From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #785 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 Thursday, January 1 2004 Volume 06 : Number 785 In this issue: Re: Salute three pillars Re: Toronto Sun - Gun crime up 35% Re: It's fowl play: Chicken stolen, trucker trussed up Re: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #782 My letter to the Montreal Gazette Re: Wendy, the Gun registry New year hope Re: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #782 Handguns and safety Laurie HAWN campaign BS IPSC Shooter Shot? Time magazine RE: Time magazine ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:54:20 -0600 (CST) From: JP Poulin Subject: Re: Salute three pillars On 12/31/2003 11:15 -0500, D Manson wrote: > Let's salute three of Canada's finest firearms champs for 2003. Their > tireless work and persiverance > > in the face of adversity from ALL sides deserves special recognition. > The three for '03 are: > > Mr. Gary Beitkreuz > Mr. Dave Thomlison > Mr Calvin Martin(q.c) > > From the firearms communty "Thank you" Please, Mr. Thomlinson doesn't speak for me or the firearms community. He is part of the problem. JP Poulin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:55:10 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Re: Toronto Sun - Gun crime up 35% David Brewerton wrote: >> "Violence begets more violence," said Det.-Sgt. Gary Keys of the Toronto >> Police guns unit "It's getting to a point where they're all arming >> themselves because they're worried that other people are armed." http://mirror.canada.com/toronto/globaltv/info/video/311203go_story1.ram ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:10:57 -0600 (CST) From: JP Poulin Subject: Re: It's fowl play: Chicken stolen, trucker trussed up On 12/31/2003 11:07 -0500, Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1 wrote: >> A trucker was abandoned on a highway in southern Ontario yesterday after >> his tractor trailer was hijacked in Montreal on Monday night and robbed >> of 26,000 kilograms of frozen chicken. Two men armed with a shotgun and >> a rifle forced the driver into the rig's sleeping compartment and bound >> him with duct tape. The chicken was dropped off at an unknown site and >> the rig and driver were abandoned on Highway 400 in north Toronto. The >> driver, who suffered minor injuries, freed himself. The chicken was >> valued at $50,000 to $100,000. Indeed! Thieves have found a new way lately in making a living and they know full well it's illegal for any driver to carry a firearm in a commercial vehicle. Thanks to more restrictive laws in the USA and Canada, we have no way to defend ourselves. Always at the mercy of our governments, eh. We now take a course on how to prevent hijacking and load security in the trucking industry. I asked one question, Can I get a permit to carry concealed? You can guess what the response was. Funny how, Brink's drivers carry firearms for their trade, yet my $100,000.00 loads are not considered. JP Poulin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 18:47:35 -0600 (CST) From: "MJ" Subject: Re: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #782 > Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 20:56:53 -0600 (CST) > From: "jim davies" > Subject: Re: what to do? > > Let's get it up here for downloading, then. Repeat once a month or > as you think necessary. Did you remind folks it's tax deductable? > >> I have a campaign flyer/contribution form available for anyone >> who asks. >> >> ------------------------------ Jim, You can't download anything effective from here, the formatting on forms gets all screwed up. Yes the flyer/form makes the tax deduction clear. Mike > > Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 21:07:48 -0600 (CST) > From: "Todd Birch" > > It is a political battle and can only be won at the ballot box. > Now I am content to write effective editorial letters and wait until > there is the political will in this country to change the system. > What is going to accomplish that? Beats the hell out of me. > > Todd Birch > Todd, Here is one answer, and I've backchanneled you another. http://www.lauriehawn.ca/contact/index.asp Mike ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 18:48:34 -0600 (CST) From: "Steve Smith" Subject: My letter to the Montreal Gazette Re: Wendy, the Gun registry really does work Sender: owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Reply-To: cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca This is the letter (not yet printed) to the Montreal gazette in response to Wendy's letter I can't believe that anyone believes anything that Wendy Cukier says regarding support of our gun laws. This is a government program that diverts billions of dollars in funding from healthcare and education to a bureaucratic nightmare called the firearm act. I'm also disappointed that any newspaper publishes Wendy's claim that gunshot injuries and deaths cost Canada $6.6 billion. I wish the media would look at the actual 1993 T.R. Miller study. In the study, the actual cost is approximately only $60 million. For the balance of the $6.6 billion, Miller has somehow assigned an imaginary value of just over $5 billion to intangible items such as pain, suffering, and lost quality of life. In reality this does not cost the public or hospitals any money at all. Another $1.5 billion is claimed to be the cost of lost productivity. This must be calculated on a person by person basis. In Miller's study, anyone disabled or killed is considered to be gainfully employed and has a value arbitrarily assigned as their yearly salary. In the year of this study 45% of gunshot victims had a criminal record. Income from the proceeds of crime do not count. The study also does not take into account the rate of unemployment for the year of the study. Anyone killed or injured who is unemployed does not create a loss of productivity for society. Ms. Cukier also claims a 90% level of compliance with registration, unfortunately she is using an artificially low number of firearm owners to support this claim. She also does not mention that this supposedly easy to use and efficient registration system is so complicated that some firearm owners are just giving away their guns or surrendering them to the Police. This does not sound like a success to me, unless of course registration does mean confiscation. Wendy then presents to us that the police use the registry 1500 times a day. But what she omits is the percent of inquiries that lead to a conviction. Considering the error rate of the registry in matching gun to owner I can't imagine a successful court case based on information from the Canadian Firearm Centre. As for her claim that the firearm act is responsible for a decline in gun crime, there could be another reason. In June 1994 The RCMP started it's Immigration Task force. This was in response to Police & Public Safety concern surrounding an increase in serious violent crimes related to immigrant fugitives. The catalyst was the tragic homicides of Toronto Police Constable Todd Baylis and Just Desserts patron Vivi Lemonis. Of course Wendy has never considered this as a more likely cause for the decline in gun related homicide. One must remember the Immigration task force targets criminals, the Firearm act only scrutinizes law abiding firearm owners. I would like to finish with this. In 1996 then Justice Minister Allan Rock said the new regulations in the Firearm Act will help prevent tragedies like the November 29, 1996 shooting of a 13-year-old Winnipeg babysitter by her 8-year-old cousin. Justice Minister Allan Rock says new regulations governing the sale and ownership of guns will dramatically help improve public safety and help prevent needless gun-related tragedies. He had harsh words for provincial and territorial governments that have refused to implement the new gun control law. Winnipeg Police Chief David Cassels agreed, saying that the Winnipeg shooting could have been prevented if the new regulations had been in place. January 2003, new regulations in place. Six year old Michael James was shot in the head by his seven year old sister. This happened when the children found a .45 calibre pistol belonging to their 22 year old brother Shakur James. Shakur is not a licensed gun owner,did not acquire the gun legally, did not take any safety courses, and did not store the gun safely. So, considering this how does Ms. Cukier feel that registering firearms will prevent incidents like this, maybe someone on staff at the Coalition for Gun Control or the Canadian Firearm Centre could explain why it still happened? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 18:49:13 -0600 (CST) From: "mac mcbride" Subject: New year hope Could the moderator perhaps ensure that the digest starts the new year with a policy of no personal bickering matches? I hope the gun digest does not become the nit picking personal sniping digest. Best to all in the new Year......Mac ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 18:55:07 -0600 (CST) From: "jim davies" Subject: Re: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #782 > You can't download anything effective from here, the formatting on > forms gets all screwed up. Yes the flyer/form makes the tax > deduction clear. Run the message on the list regularly, to keep it in front of folks. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 05:09:19 -0600 (CST) From: Rick Subject: Handguns and safety "Todd Birch" wrote: > What the number of accidental Glock shootings proves is that nothing > is fool proof in the hands of a fool. The fact that a device has > radical (to some) mechanical idosyncrasies hardly makes the device > unsafe. It is a matter of training and awareness on the part of the > user. The best 'safety' being the human brain. Without reviewing the original article, I think most would agree that most ofthose "accidental discharges" are actually negligent discharges - a firearm discharging while in the process of being cleaned is a matter of negligence, period, end of story. Others are bad decisions - you don't try to control a handgun, a set of handcuffs, and an arrestee all at one time, you wait for assistance to arrive if you don't feel you can holster your sidearm. However, there are some questions about Glock pistols coming from some trainers. Whether those concerns are valid or not I don't have an opinion on. But when a manufacturer repeatedly settles out of court and insists on confidentiality while doing so, you do see a warning light going on. That is too similar to what the auto industry has done in the past with lethal design flaws - Ford by way of example paid out millions and millions of dollars in out of court settlements with confidentiality agreements over about eight years while Ford Pintos were exploding and somewhere between 500 and 900 people died. Glock is entitled to conduct their legal affairs as they wish, but you can't help but wonder what knowledge they're afraid of getting out when they repeatedly insist on settling out of court with confidentiality clauses. > The second thing it proves is that for every fool there is an ambulance > chasing lawyer foaming at the mouth wanting to sue the manufacturer of > whatever device his client fool misused. Reality and individual > responsibility has no place in such an equation. I think that's a bit unfair... a lot unfair, actually. Were the lawyers in the above examples of exploding Ford Pintos "ambulance chasers"? Our society and members of our society sitting on juries have have set the standards of product liability - rightly or wrongly. The lawyers representing both sides in court didn't set those standards, citizens of our respective countries have done that. Which is why we aren't yet as litigious as the US - we haven't quite gotten to that "absolute responsibility for everything" point of view up here in Canada. We're working on it... As for lawyers, that is an inevitable product of an adversarial court system. When people go to court, they want the most articulate, skilled person presenting their side they can find. If any reader of this list had their spouse or child crippled by what they believed were the negligent actions or products of another... would you be willing to represent your interests before the jury in order to put an "ambulance chasing lawyer" out of a job? How about if charged with a firearms offense. Would you represent yourself or would you get a lawyer who knew every aspect and nuance of the law and who would do everything legal to gain you an acquittal? > The designer of the 1911, John Browning, saw fit to eliminate the > grip safety on his 9mm Hi-Power, one of the world's premier handguns. > It also originally had a miniscule thumb safety which has subsequently > been made larger, something users had been doing for years. Now it > comes with an ambi-safety on some models. An ambidextrous safety should be standard on all handguns intended for defensive use. However, I have always been somewhat bemused about complaints about the small thumb safety on the Hi Power - I never had any trouble wiping the safety off with the inside of the joint on my thumb and I have relatively small hands and fingers. I often wonder if John Browning thought that really big controls on handguns were more likely to be accidentally activated - or deactivated. > His only 'brain fart' on the Hi-Power was the magazine safety which > rendered the gun inoperable with no magazine installed. I wonder > how many ADs that caused when users inserted loaded mags to drop > the hammer and then forgot about it in further gun handling....... > Like the grip safety on the 1911, this is easily over ridden and > you get an improved trigger pull in the bargain. Based on an article in a police magazine about twenty years ago, I know that at least a large handful of Illinois police officers would disagree with that assessment of "brain fart". I believe it was the Illinois State Police who had adapted the Hi Power as their duty sidearm, but the article was years ago and I stand to be corrected on which agency. Anyways, the article dealt with the issue of the magazine safety - and pointed out that in the short time since they had adopted the Hi Power a number of officers who had been losing control of their sidearm in a struggle had used the magazine release to dump the magazine and make the handgun temporarily inoperable. One paragraph quoted a cop who talked of being held down by two pukes while a third stood over him with his Hi Power pointed at his head, trying to make the handgun fire while the other two screamed "kill him". I can imagine what that felt like... I guess the question most police and military users would ask themselves is if they're more likely to end up the loser because they needed to fire the round in the chamber during the time it takes to make a magazine change (assuming they didn't fire until empty to begin with) - or be shot because after being jumped with handgun in hand, they couldn't disable the firearm by dumping the magazine. I know that statistically, a significant percentage of police have been shot with their own weapons after being jumped and disarmed. I can't say I've ever heard of a police officer losing a gunfight because he wasn't able to fire the handgun during the brief time he was doing a magazine change with a round still in the chamber. John Browning might have had something like that in mind when he added the magazine safety. Gamesmen don't like the magazine safety because they don't get as good a trigger pull as when it is disabled - but gamesmen seldom have to fight for their lives with their handguns either. To the best of my knowledge the SAS never disabled the magazine safeties on their Brownings, nor did the FBI HRT and SWAT teams. Maybe they knew knew something the gamesmen and armchair theorists didn't and figured old J.M. Browning had a good idea with the magazine safety for their line of work. As for negligent discharges... Todd already mentioned something about blaming negligent discharges on the weapon when user negligence is at fault. > .....any graduate of an IPSC Black Badge Course is almost certainly a > better gun handler than almost any rank and file cop. At least any I > ever trained. True, they are likely better shots - they are primarily gamesmen after all. But as very few ever have to handle firearms under the stress of potentially being seconds away from losing their lives, it is impossible to say how well they'd handle a firearm under that kind of pressure. They certainly don't have the tactical training and knowledge of police - although many think they do - and Todd and I have already discussed one such incident that nearly cost a very good competitor we both know his life. I might add that I know of at least two Black Badge certified shooters who have shot holes in their homes, Jim Hinter style, and also seen a few of them fooling around on the range when only a few friends were present - just like police are known to do. However, I have also seen that their safe behavior at an organized range competition is beyond question - again, just like police recruits while at Depot or military recruits at battle schools. The moral of this story is that many humans are lazy, and police, competitive shooters, and soldiers can also be lazy about firearms handling. IPSC competitions enforce stringent safety requirements at organized ranges and thus are incredibly safe. Police training centers like Depot do the same thing. And the military enforces weapons safety by automatically charging and convicting soldiers who have a negligent discharge - jail is not unusual, a large fine is a certainty. It boils down to the fact it isn't a question of how they were originally trained, it's whether they will do things the way they were taught to do and what is in place to deal with unsafe handling. Giving police a bye when they have a negligent discharge is not the way to signal that firearms safety is an issue that will brook no compromise. > The RCMP went berserk and I was going to be summoned into the local > detachment commander's office for a reprimand according to the letter I > received. It demanded to know what I was doing training RCMP officers to > shoot! That amuses me Todd. I would have been tempted to reply with a letter saying "Bite me... I'm not covered under the RCMP Act. If you want to talk to me, then nicely ask for an invitation to my home... and I'll consider it." Furthermore, I don't believe that a detachment commander can forbid any member from opting for external training - even if he issued a detachment directive forbidding that. Members still have something resembling the Charter of Rights. > Wanna make cops safe with guns? Disarm them. Well, we could do that. We could also have the Justice Department ferret out the instances where Black Badge trained shooters have had accidental discharges and then point that out as "proof" that IPSC is unsafe, and in the interests of safety IPSC style competition and Black Badge training should be banned. Or use the Burnaby shooting Todd and I have discussed as "proof" that if civilians were allowed to legally carry for self defense, most would end up getting themselves shot because they are tactically ignorant. Hmmmm... the government kind of uses Todd's approach where personal carry is concerned already... None of that would address the real issue. And that real issue is that a lot of people become lazy when operating motor vehicles, firearms, boats, power tools, etc. Taking their personal shortcomings and laziness as "proof" that access by others to the same tools is not only unfair but pointless. Hold people responsible for their personal negligence... seems pretty simple to me. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 05:10:04 -0600 (CST) From: Gordon Hitchen Subject: Laurie HAWN campaign This is the campaign to take Edmonton Central, the part of Edmonton West that is still Anne McLennan's riding. No matter how much else we achieve nationally in the coming election we MUST unseat Idle Annie, Martin's Deputy Prime Minister. If for no other reason, just to show Martin that we are paying attention , our group is growing , and we are decidedly not Liberal lovers! This is going to take time like we never imagined and money beyond our dreams, to counter the huge Liberal funding and election machine that will try to protect our Annie's ass. Two of our Members on the list have produced a document in .pdf format that you should read. It also contains a form which I beg you to use to contribute to the Laurie HAWN campaign. Starting now! The campaign is underway in that riding. Volunteers are also needed NOW! If you are anywhere in the Edmonton area please put some time in here as a volunteer. Take a peek at Laurie's campaign website here http://www.lauriehawn.com/gallery/index.asp# Immediately after the New Year celebrations end the door knocking campaign will continue four nights a week and on Saturdays. It actually began before Christmas. Mr. HAWN can win and will win but will need all the help we can raise , he is taking on the largest, strongest political machine ever head to head with one of their top people. A hell of a task for an ex Canadian Forces Air Force Pilot. His strategy of taking the fight to the Liberals early and fully certainly shows he is the fighter to beat them. Now it is the opportunity of firearms owners to be counted by donating a little funding and time to help out. It may seem early but in Edmonton- Center the gauntlet has been thrown. Do your share to help us win here! Please. The document is available in .pdf format from Mike, mike211@yknet.ca Al Parsons, awpaob@telus.net or myself of course at, moderator1@hitchen.org Remember , beating Anne may force Martin to abandon the Firearms act both He and She ran over a billion dollars and together hid from parliament and the Canadian Taxpayers. Thank you Gordon Hitchen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 05:11:17 -0600 (CST) From: "Progun" Subject: BS IPSC Shooter Shot? Hello To All: Could someone please fill me in privately. Thanks!! Buddy ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 05:18:30 -0600 (CST) From: "Trigger Mortis" Subject: Time magazine I just noticed the Time magazine with 3 American soldiers on the cover. It was pointed out to me that the one in the middle is a woman. I missed that. But, wait a minute, is that her finger on the trigger?? GASP! Isn't that a basic violation of safe handling procedure??? Alan Harper alan__harper@cogeco.ca SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM ************************* ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 11:48:43 -0600 (CST) From: "Hayes Holdings" Subject: RE: Time magazine > I just noticed the Time magazine with 3 American soldiers on the > cover. It was pointed out to me that the one in the middle is a > woman. I missed that. Al; You're not alone. I had to take a second and third look to be sure. The fingernails on her left hand give it away. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/covers/0,16641,1101031229,00.h tml And she does have her finger on the trigger (or at least in the trigger guard). Perhaps that's why she's in front - the two guys wouldn't let her stand behind or beside them? Here's a more amusing example of the confusion. Source: ***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 7:30am EST, Monday December 29, 2003 (Vol. Eight; No. 232) The 1,636th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996 http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20031229.asp > 3) Katie Couric: Feminist woman first, journalist second. Interviewing two Time staffers the morning after the magazine named "The American Soldier" as its "Person of the Year," Couric's very first concern was "why there's no woman on the cover?" Couric introduced her guests: "Time's magazine's Person of the Year issue hits news stands today and this year it honors the American soldier. Jim Kelly is Time's Managing Editor and veteran war photographer James Nachtwey was embedded with the Army's First Armored Division in Baghdad and took the remarkable images in this week's issue, he was also wounded while on assignment. Gentlemen, welcome, good morning, nice to have you both. I was so, I have to say, just personally, I was so pleased to see this." Kelly: "Oh, good. Excellent." Couric: "Tell me why you all decided to honor the American soldier? Wondering why there's no woman on the cover too?" Kelly, reaching forward to point at magazine on table: "This is a woman." Couric, putting finger on cover: "Oh, there you go, oh sorry." Kelly: "It's a woman, yes, exactly." Couric: "Oh, I couldn't tell because of her helmet, okay." - -------------------------------- Jason Hayes - Principal Hayes Holdings Consulting hh@hayz.ws / www.hayz.ws Blog: www.hayz.ws/blog ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #785 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:moderator@hitchen.org 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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