Cdn-Firearms Digest Wednesday, July 2 2008 Volume 11 : Number 629 In this issue: B.C. Farmers seek permission to shoot marmots Prison gang mayhem at Max- The Edmonton Journal In America, a man's home is still his castle ... (fwd) Hamilton Spectator Column: The right to shoot ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 11:45:47 -0400 From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 2" Subject: B.C. Farmers seek permission to shoot marmots PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL DATE: 2008.07.02 PAGE: S1 BYLINE: SHANNON MONEO SECTION: British Columbia N SOURCE: SPCL EDITION: Metro DATELINE: Victoria BC WORDS: 599 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGRICULTURE Farmers seek permission to shoot marmots - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Farmers in the Penticton area want permission to shoot marmots, whose population in the south Okanagan has snowballed this year - and is threatening the vineyards and fruit crops. "We hope the city allows us to shoot in certain areas with permits," said Rod King, who grows grapes on 16 hectares of land in rural Penticton. "Marmot numbers have jumped through the roof." He's not certain why but it could be related to low numbers of the rodents' natural predators - coyotes, hawks and eagles. The yellow-bellied marmots - a different species from the endangered Vancouver Island marmots - are scaling Mr. King's wire cordons to reach new grape growth. His son spotted one ascending a ladder. "It's amazing. It's never happened before," he said. One of Mr. King's neighbours climbed about two metres up his peach tree and there, eyeballing him, was a yellow-belly feasting on a baby peach. In years past, farmers would, over the season, see about 20 of the herbivores, which resemble a big squirrel, come out of hibernation in April. Content to eat plants such as dandelions or clover, the marmots would return to underground dens in September. This year, one farmer counted about 200 in one week. He also trapped more than 80. But marmot-trapping is time-intensive and the traps - cages with oatmeal/fruit bait inside - are time-consuming to maintain, Mr. King said. When the marmot is trapped, it lets loose with a distress yelp which alerts other marmots to the danger posed by the traps. Adults marmots weigh about four kilograms and are about 60 centimetres long, tail included. To kill captured marmots, Mr. King said some farmers use vehicle exhaust or drown the animals. "It's slow and cruel," he said. Poison isn't a reasonable option because it could harm other animals, particularly birds. And fencing doesn't work because marmots, known to dig burrows up to five metres deep, tunnel underneath. The extent of the damage to fruit crops, already weakened by this spring's late frost, isn't known, but Mr. King, a grape grower since the early 1990s, said it's already significant for some farmers as far south as Osoyoos. Earlier this month, Penticton's seven-member agricultural advisory committee asked the City of Penticton for permission to shoot the marmots, said Mr. King, a committee member. A city bylaw prohibits the discharge of a firearm within the city without a permit. A substantial number of orchards happen to lie within city limits. The president of the B.C. Fruit Growers' Association said that if there's no other solution, producers should be able to shoot the marmots. "It may not get widespread support but this is a pest," Joe Sardinha said. City staff are investigating whether the city would be liable in the event of a shooting incident, and whether police have concerns, said Penticton's development director Mitch Moroziuk. City council will get a report by mid-July. If the city allows farmers to shoot marmots, Penticton RCMP Corporal Rick Dellebuur expects complaints will crop up from suburban residents unaccustomed to hearing gunfire. "It gets controversial when you have rural and urban together," he said. "The biggest concern is that it's done safely." Marmots, whom Mr. Sardinha calls the Okanagan's version of prairie dogs, are proving to be a nuisance at his commercial apple orchard in Summerland. Even Cpl. Dellebuur's flower and vegetable gardens have been assaulted by marmots. But he says his Airedale pup, Buddy, has become very adept at catching and killing them. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080702.BCMARMOT02/TPStory/TPNational/BritishColumbia/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:43:02 -0600 From: "David R.G. Jordan" Subject: Prison gang mayhem at Max- The Edmonton Journal Prison gang mayhem at Max http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=cd2722ef-62e4-4143-a3d0-4a607bd83a10 Image & Caption A fire rages in the yard at Edmonton Institution, where inmates rioted after several prisoners were stabbed and at least one was shot during an incident Tuesday night. - -Chris Schwarz, the Journal Rioting inmates tear-gassed after setting massive blaze Trish Audette and Emily Senger, The Edmonton Journal Published: 6:28 am EDMONTON - Hours after a major knife fight at Edmonton's maximum security prison sent eight inmates to hospital, guards fired tear gas at about 40 inmates who refused to go back to their cells Tuesday night. The violence began around 3 p.m., when two gangs clashed during a recreational period in the Edmonton Institution's fenced-off yard. Correctional officers wearing riot gear moved into the yard at 10 p.m. An hour later, flames could be seen reaching well above Edmonton Institution's squat buildings in the city's north end. The inmates had set their own sweat lodge on fire. Rick Dhym, a spokesman for Correctional Service of Canada, said teams were working on negotiating with the rebel prisoners, but it was unclear what their demands were. Knives were pulled as soon as a group of nearly 50 inmates entered the yard Tuesday afternoon. "The incident, I think, was very much a surprise to one of the gangs involved in this fight," said Kevin Grabowsky, regional president for the union that represents correctional officers. Several shots were fired by correctional officers. Most of those shots, Grabowsky said, would have been warnings, but at least one bullet struck an inmate. "Warning shots were fired," said Dhym. "(One man) refused to give up his weapon and stop attacking another inmate." Most of the injured men are in their mid-20s. Seven received stab wounds, and one was both stabbed and shot. No guards were injured. Inmates who later engaged in an hours-long standoff let officers pull the wounded out of the yard. Paramedics transported most of the men to Edmonton's Royal Alex and University hospitals by ground ambulance. Two patients -- one in his 20s and one in his 30s -- were airlifted from the prison. At press time, two men remained in critical condition, one at University hospital, and another at the Royal Alex. The inmates who refused to go back inside Tuesday could be heard yelling from inside the gates. At one point a man yelled, "Give us some f---ing water!" At another point, a man was heard shouting, "Get away from that fence!" Shortly before 11 p.m., guards used six canisters of tear gas to push the inmates into one area of the yard. More gas was used around 11:20 p.m. Fire crews moved into the yard as the sweat lodge fire grew, and two ambulances were waiting outside the prison's gates. The blaze was put out at 11:35 p.m. For guards, there was concern over how many of the inmates were still armed. Some knives were recovered after the afternoon fight -- including a razor blade fixed to a toothbrush -- but it was not known what other weapons might be in the yard. The rest of the inmates in the prison who were not involved in the fight were in lockdown throughout the standoff. Grabowsky described high tension inside the 200-inmate prison. When gang stress is high on the streets, it builds inside the Max. Edmonton police said they were investigating the incident alongside correctional officers. Grabowsky called the Canada Day incident one of a series of "stab fests" becoming common in Prairie penitentiaries. "Our gang problems are pretty serious," he said. "There's always a tension inside." taudette@thejournal.canwest.com esenger@thejournal.canwest.com © The Edmonton Journal 2008 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 11:28:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Rob Sciuk Subject: In America, a man's home is still his castle ... (fwd) Dear Sir/Madame, Colby Cosh has done a good job of describing the schizophrenia Canada suffers with the idea of "castle doctrine" and the politician's assertion that Canada's Charter right of "safety of person" is not an absolute right. Politicians have passed laws to deny the rights of responsible Canadians to take prudent measures to protect their own lives, and those of their family, but the courts have recently upheld the self defense plea of a Quebec man who shot and killed a policeman who failed to properly identify himself during a "legal", midnight armed home invasion. In doing so, the man still faces criminal sanctions under the firearms act, however. It seems to me that something is terribly amiss when the Charter includes an absolute right to safety of person but the laws expressly forbid it. Sincerely, Robert S. Sciuk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, July 2, 2008 9:56 am From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 2" Subject: Hamilton Spectator Column: The right to shoot PUBLICATION: The Hamilton Spectator DATE: 2008.07.02 EDITION: Final SECTION: Opinion PAGE: A14 SOURCE: Los Angeles Times WORD COUNT: 522 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The right to shoot - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Presented with two historically plausible arguments about whether the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms, the U.S. Supreme Court last week opted for the interpretation less suited to a 21st-century America bedevilled by gun crime. That's the disappointing part of the court's long-awaited ruling striking down the District of Columbia's strict gun-control ordinance. Fortunately, even though the decision endorses the individual-right explanation, it may have limited influence. Gun-rights advocates will focus on what they will see as the magic words in Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion for a 5-4 majority: "There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms." Although a bit wordy for a bumper sticker, in isolation it could have been composed by the National Rifle Association. But Scalia immediately added this qualification: "Of course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment's right of free speech was not." Elsewhere, Scalia explicitly cited gun-control laws not affected by this ruling, including those prohibiting felons and the mentally ill from possessing firearms, banning guns from schools and other "sensitive places" and, most important, regulating the sale of guns. Finally, Scalia's definition of weapons protected by the amendment -- those in common use "for lawful purposes like self-defence" -- would seem to exclude Uzis and machine guns. (This ruling thus does not provide an excuse for Congress not to re-enact a federal ban on assault weapons.) None of this changes the fact that the majority -- including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who pledged fealty to precedent at his confirmation - -- has upended an interpretation of the Second Amendment that has been the majority view for more than half a century: that the amendment's reference to "a well-regulated" militia limits the right to keep and bear arms to organized military units such as the National Guard. In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens offered a spirited defence of the traditional view, one we wish the majority had embraced. But it is a fact that legal historians, some of them supporters of gun control as a matter of policy, increasingly have argued that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. (For that reason, some of them have advocated repeal of the amendment -- an undesirable option because it would open up the entire Bill of Rights to revision.) It was probably inevitable that the court would revisit this issue. The district's ordinance, which banned handguns and made it impossible for law-abiding citizens to keep working firearms in their homes, provided an unusually tempting target for justices who wanted to reconsider a constitutional issue that had been absent from their docket for almost 70 years. Last week's decision needlessly complicated the lives of legislators seeking to bring gun violence under control. But it could have been worse. ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V11 #629 *********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:drg.jordan@sasktel.net List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca FAQ list: http://www.canfirearms/Skeeter/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://www.canfirearms.ca CFDigest Archives: http://www.canfirearms.ca/archives To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next four lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".)