Cdn-Firearms Digest Monday, November 1 2010 Volume 14 : Number 159 In this issue: semreau Letter to the editor RE: semreau COLUMN: Criminals have more rights than victims By Lorne Gunter RE: Vancouver Sun - Loaded rocket launcher found on Vancouver Re: Captain Semrau Re: Capt. Semrau Cdn-Firearms Digest V14 #157 CALGARY HERALD: Home invasions on increase EDITORIAL: No to random breathalysers No touch; knockout ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, October 31, 2010 7:47 pm From: "M.J. Ackermann, MD" Subject: semreau I was taught in my Infantry days NEVER to leave live enemy in the rear as we advanced through an objective. Simply put, to do so risked the lives of our section, any mop up crews, and medevac personnel. Also from a Machiavellian point of view, live enemy WILL cause you no end of trouble in the future. Just look at the Khadr case. Had he not lived through his multiple gunshot wounds, there would have been a LOT less political and financial cost, and he would never have become a living martyr and cause celebre.. We were also taught to totally disregard the effects of our and the enemy's actions on non-combatants. The mission was to defend against and to seek and destroy enemy. Period. If that meant evicting a family from their hard earned home so we could set up in it, and as a result get it blown to hell, too bad. If the enemy set up shop in a convent full of nuns, and we were to get through them, there would inevitably be civilian casualties. Again too bad, but unavoidable. Our job was to engage the enemy. Period. None of this is meant to imply blatant disregard for human life, it is simply the hard and cold facts of life in the real world. I see some pretty foolish rules of engagement coming from politicians in uniform who don't want to irritate the non-combatant civvies back home. For example, in the Vietnam War, fighter-bombers were made to fly along a river to try to bomb a bridge because the politicians wanted to minimize civilian casualty. They were worried that a missed bomb would hit the villages at either end of the bridge. Trouble is, this approach maximizes exposure to AA fire from all 4 batteries (one on each side of each end of the bridge) during the approach and pull out, while minimizing the chance of a hit on the bridge deck. Near misses are totally ineffective against bridges. A proper approach would be diagonally. This maximizes probability of a hit while exposing the plane to effective fire for the minimum time from only two batteries at the the most (one on the approach and one on the pull out). Many planes and pilots were needlessly squandered for the sake of cosmetic appearance in the polls. Noe a days we have smart bombs and missiles so we can be more selective in many ways, but still you have to put the infanteer on the ground or you don't hold that ground. This will inevitably get messy. So be it: War is Hell. - -- M.J. Ackermann, MD (Mike) Rural Family Physician, Box 13, 120 Cameron Rd. Sherbrooke, NS Canada B0J 3C0 902-522-2172 mikeack@ns.sympatico.ca "Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst". ** Please always use BCC and erase appended address lists when forwarding or sending to groups ** ------------------------------ Date: Sun, October 31, 2010 9:08 pm From: "M.J. Ackermann, MD" Subject: Letter to the editor cc: lgunter@shaw.ca Re: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Criminals+have+more+rights+than+victims/3754111/story.html Lorne Gunter is exactly right when he opines that the so-called Canadian Justice System has been turned on its head. He states that it serves the criminals' needs much more enthusiastically than their victims'. He calls it the "Criminal's Justice System". I call it the "Canadian Crime Industry". Just think for a minute that every time a crook is processed, the System and all its workers make a ton of money. Lawyers, judges, court officials, police, prosecutors, social workers, psychologists, parole officers, doctors, nurses - the list goes on and on - all make money when a criminal is run through the courts. The more often a given person is processed, the more money he generates for the system and everyone in it. Even more telling, he generates huge political power for police and government bureaucrats who will happily accede to the public's demands to be kept safe by imposing ever harsher restrictions on what should be inviolable Rights and Freedoms, while they increase our taxes to boot! Like any industry this one needs repeat customers to survive, and expansion to thrive. As if that weren't bad enough, the many victims' advocacy groups are also lining up at the trough. How else to explain why they absolutely refuse to lobby for the individual Right to effective defense of self, family, and personal property, which is absolutely prerequisite to a civilized nation of laws (as opposed to rule by mob) but which is steadfastly opposed by the statist left elites of Canada? Groups like the Coalition for Gun Control (CGC) are absolutely terrified that Canadian women may wake up one day and realize that remaining helpless while waiting the rest of their prematurely truncated lives for some man to bring a gun to their defense is hardly true feminism. Should they ever realize that the only other person present beside the assailant when an attack is in progress is his intended victim and that when seconds count the police are minutes away, and that only she can provide timely protection to herself, then the CGC's true irrelevancy would become starkly apparent. No, the culture of victimhood needs an ever growing pile of dead bodies and shattered lives in order to survive. Every day we hear of career criminals with 50 plus prior convictions finally killing someone. We hear of parolees who serve tiny fractions of their sentences before being released among our children committing dozens of breaches before they are finally returned to the cells they should never have been released early from in the first place. Want a true Justice System? Then here are some suggestions: Do away with jail for any but violent offenders. Rehab the salvageable but recognize the lost causes. Violent repeat offenders should be kept away from the rest of us until they are too enfeebled by advanced old age to pose further threat. Do away with parole altogether. Obeying the rules of decent society should not result in early release but rather should be the basic minimum standard to get out at the end of the full sentence. Decriminalize drugs. The War on Drugs has killed thousands of times more people than the drugs themselves ever could have. Encourage lawful citizens to train and equip for effective personal defense. Laud their bravery and good citizenship when they do it. And finally, refocus the system on the needs and rights of the lawful first and foremost. Stop punishing those of us who refuse to be victimized. - -- M.J. Ackermann, MD (Mike) Rural Family Physician, Box 13, 120 Cameron Rd. Sherbrooke, NS Canada B0J 3C0 902-522-2172 mikeack@ns.sympatico.ca "Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst". ** Please always use BCC and erase appended address lists when forwarding or sending to groups ** ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:58:13 -0400 From: Mark L Horstead Subject: RE: semreau > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca > [mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca] On Behalf Of > M.J. Ackermann, MD > Sent: 31-Jan-10 2:47 PM > To: Firearms Digest > Subject: semreau > I was taught in my Infantry days NEVER to leave live enemy in > the rear as we advanced through an objective. Simply put, to > do so risked the lives of our section, any mop up crews, and > medevac personnel. Also from a Machiavellian point of view, > live enemy WILL cause you no end of trouble in the future. > Just look at the Khadr case. Had he not lived through his > multiple gunshot wounds, there would have been a LOT less > political and financial cost, and he would never have become > a living martyr and cause celebre.. In this case, they were on the objective, and not under any direct threat. The same Laws of Armed Conflict applied back then, too. > We were also taught to totally disregard the effects of our > and the enemy's actions on non-combatants. The mission was to > defend against and to seek and destroy enemy. Period. If that > meant evicting a family from their hard earned home so we > could set up in it, and as a result get it blown to hell, too > bad. If the enemy set up shop in a convent full of nuns, and > we were to get through them, there would inevitably be > civilian casualties. Again too bad, but unavoidable. Our job > was to engage the enemy. Period. Different time, different conflict, different methods. Attempting to conduct this mission using conventional warfare tactics, as the Russians did (seasoned with their own brand of brutality), will generate exactly the same result: the whole population rising up. One of the reasons why we haven't lost twelve to fifteen thousand people is because we have not "disregard(ed) the effects of our and the enemy's actions on non-combatants". One does not protect people by killing them indiscriminantly. > None of this is meant to imply blatant disregard for human > life, it is simply the hard and cold facts of life in the > real world. I see some pretty foolish rules of engagement > coming from politicians in uniform who don't want to irritate > the non-combatant civvies back home. You haven't seen any Rules of Engagement, Mike, nor will you. They are not in the public domain. Rules of Engagement, as I said in a previous post, are authorized by the CDS. Both the incumbent and his predecessor have a fair amount of operational experience, and are not "politicians in uniform". Nobody is complaining about our ROEs, which are pretty sensible. > Noe a days we have smart bombs and missiles so we can be more > selective in many ways, but still you have to put the > infanteer on the ground or you don't hold that ground. This > will inevitably get messy. So be it: Until the current surge, we were unable to hold much ground at all, as we were spread far too thinly. It was more like whack-a-mole. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, October 31, 2010 10:23 pm From: "Dennis & Hazel Young" Subject: COLUMN: Criminals have more rights than victims By Lorne Gunter EDMONTON JOURNAL - OCTOBER 31, 2010 Criminals have more rights than victims By Lorne Gunter Don't expect justice from police and judges if you're just a ripped-off citizen http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Criminals+have+more+rights+than+victims/ 3754111/story.html The lessons of Tony Martin of England, David Chen of Toronto and Brian Knight of Tees and Joseph Singleton of Taber -- both in Alberta -- is that the justice system has lost touch with its original purpose -- to dispense justice and punishment on behalf of the people. These four men's cases show that increasingly the justice system believes protection of persons and property is a task solely for police. Civilians have no right to defend themselves or their loved ones, their homes, farms or businesses, whether or not police can respond quickly enough to calls of break-and-enter or assault. Meanwhile, prosecutors act as if the justice system has something more important to do than protect the public. Over the past four decades, so much of the system's time and resources have been focused on guarding the rights of the accused and rehabilitating convicts that the Crown seems to see ordinary people as outsiders. Citizens are as capable of upsetting the system's smooth functioning as criminals. Indeed, the people may be seen as more of an impediment in some ways. Tony Martin is an English farmer whose remote property had been burgled several times. Martin claims that each time police were slow to respond. On what he insists was the 11th occurrence -- in August 1999 -- Martin found two thieves in his home in the middle of the night. He grabbed a shotgun and fired a blast at each of them as they were attempting to climb out a window. One of the two died, the other suffered a leg wound. The wounded burglar was given three years in prison; Martin was sentenced to life for murdering the man's accomplice. Later the British justice system awarded the wounded man more than $10,000 in legal aid so he could sue Martin for the lingering effects of his injuries. Martin spent longer in prison than the burglar and was only able to have his sentence reduced because he agreed to tell an appeal court that earlier burglaries had given him a mental disorder, so when he shot the two midnight prowlers he was suffering from "diminished capacity." Martin's case was atrocious. Although England is the cradle of modern liberty, it has in recent decades gone a long way towards nanny-statehood. Canada now seems headed down the same path, if the cases of Messrs. Chen, Knight and Singleton give any indication. David Chen is the Toronto greengrocer who last year apprehended a shoplifter with over 40 previous convictions and a criminal record going back more than 30 years. Chen and two of his employees caught Anthony Bennett in an alley next to Chen's store, tied him up and held in the back of a van until police arrived. For their troubles, they were charged with assault, kidnapping and forcible confinement. Thankfully, Mr. Chen was acquitted this week, but he never should have been charged. Brian Knight farms in central Alberta. One night last year, he heard three thieves stealing equipment from his farmyard -- again. He gave chase and caught one who was riding away on a quad, but not before Knight had shot the thief in the leg. Knight was charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, assault and dangerous driving. Then this past May, on an acreage outside Taber, Joseph Singleton came home with his wife to find a strange car in their driveway. He blocked its exit with his own vehicle, then entered his home and discovered it ransacked. When he went back outside, one of the thieves was ramming Singleton's vehicle and, according to Singleton's lawyer, gunning the getaway car in the direction of Mrs. Singleton. The 46-year-old oilfield consultant took the flat side of a hatchet and hit the thief twice in the face. Days ago, RCMP charged Singleton with assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm - -- more serious charges than those laid against the burglars. The biggest similarity between the Chen and Singleton cases is the way police and prosecutors sided with the criminals against the civilians involved. In Chen's case, the Crown cut a deal with his shoplifter to reduce his sentence in return for testimony against the grocer. And in the Singleton case, he was never interviewed by police before being charged. Charges have been brought solely on the say-so of the criminals. This is what I mean about the justice system becoming a closed shop in which criminals are treated with the respect afforded insiders and the public are treated as interlopers. Even gun control confirms that justice has been turned on its head. We don't control criminals' guns; it would be almost impossible to do so. So instead we spend billions controlling the guns of law-abiding citizens. Ever wondered why criminals have become bolder over the last generation? They know fewer Canadians have guns. They know that if they are caught, their sentences will be short. And they are increasingly aware that the enforcers of our laws -- police, prosecutors and courts -- are at odds with the public. Maybe we should call it the criminals' justice system, rather than the criminal justice system. lgunter@shaw.ca letters@thejournal.canwest.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:56:14 -0700 From: "Jim Pook" Subject: RE: Vancouver Sun - Loaded rocket launcher found on Vancouver I heard one RCMP spokesman on CBC-TV stating that it could have brought down an airplane. Where do these clowns get their training from? Jim Pook Vancouver Island-North The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. - Albert Einstein > -----Original Message----- > RCMP are investigating after a loaded self-propelled rocket > launcher It's not "self-propelled". It has to be carried. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:44:55 -0700 (PDT) From: "bletchleypark@rogers.com" Subject: Re: Captain Semrau Politically correct civil servants with guns. ________________________________ From: Todd Birch To: cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Sent: Sat, October 30, 2010 2:46:41 PM Subject: re: Captain Semrau In my basic training (2nd Bn. PPCLI) we were instructed not to leave a badly wounded comrade behind to the tender mercies of an enemy that might brutalize him. Which begged the question: "Well, what do we do with him?" Answer: "Ask his best friend to put a bullet in him. Or, if he's lucid, put a grenade in his hand and pull the pin. That gives him an option." This harsh reality check shocked our teen aged minds. No mention was made of an over dose of morphine as we were unlikely to have any to administer. That was 'old army' mentality. I'm not sure what the attitude is today. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 00:10:53 -0600 From: Larry James Fillo Subject: Re: Capt. Semrau Cdn-Firearms Digest V14 #157 On 31-Oct-10, at 1:26 PM, Cdn-Firearms Digest wrote: > Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 07:28:30 -0700 (PDT) > From: Mark L Horstead > Subject: re: Captain Semrau > > - --- On Sat, 10/30/10, Todd Birch wrote: > >> From: Todd Birch >> Subject: re: Captain Semrau >> To: cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca >> Date: Saturday, October 30, 2010, 2:46 PM > >> In my basic training (2nd Bn. PPCLI) we were instructed not to >> leave a badly wounded comrade behind to the tender mercies of an >> enemy that might brutalize him. >> >> Which begged the question: "Well, what do we do with him?" >> Answer: "Ask his best friend to put a bullet in him. Or, if >> he's lucid, put a grenade in his hand and pull the pin. That gives >> him an option." >> >> This harsh reality check shocked our teen aged minds. No >> mention was made of an over dose of morphine as we were unlikely to >> have any to administer. >> >> That was 'old army' mentality. I'm not sure what the >> attitude is today. > > In a desperate situation, perhaps. > > The current conflict is highly unlikely to see that level of > desperation. > Do they have a desperate situation exception clause in the legal manual? :) Desperate situations arise in war or UN "police actions", Like say... in Rwanda. Unfortunately, most UN missions have more rules than resources. Blackhawk Down was simply being overconfident in a situation that spun out of control for much longer than anyone predicted. We may be in Africa, that's unpredictable. When someone finally decides to de-nuke Iran, it will draw resources for sometime to clear the Straits of Hormuz. Others may then decide to see how thin they can spread our resources. Even a day or three to bring things under control would seem like a lifetime to the guys on the ground. With the E.U. not recovered from the recession yet and the U.S. budget deficit a long way from even being balanced let alone a surplus, NATO could find itself, under staffed and under equipped for distant missions over the next decade or more. The Brit military just took a heavy budget hit. (In my world, the Ottawa types who write the rules manuals, they would have to do so in combat, under fire, in pencil while slowly bleeding from a shrapnel wound.) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, November 1, 2010 8:26 am From: "Dennis & Hazel Young" Subject: CALGARY HERALD: Home invasions on increase CALGARY HERALD - NOVEMBER 1, 2010 Home invasions on increase as tally already surpasses last year BY STEPHANE MASSINON, WITH FILES FROM DARYL SLADE, SHERRI ZICKEFOOSE AND RICHARD CUTHBERTSON http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Home+invasions+increase+tally+already+surp asses+last+year/3756413/story.html Home Invasions In Calgary 2005. 28 2006. 25 2007. 28 2008. 60 2009. 68 2010. 71 (Year-To-Date) AS COLUMNIST LORNE GUNTER SAID YESTERDAY: "Ever wondered why criminals have become bolder over the last generation? They know fewer Canadians have guns. They know that if they are caught, their sentences will be short. And they are increasingly aware that the enforcers of our laws -- police, prosecutors and courts -- are at odds with the public. Maybe we should call it the criminals' justice system, rather than the criminal justice system." http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Criminals+have+more+rights+than+victims/ 3754111/story.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, November 1, 2010 8:28 am From: "Dennis & Hazel Young" Subject: EDITORIAL: No to random breathalysers CALGARY HERALD - NOVEMBER 1, 2010 EDITORIAL: No to random breathalysers http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/random+breathalyzers/3756443/story.html Drunk driving is a scourge. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Canada estimates that 1,239 people died due to impairment-related motor accidents in 2007 and a further 73,120 were injured. That's three deaths and 200 injuries per day. In spite of these alarming figures, we take issue with Alberta Justice Minister Alison Redford's lock-step endorsement of federal Conservative suggestions to let police conduct random breathalyzer tests without cause, a move supported by Calgary police Chief Rick Hanson. If implemented, police would not need to determine if there is reasonable suspicion that a driver has been drinking, as is required even at Checkstops, where a driver's actions and demeanour must be assessed before a breath sample is demanded. Richard Rosenberg of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association properly argues that random testing would be a violation of a person's right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure. "It has no real place in a democratic society," he said. "Giving police power to act on a whim is not something we want in an open democratic society." Random breath tests are allowed in the European Union, New Zealand and Australia, where they have been shown to reduce fatalities by between 23 and 35 per cent. In many of these countries, legal blood alcohol limits are also .05 per cent, lower than Canada's .08. Random testing has also been shown to decrease the chances of a drunk driver getting off on a technicality by challenging police procedures. These are compelling arguments and statistics. But giving arbitrary powers to police must be questioned, regardless of good intent. The balance between police powers and privacy is old and established. The framers of the U.S. Constitution implemented the 4th Amendment protecting against unreasonable search and seizure partly as a result of a Crown warrant issued by King George III in 1763 instructing his agents to break into the home of British muckraker John Wilkes and charge him with seditious libel because Wilkes had criticized the Crown. In Canada, common law was used to constrain the state's power to invade the privacy of its citizens until 1982, when the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure was constitutionalized in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The investigative powers of police have broadened widely in the post 9/11 digital age. We have supported restrictions on liberty in clearly abhorrent situations such as Internet child exploitation, but there are certain lines in the sand that must not be ceded to authority so willingly. Rather than the heavy hand of enforcement, we'd like to see more education. We might even be able to support a reduction to .05, but random testing makes us uncomfortable. Bestowing arbitrary power on police is a dangerous road to travel. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:31:50 -0500 From: Lee Jasper Subject: No touch; knockout For those lacking authorized possession of a 'true' Dirty Harry. http://www.streetwarriorsclub.com/notouch/ Amazing ‘No Touch' Knockout System Finally Revealed – And It's Yours FREE ! “At Last...Now You Too Can Learn The Remarkable Secrets Of How To Knock Out A Thug Without Even Touching Them ...Using These Near Magical New ‘No Touch' Knockout Secrets!” And The Best Thing Is That You Can Try It All Out From The Comfort Of Your Own Home...For FREE! (for the next 48 hours only) ‘No Touch'...? Yes, that's right – ‘no touch'! Now...I'm sure that I don't need to tell you how to strike someone. It's quite straightforward (although plenty of people even still get this wrong...). Yes, it involves contact from you onto a part of the body of your opponent. That's the ‘usual' way of striking someone, anyway... But, unbeknownst to most people... there's a whole new ball game out there right now – a whole new paradigm if you will, with Master Paul at the forefront of it – for ‘striking' someone, and taking them out of the game – AND IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY INVOLVE ‘TOUCHING' THEM AT ALL! ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V14 #159 *********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca Moderator's email: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca 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".)