From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V9 #564 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 Monday, June 26 2006 Volume 09 : Number 564 In this issue: Re: "I need it for a real estate deal,...." Re: "licencing vs registration, et al," Cdn-Firearms Digest V9 Re: "Alpers leads anti-gun team to New York conference" Letter: Police chiefs toeing a political line Battle lines are drawn over illegal gun trade; UN forum Editorial: A law of unjust calibre Editorial: Cleanup in Ottawa isn't finished yet: BRITAIN: Five steps to stem the crime wave ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:06:12 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Re: "I need it for a real estate deal,...." Larry James Fillo wrote: > It is so rare for the media to feature a politician holding a firearm, > enjoy. > > Wasn't there a "Dalton Gang" of outlaws in the old west? > > http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Donato/2006/06/24/1650306.html http://www.gunslinger.com/dalton.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:24:22 -0600 (CST) From: "mred" Subject: Re: "licencing vs registration, et al," Cdn-Firearms Digest V9 - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Murray" > Such an agency would of course require some tough armour against > government interference and pressure, perhaps in the form of > representation from a fair range of non-governmental boards, > commissions, and associations. > > If we're going to have licencing anyway, why not propose something like > this? In my view, you guys who hold out for no licencing are flogging a > dead horse. You ain't gonna win. > > Now, I respect you fellows (Bruce and Eduardo, among others), and want > to continue our discussion, but surely we should cut our losses and do > what's practical. > > Regards //jmb Good post but I would prefer certification over licencing if I MUST be controlled. However that is my next to last choice . The other one is to illegally obtain guns like the criminals do,? no licencing required .?no government control. Yes they can take your guns away but they can with licencing too just ask Jonathan Login and Bruce Montague.And the penalties are much the same . Out on bail in less than 24 hours. ed/ontario ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:25:00 -0600 (CST) From: "mred" Subject: Re: "Alpers leads anti-gun team to New York conference" - ----- Original Message ----- From: "David R.G. Jordan" > Alpers leads anti-gun team to New York conference** > > Reference: > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10388315 > Monday June 26, 2006 > By Simon O'Rourke* > *E-Mail to Simon O'Rourke: > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/email.cfm?a_id=266&objectid=10388315 > __________ > And some people wonder why "I" found the movie "Lord of War"(2005), so > damned funny? > > See: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0399295/ > > nuff said! > > WHEW! > -DRGJ It was a good movie as far as I could tell ?I was really surprised that they came out with some semblance of the truth in the case of the US government wanting to be kept out of the picture /? ed/ontario ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:43:00 -0600 (CST) From: owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Majordomo User) Subject: Letter: Police chiefs toeing a political line PUBLICATION: Chatham Daily News (ON) DATE: 2006.06.26 SECTION: Opinion PAGE: 7 COLUMN: Letter WORD COUNT: 461 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Police chiefs toeing a political line - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sir: Chatham-Kent's police chief Carl Herder must be deluded if he really believes that the onerous, draconian, and useless Firearms Act in any way, shape, or form "provides safety and security for all Canadians." It should be obvious to any rational thinking person that it has done no such thing, and never will. The Ontario Association of Police Chiefs, like the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, is a largely politically motivated organization, which has a vested interest in lobbying the various levels of government for more powers and more money for itself and its constituents. All such police power always comes at the expense of "our" rights. It comes as no surprise that they have blindly "always supported the gun registry." Herder cannot possibly know which "one purpose or another" the police services use the registry for, since no such statistics are kept! He regurgitates the phony "it's used more than 5,000 times daily" figure, which has been shown to have absolutely no meaningful value. MP Garry Breitkreuz found, and RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli confirmed, that the vast majority of these "queries" are automatically generated every time a police officer or dispatcher submits a request to the CPIC system. Even Auditor General Sheila Fraser said so, stating to the Public Security Committee that "the indicator of the 5,000 hits a day is more of what we call an activity indicator than an indicator of effectiveness." In other words, it is nothing more than "bureaucratic busywork." Herder said eliminating the long-gun portion of the registry will make it more difficult to keep track of weapon owners. This is complete and utter nonsense, since legitimate gun owners will still (sadly) be required to get a license in order to be "allowed" to continue to own their own private property. Since licensed gun owners are required, under penalty of up to five years in prison, to notify the Registrar of Firearms of any change of address within 30 days, there should be an up to date record of where gun owners live. Unfortunately, criminals are under no such obligation. They don't get licenses, and they don't register their guns, and they don't tell the authorities when or where they move to, or where they hide their guns. And it is exactly these kinds of guns that the police should be most concerned about. Police and politicians need to stop spreading propaganda in support of a useless and wasteful piece of legislation and instead devote their attention to the real problem: arresting and incarcerating real criminals who commit real crimes - not harassing law abiding citizens. Bruce N. Mills Dundas ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:44:40 -0600 (CST) From: owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Majordomo User) Subject: Battle lines are drawn over illegal gun trade; UN forum NOTE: A version of this story also ran in the Hamilton Spectator PUBLICATION: The Toronto Star DATE: 2006.06.26 EDITION: ONT SECTION: News PAGE: A1 BYLINE: Olivia Ward SOURCE: Toronto Star ILLUSTRATION: James Arena Reuters file photo A soldier stands guard during a gun-burning ceremony in Jinja, Uganda this month. Some 220 tonnes of weapons, collected from robbers, rebels were destroyed. WORD COUNT: 963 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Battle lines are drawn over illegal gun trade; UN forum discusses halt to commerce Groups for and against apply pressure - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers are under daily attack from illegally traded weapons. In Ontario, two suspects in an alleged terror plot are also convicted gun smugglers. In Toronto, more than 50 people were killed in shootings last year and gun battles have raged in the heart of the city. As a United Nations forum on halting the illicit global arms trade gets underway today, no country is unaffected by gun violence, which kills 1,000 people a day worldwide and leaves another 3,000 wounded. Battle lines are drawn as the talks open in New York. The U.S. National Rifle Association has accused the UN of a July 4th conspiracy to outlaw the "constitutional right to bear arms" in America, and its supporters fired off 100,000 letters of complaint to the UN. The UN denies doing any such thing. But a global coalition of anti-gun groups, including Amnesty International, organized a campaign of 1 million photos and signatures from people demanding tougher rules to control the illegal arms trade. Canada, a leader in seeking stricter controls at the UN small-arms conference in July 2001, is now under the gun itself, with a new Tory government that some worry may bend to pressure from the United States to soften its stance on key issues. China, Russia and some Arab and Asian states are also wary of arms controls. "Five years after we launched a program to stop proliferation of small arms, there is only a dent in what needs to be done," says Lynne Griffiths-Fulton, co-ordinator of the Small Arms Working Group of Canadian gun-control groups. "We're hoping for a much stronger agenda to let us move forward. If that doesn't happen at this conference, it would be tragic." Canada's official policy is that legal flows of small arms must be strictly controlled, illicit trafficking halted and weapons in conflict zones collected and destroyed once wars have ended. The U.S. rejects any measures that prohibit civilian possession of guns, or sales of weapons to armed groups operating outside of government forces. Ottawa has announced no policy changes on controlling the global small arms trade since the Tories took office. Canadian gun opponents say the signals from Ottawa are mixed. They are uneasy about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's campaign to end the 11-year-old long gun registry, and they question the makeup of Ottawa's delegation to the UN conference. For the first time the negotiating team will include a member of the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action (CILA), the political voice of Canada's gun owners. According to Foreign Affairs, the delegation was chosen from "diverse and expert representatives of the Government of Canada, industry and civil society." Delegates are from the Canadian Firearms Centre, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, CIDA, a Canadian gun manufacturer and the Canadian Peacebuilding Co-ordinating Committee, which focuses on alleviating violent conflicts. "Given the current move to dismantle the long gun registry, and the fact that they've put a CILA member in the delegation, we can't be too optimistic," says Ryerson professor Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control. "The UN program of action implies that countries have to have national control over possession of small arms, and also recordkeeping, which means registration. It's important that there are controls over civilian possession of guns if you want to stop illegal possession," she argues. Steven Torino, CILA's executive director who's in the government delegation, is an outspoken opponent of the registry. Torino says the delegation is balanced and he shares the concern for controlling illegal arms, then adds, "what we're looking for at the UN is ... We want to make sure the mess with the marking system doesn't happen a second time, and the government doesn't want to close down a multi-million-dollar industry." The former Liberal government's firearms marking law - to increase controls on imported guns - was to come into force this year but was delayed until 2007 by the industry's lobbying. The costs of creating a system to mark guns that would satisfy the law have frightened off Canadian importers - along with the long gun registry - shrank the numbers of arms retailers dramatically from 3,000 to 550 in the past decade, Torino says. In reply, opponents of the international gun trade point to an intimate relationship between legal and illegal weapons. "What we need at this conference is an agreement for standards of international small arms transfers that include recognizing the role of national regulations in preventing the misuse of guns," says Anthea Lawson, spokesperson for the International Action Network on Small Arms, of groups campaigning against the arms trade. "Tough rules can help keep guns out of the hands of people with a history of crime and violence." After the UN's 2001 meeting on small arms, Lawson said, "70 per cent of countries reported back that they have been reviewing their own gun laws." If Canada backslides, it would be open to international criticism, she said. The last UN conference created a voluntary program of action for halting illegal gun dealing and possession at local, regional and international levels. Gun control campaigners believe the stakes are even higher at this gathering, of some 2,000 diplomats, activists and officials attending. They say the current talks should produce an agreement that closes loopholes on arms dealing, addresses the needs of people affected by gun violence and paves the way for a legally binding treaty to stop the flow of 600 million small arms now in circulation. Gun lobbyists portray their role in this diplomatic war as a defence of individual rights against the dark forces of world government. Gun control advocates characterize the battle as big business and big crime vs. the rule of law. "I have seen how these weapons can spark, fuel and prolong conflict," said Senator Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian commander who could not convince the United Nations to intervene to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed at least 800,000 people in 100 days. Last week in Ottawa, the general made his stand plain "I join the thousands of Canadians, who are asking the government to take leadership at the UN meeting ... to ensure it results in strengthened efforts to effectively regulate the arms trade, control munitions and arms transfers, and eliminate gun violence." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:45:13 -0600 (CST) From: owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Majordomo User) Subject: Editorial: A law of unjust calibre PUBLICATION: Calgary Herald DATE: 2006.06.26 EDITION: Final SECTION: The Editorial Page PAGE: A8 SOURCE: Calgary Herald WORD COUNT: 195 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A law of unjust calibre - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Canadian gun-owners will be through the five stages of grief, even before the end of the vote that ends the long-gun registry. Rarely has a law more richly deserved to die than this one. Law-abiding hunters, farmers and collectors were required to register weapons that are hardly ever used criminally. Meanwhile, criminals did not. Who would have predicted it? As well, the registry went through two computer systems and still was unable to generate reliable data, cost more than $1 billion and was slammed by the auditor general for inefficiency. It was a huge diversion of law enforcement resources into mostly unproductive effort. Its greatest flaw, however, was the initial concept of focusing upon guns, rather than gun-owners. It matters much less what firearms a citizen possesses, than the use he may make of them. The key to effective gun control is keeping them out of the hands of crooks and the criminally insane. Conservative amendments to the Firearms Act, and the criminal code, recognize this. A licence will still be needed to buy guns and ammunition. The onus will be on gun-sellers to ensure a purchaser is legally able to buy. Acceptance of laws depends on how reasonable they are. Few gun owners will cavil at these provisions. It is to be hoped enough opposition MPs, on whom passage depends, are similarly clear. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:46:39 -0600 (CST) From: owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Majordomo User) Subject: Editorial: Cleanup in Ottawa isn't finished yet: PUBLICATION: Times Colonist (Victoria) DATE: 2006.06.25 EDITION: Final SECTION: Comment PAGE: D2 SOURCE: Times Colonist WORD COUNT: 740 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cleanup in Ottawa isn't finished yet: Three have been sent to prison, but what about the upper ranks of the federal government? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chuck Guite, who ran the federal sponsorship program, has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. A jury found him guilty of fraudulently mishandling public funds in the amount of nearly $2 million. Guite joins two Quebec advertising executives behind bars. Jean Brault is serving 30 months for submitting false invoices, and Paul Coffin was handed 18 months after pleading guilty to 15 counts of fraud. None of the men will spend more than a short time in jail: With no prior criminal record, Guite will likely be released after serving one-sixth of his sentence -- about seven months. Nevertheless, on the face of it, justice has been done. Or has it? If the sponsorship scandal was merely about wasting taxpayers' money, we might wonder why the entire senior management of the gun registry isn't in trouble. They over-ran their budget by $1 billion and couldn't show that a single gun-related death or injury had been avoided. Of course Guite, Brault and Coffin went further. They created a paper trail of fake receipts to mislead government watchdogs about the nature and extent of their activities. Yet it appears gun registry costs were also deliberately fudged, using techniques that the auditor general labelled a breach of the Financial Administration Act. But the real problem doesn't lie in hanging the sponsorship scandal around the necks of these three men. It lies in not hanging it around some other necks as well. It seems no further charges are pending, and although the investigation is ongoing, this is quite possibly the end of the road. In effect, prosecutors are asking us to believe this was simply a con game by two crooked businessmen and an obscure government employee. Yet we know there's more to the scandal -- a lot more. In his final report, Justice John Gomery paints a picture of far-reaching corruption and betrayal of trust in which Guite and his accomplices were merely small fry. He shows how the sponsorship program was used as a "method of financing the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada." He alleges that high-ranking officials of the party were involved in kickbacks. He asserts that two successive executive directors engaged in illegal campaign financing. And he says the minister responsible, Alfonso Gagliano, "became directly involved in decisions to provide funding to events and projects for partisan purposes." And most important, Gomery blames much that went wrong on the "unprecedented decision" to run the sponsorship program directly out of the Prime Minster's Office. Taken together, that sounds more like a catalogue of crime than petty fraud by a junior manager. Yet no one in the upper ranks of government, either politicians or their staff, has been charged. Are we to understand that accountability stops short of the cabinet door? Before the early 2000s, business executives were rarely indicted for mishandling the interests of shareholders. Stock-market regulators took the position that the buyer should beware, and the general view was that disciplinary measures were the responsibility of shareholders, not the courts. It seems our law enforcement community takes a similarly relaxed view of political misdeeds. "Let the voters beware" appears to be their motto. In fairness, the flagrant corruption that marked the sponsorship scam is rare in Canadian politics. We don't have a lot of experience dealing with such brazen behaviour. It took the meltdown of the U.S. energy giant Enron, where investors lost billions and employees' pensions were gutted, before prosecutors were forced by public outrage to get tough with corporate crime. We need a similar response here. The judge who sentenced Guite commented at length on his lack of remorse or sense of guilt. But why should he hold himself blameworthy if those with the real authority are allowed to escape scot-free? "Only following orders" is a defence long since discredited, but it commands a certain sympathy in such circumstances. Of course when confronted, Gagliano and others insist they were not giving orders, but merely making "suggestions." Gomery has an answer for that: "The notion that Mr. Pelletier (former prime minister Jean Chretien's chief of staff) and Mr. Gagliano could provide political input without strongly influencing the decision-making process is nonsense and ignores the obvious reality that the expression of an opinion to a subordinate official by the prime minister's chief of staff or the minister amounts to an order." There will always be petty crooks of the Brault and Coffin variety, eager to get rich at the public trough. And sad to say, Guite is probably not the only public servant willing to bend rules in the hope of currying favour with ministers and their staff. It is precisely for this reason that those in charge must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. Elected officials often comment on the public trust they hold. Yet that notion is meaningless if not ultimately backed up by force of law. The public purse will recover soon enough from the impact of the sponsorship scandal. But if the conviction of Guite closes the door on this scandal, the public's trust will not. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:49:12 -0600 (CST) From: owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Majordomo User) Subject: BRITAIN: Five steps to stem the crime wave PUBLICATION: The Daily Telegraph DATE: 2006.06.25 PAGE: 020 SECTION: Features NOTE: Leading Article WORD COUNT: 1076 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Five steps to stem the crime wave Make Britain Safe Campaign - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today we launch a campaign to Make Britain Safe. One of the most fundamental duties of any government is to protect its citizens from violence and Tony Blair's Government is failing in that duty. Violent crime has more than tripled since 1997, the year that Labour came to power. The number of homicides per year has increased from 705 in 1997 to 954 in 2005. The number of rapes reported to the police has doubled to more than 14,000. And those statistics do not capture the horrific amount of intimidating violence on the streets of our cities: the gangs of hooded young men swaggering threateningly through residential neighbourhoods, the drunken hordes that congregate around pubs on Friday and Saturday nights, the drug dealers who carry guns and use them to wipe out the competition - and often kill or wound wholly innocent bystanders in the process. It is the staggering increase in violent crime that has so startled, angered and frightened the British public. Innocent citizens are incensed by the Government's failure to act. It is on their behalf that we are now demanding change. The Government is not powerless in the face of mounting violence. There are things which it could and must do. As David Green, the Director of Civitas, points out in today's Sunday Telegraph, other countries have successfully fought back: America's crime rate, for instance, has now fallen to the level it was at 50 years ago: our crime rate is 10 times higher than it was in 1955. It is time for Britain to reverse its slide into a society cowed by a violent minority. Mr Blair is, again, making the right noises about tackling violent crime but we need him to act. Our demands are simple and we believe they will win widespread support. MORE POLICE ON THE STREET The first step in stemming the crime wave is to increase the chance that those responsible will be caught. That requires more police officers. Labour has indeed increased the number of officers - but not by nearly enough. Too often it seems that police stations are fortresses in which officers can be kept safe while the criminals get on with their business outside. We also need police who use their time sensibly. Sending four officers, for example, to arrest a man who refused to give back a football kicked into his garden (by another officer's son) is not a sensible use of police time. There are too many instances of that kind of dumb behaviour. Labour ministers have been far too tolerant of chief constables whose priorities seem to have little to do with protecting the public from serious crime. IMPOSE TOUGHER SENTENCES Sentences should be transparent and mean what they say. It is plainly ludicrous that violent offenders should be quietly ushered out of prison having served only a fraction of their sentences, simply to make room for the next batch of offenders. The Government has placed enormous faith in the Probation Service and other authorities to supervise those on early release. That faith is demonstrably without foundation. In the year 2004-2005 (the most recent for which Home Office records are available), criminals under the supervision of the Probation Service murdered 26 people and raped 43 women. The numbers of people who were assaulted, threatened, robbed, mugged or burgled by those being "supervised in the community'' runs into many thousands. None of those crimes would have been committed had the perpetrators been in prison. That simple fact provides an overwhelming case for imprisoning more offenders for longer. But the Government's latest policy is to do the opposite, influenced in large part by a lack of prison accommodation. PROVIDE MORE PRISONS It is an indication of how deep the hostility to prison is within the Home Office that, as we report today, money that was made available for buying new land on which prisons could be built remains unspent years later. Because the Government has refused to build new prisons, the existing ones are seriously over-crowded. There is an immediate need for more prisons but because of the Government's lethargy these will not be available in the short term. So the Home Office will have to seek out existing properties that might quickly be adapted to incarcerate convicted offenders. Converting disused ships into floating jails is one option that has been used in the past. REHABILITATE AND RE-EDUCATE Prisons should do more than merely keep offenders locked away from the rest of society. The majority of prisoners are ill-educated and have had an inauspicious start in life, many coming from broken homes and around 30 per cent having spent some time in care as children. There is a high preponderance of drink and drug dependency. If prison is to work for the long-term benefit of society, it must work to improve the prospects of these individuals. Rehabilitation is pitifully ineffective in the current regime, hence the appallingly high rate of re-offending. Our prison system must do better, providing effective treatment for addiction and psychological problems and offering plentiful help with education so that on release, prisoners are better equipped to live a useful life. A ROYAL COMMISSION ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE We have proposed a series of changes on which rapid action could be taken but we recognise that there also needs to be a thorough re-assessment of the way the criminal justice system operates. What is required is a Royal Commission with the remit to examine how our failing system might be fundamentally reshaped, from the courtroom through to an offender's release. It needs to examine ways in which punishment might be more effective, both in prisons and in strengthened community sentences. It must examine best practice around the world and have the authority to make recommendations that will carry weight with the government of the day. Royal Commissions should not lightly be set to work but, with the public's confidence in the protection of its safety at such a low, there is a pressing need for the Government to appoint just such a Commission. ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V9 #564 ********************************** 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@cogeco.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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