyers were eliminated we would have a level >playing >field - or more level playing field - is quite simply incorrect. The >"evil" >that lawyers do is really not much different than blaming firearms for >crimes >involving firearms. ============= Did you hear about the group of people stranded on a boat a couple of miles from shore, with a broken motor? They were arguing about who should swim in to shore and get help. There were sharks circling the boat and nobody was willing to dive in and contend with the sharks. The lawyer finally said, "I'll go." He dived in the water and swam towards shore. The sharks lined up on both sides of his path and provided a lane to swim in. Everyone was saved. The lawyer was a hero. Naturally, the other people wanted to know why the sharks lined up like that. Why didn't they attack? The lawyer said, "Professional courtesy." Alan Harper SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 10:54:15 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: ARTICLE: Police cameras to spot 'hot' cars http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1035777205838&call_pageid=968332188492 Jan. 30, 2003. 05:26 AM Police cameras to spot 'hot' cars Can process 1,000 plates in an hour JOHN DUNCANSON STAFF REPORTER Street sweeping is going to take on a whole new meaning when the Toronto police's new high-tech camera car hits the road, with its sole mission to track down stolen cars or those wanted in crimes. With the ability to process more than 1,000 licence plates an hour, the new Mobile Licence Plate Recognition (MLPR) system will be able to "sweep" entire neighbourhoods in a matter of minutes with a video-camera system that captures the licence plates of parked cars and provides a profile of each instantaneously. The first of what may be a number of specially fitted police vehicles roaming city streets was delivered to the force earlier this month from AutoVu Technologies, a Montreal firm that is at the forefront of the licence-plate recognition technology. It has been busy selling its MLPR system to police forces and city parking agencies across North America, including Boston, Chicago and Salt Lake City. The Toronto pilot project is the first test of this new technology in a big Canadian city where auto theft is a major problem. In 2001, police estimate more than 12,000 vehicles were stolen. Of those, about 75 per cent were recovered, mainly due to sharp-eyed traffic officers, who are sent out each day with a list of stolen vehicles. Also included in their list are cars that detectives are looking for in connection with other crimes, like homicides or hit-and-run accidents. Police in North Vancouver, B.C. are already using the Montreal firm's system, which costs about $100,000 per car. The Insurance Bureau of Canada is sponsoring the Toronto force's pilot project, which will be officially unveiled next week. "We are bringing some pretty significant efficiencies to enforcement agencies that are using it," said Tom Keeley, vice-president of sales and marketing for AutoVu, which specializes in parking enforcement technology. He said insurance companies are very keen on more police agencies acquiring the technology because it ultimately leads to less payouts to motorists who have had their cars swiped. "It's also significant for the insurance bureaus because they are going to save money, and ultimately you and I don't pay as much in premiums," said Keeley. He said they are currently trying to sell the system to police in New York City. Scanning a street for stolen cars is pretty simple. Special tube-like video cameras mounted on a police car's roof are angled down so that they can read a licence plate as the vehicle slowly moves along a street. High-powered flood lights on the roof allow police to "light up" a street at night so the cameras can get a better snapshot of the plates. An on-board computer linked to police databases, like the "hot list" for stolen cars, will instantly tell them if any of the cars in the area were used in a crime or reported stolen. The new camera car allows police to cover large areas quickly without having to rely on human memory to pick out cars listed as stolen or that investigators are looking for. Staff from the parking-enforcement unit, which is made up mainly of civilians, will be operating the test pilot car for the Toronto force. The car has already been out on trial runs. Although the Toronto camera car is used primarily for finding stolen cars, the licence recognition technology can also be used to enforce parking bylaws because the MLPR system can be linked to the city's street parking permit database. If Toronto does buy more of the cars, traffic officers could utilize the system to identify cars parked on streets without proper permits so tickets can be issued, Keeley said. One area that may raise concerns with privacy advocates is a component of the system that allows police to automatically pinpoint the location of any car on a street using global positioning technology. It means that any vehicle scanned would produce a record of where it was parked and at what time of day. The Toronto force's test car doesn't have this capability. City agencies, such as planning departments, can also utilize the information provided by the street scans to do traffic studies, such as traffic turnover rates in an area. The mobile licence-tracking technology is only a few years old, but with a security-conscious public and police calling for faster technology to stop crime and terrorism, Keeley said they believe more cities and police forces are going to buy it. "The response has been phenomenal. As the system gets deployed and there is more publicity around it, more and more cities are calling and saying, `Why don't we have one of these?'" Keeley said. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 10:54:49 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: ARTICLE: 'Sweeper' sparks privacy fear http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035777336492&call_pageid=976163513378 Feb. 2, 2003. 10:55 AM 'Sweeper' sparks privacy fear Limits urged on use of new police stolen car finder JOHN DUNCANSON STAFF REPORTER Ontario's information and privacy commissioner is proposing strict guidelines for Toronto police's new mobile "Street Sweeper" to ensure it's only used to find stolen cars and not to covertly collect data on any parked vehicle in the city. Ann Cavoukian says she doesn't have a problem with police trying to improve the way they recover stolen vehicles, but wants assurances they don't plan to use their new Mobile Licence Plate Recognition (MLPR) technology for "some kind of tool for surveillance or tracking purposes. "That's clearly not the intent and we will hold them to the stated intent," said Cavoukian, who will meet with police officials next week and come up with some ground rules for operating Street Sweeper. Police have credited their new high-tech tool with helping them recover 28 stolen cars in the past two weeks. The MLPR system, developed by Montreal-based AutoVu Technologies, allows the Street Sweeper parking enforcement car to scan entire neighbourhoods in minutes with a camera-like device that captures the licence plates of parked vehicles. The car's on-board computer, linked to a police database listing stolen vehicles or those wanted by police, can process about 1,000 licence plates per hour. The police said that they are only going to use the MLPR technology at this point to identify stolen vehicles and won't be recording the licence plates and other data of cars not wanted in police investigations. Cavoukian said her office routinely advises police about privacy issues with emerging technologies, such as MLPR. But she has no enforcement power if police don't follow her recommendations. Cavoukian wants police to specifically say they won't keep any recorded data following a sweep of a particular street. She will ask police to destroy any such records within a few days of collecting the information. "We would expect to have immediately destroyed, any record that doesn't match the database. If your car, after a comparison to a stolen car database, is not a match then it has no business to be kept," the privacy commissioner said. Cavoukian said she was not consulted before police went public this week about the $100,000 pilot project, which is being funded by the Insurance Bureau of Canada. She is also worried police may expand the program to include ticketing illegally parked cars using the MLPR technology. If the police do that, it means that they will be able to record the exact place and time of day any car is parked on any given street using global position technology built into the MLPR system. Cavoukian is against this if it means retaining records of all cars scanned on a street. The police force unveiled the new Street Sweeper with much fanfare on Thursday, saying the technology will lead to a substantial increase in recovered stolen cars. The police vehicle has tube-like optical character readers mounted on the roof and angled so they can read a licence plate. Powerful roof floodlights provide enough light for better snapshots. In Canada, the technology is only used in North Vancouver and Toronto so far, but several U.S. cities have adopted it. "We absolutely love it," said Gary Griffiths, a manager with the Salt Lake City parking enforcement branch. "We get a read (hit on the system) about every other day." Griffiths' department, however, uses the system more for finding deadbeat motorists who don't pay parking tickets. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 11:00:10 -0600 (CST) From: "Todd Birch" Subject: ...sin index.... Dr. Gimbarzevsky's "sin index" analogy is right out of Orwell's '1984'! Remember the 'Anti-Sex League' that wore red sashes who were rabid = 'born-again-virgins' (yeah, right...). The girlfriend of Winston, the = main character was one of these. Any form of freedom and free expression needs to be repressed and = controlled to conform to what the state deems appropriate in the name of = "Big Brother" or the great gods of Political Correctness and Social = Re-Engineering (aka The Ministry of Truth, Love, Newspeak, Doublespeak, = etc.) Orwell's book needs to be read by every concerned citizen and gun owner. = If people like Wendy can say that they have read it and disregard it's = message, then they are condemned out of their own mouths. Their are so = many similarities to what Orwell described and what is happening on a = daily basis in our lives that it is frightening. Todd Birch Merritt,BC ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V5 #709 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:akimoya@sprint.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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