From: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V15 #841 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Sender: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Errors-To: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Precedence: normal owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Cdn-Firearms Digest Saturday, July 27 2013 Volume 15 : Number 841 In this issue: Sun News : Redford appoints flood advisory panel... Justin Trudeau should think twice about legalizing pot Jesse Kline on property rights: When environmental ... Lorne Gunter: Jumping the gun "What's behind Canada's improving crime stats?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, July 25, 2013 11:49 pm From: "jbwoodcarver" Subject: Sun News : Redford appoints flood advisory panel... Sun News : Redford appoints flood advisory panel "I made a commitment that we would rebuild our communities devastated by recent flooding," Premier Alison Redford said. "We're going to do it in a common-sense way that makes Alberta a global leader in flood protection and prevention.” How’s that for a really scary statement? Common sense? Global leader? I think we should be able to see where this is heading. Spend lots of money- more government control. Could this be used to help entrench UN Agenda 21? Here is something else I’ve stumbled across. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SuFJZ2F7I9M The U.S Military Will Use Weather as a Weapon on AMERICAN Citizens (4:18) http://weatherpeace.blogspot.ca/search/label/alberta%20flood Alberta Being Fed More Rain From Nexrad Induced Weather “Many areas in southern Alberta are still recovering from the intense flooding that took place in late June, displacing many thousands of residents. ... There has been no mention in the weather media of the tapering aerosol cloud plumes originating in the North-western States, which brought majority of the rain to southern Alberta. We will present evidence as to how these cloud systems have been generated .... “ Chase some of the embedded hyperlinks at the above website. HH http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives/2013/07/20130722-070752.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, July 26, 2013 9:04 am From: "Dennis R. Young" Subject: Justin Trudeau should think twice about legalizing pot by Naomi Lakritz Lakritz: Justin Trudeau should think twice about legalizing pot BY NAOMI LAKRITZ, CALGARY HERALD JULY 26, 2013 7:23 AM http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/Lakritz+Justin+Trudeau+should+think+twice+about/8708727/story.html I have lost all respect for Justin Trudeau. Until Thursday, I'd been rooting for him all the way. No more, though. Not since he announced that he thinks marijuana should be legalized.In advocating for legalization, Trudeau cited the futility of the war on drugs. But this is not about the war on drugs. This is about the impact on everyday life if marijuana were legal. One commenter on the Herald's website wondered whether Trudeau is aware of all the social ills that legalization would bring. Indeed. For one thing, if this ever comes to pass, we will add to the carnage caused by drunk drivers, more carnage caused by drivers who are stoned. Nor is it valid to argue that since alcohol is legal, marijuana should be legal, too. Alcohol is out of one's system in a matter of hours for moderate drinkers. THC, the main ingredient in cannabis, stays in the body for up to 30 days, which means it continues to impair the user that much longer after the first high has worn off. Harvard psychiatry professor Harrison Pope studied marijuana's long-term effects on cognition. He postulates that one reason for the lengthy period of impairment, is that THC "dissolves in body fat, then slowly percolates into the blood and brain over days and weeks after a joint is smoked," according to the Harvard Gazette. Marijuana today is nothing like what it was when Trudeau's father was prime minister. The University of Mississippi's marijuana potency monitoring project found that in 1983, the average THC concentration was less than four per cent; in 2008, it was over 10 per cent. For hydroponically grown marijuana, it's around 25 per cent. C. Heather Ashton, emerita professor of clinical psychopharmacology, at Britain's University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, reviewed the scientific knowledge "of mechanisms of action, effects on psychomotor and cognitive performance, and health risks associated with cannabis consumption." Her report, published in 2001 in the British Journal of Psychiatry, concluded: " ... Actions on specific brain receptors cause dose-related impairments of psychomotor performance with implications for car and train driving, airplane piloting and academic performance. Other constituents of cannabis smoke carry respiratory and cardiovascular health risks similar to those of tobacco smoke. Cannabis is not ... a harmless drug, but poses risks to the individual and to society."A study led by Harvard University's School of Public Health showed that "at least weekly use of marijuana during pregnancy" is a risk factor for premature separation of the placenta, which can result in fetal brain damage, prematurity and stillbirth. Columbia University researchers have found that marijuana smoking can cause "long-term impairment of memory in adolescents; prolonged impairment of psychomotor performance; a sixfold increase in the incidence of schizophrenia; cancer of mouth, jaw, tongue and lung in 19-30 year olds," and leukemia in children whose mothers smoke pot. In a 2009 report, Evidence on the Carcinogenicity of Marijuana Smoke, the California Environmental Protection Agency noted: "Studies reporting results for direct marijuana smoking have observed statistically significant associations with cancers of the lung, head and neck, bladder, brain, and testis. The strongest evidence of a causal association was for head and neck cancer, with two of four studies reporting statistically significant associations ... Among the epidemiological studies that reported results for parental marijuana smoking and childhood cancer, five of six found statistically significant associations." That included higher rates of leukemia in children whose fathers or mothers smoked pot. Then, there is the link between marijuana and schizophrenia. "Schizophrenia caused by or contributed by cannabis may be more severe than schizophrenia in general," Dr. Peter Allebeck, a professor in the department of public health sciences at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, said last April, at the 21st European Congress of Psychiatry. Allebeck noted that marijuana users appear to have a type of schizophrenia "that may be more severe than schizophrenia cases in general." Earlier this month, Dr. Samuel Wilkinson, of Yale University's department of psychiatry, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "Though they receive little attention in the legalization debate, the scientific studies showing an association between marijuana use and schizophrenia and other disorders are alarming. A 2004 article in the highly respected British Journal of Psychiatry reviewed four large studies, all of which showed a significant and consistent association between consumption of marijuana (mostly during teenage years or early 20s) and the later development of schizophrenia." Just last month, the journal Biological Psychiatry published a study showing that long-term pot smokers have lower levels of dopamine in their brains, resulting in a lack of motivation. Marijuana can also destroy marriages. Researchers Kazuo Yamiguchi of the University of Chicago and Denise Kandel of Columbia University wrote in the Journal of Marriage and Family that their studies have shown that "marijuana use greatly increases the rate of becoming divorced ..." Just like any substance abuse - so no surprise there. Legalizing this drug would only increase the misery and the harm it is already causing. Flip-flops are nothing new for politicians, and Justin Trudeau needs to do a major one on this issue. Naomi Lakritz is a Herald columnist. nlakritz@calgaryherald.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, July 26, 2013 9:55 am From: "Dennis R. Young" Subject: Jesse Kline on property rights: When environmental ... ...inspectors attack Jesse Kline on property rights: When environmental inspectors attack PHOTO CAPTION: We're from the government and we're here to help. Jesse Kline | 13/07/25 | Last Updated: 13/07/25 2:29 PM ET http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/07/25/jesse-kline-on-property-rights-when-environmental-inspectors-attack/ The idea that a man's home is his castle is a longstanding legal tradition dating back to ancient Rome. "What more sacred, what more strongly guarded by every holy feeling, than a man's own home?" asked Cicero, the great Roman politician and philosopher. The principle, which prevents the state from entering a private residence without proper cause, was enshrined in British common law in 1604. In recent times, however, it has been eroded by courts and governments that are all too eager to intrude upon the lives of private citizens. One of the few exceptions was Nova Scotia Provincial Court Judge Paul B. Scovil, who ruled last year that Garth Hicks had every right not to let a Department of Environment inspector enter his yard to investigate a complaint from a nosy neighbour that Hicks had burnt garbage in a barrel. The case hinged on whether Hicks' yard could be considered a "private dwelling place." The judge quite reasonably argued that this is defined as, "a residence, temporary or permanent, to which the public does not have access and includes the lands and structures attached thereto." He, therefore, concluded the inspector "required either permission from Mr. Hicks, a warrant or an order . in order to enter on Mr. Hicks' property." Indeed, if police need a warrant to search a property as part of a murder investigation, surely environmental inspectors and bylaw officers, who investigate crimes nowhere near as serious in nature, should be required to do the same. But this was not enough for the province's highest court, which overturned the decision Monday, on the grounds that Judge Scovil had erred in his interpretation of a "private dwelling." "[I]t could never have been the intention of the Legislature to oblige inspectors carrying out their duties in accordance with the Act to be prohibited from entering and inspecting the yards and outlying lands of a property owner without first obtaining the owner or occupants consent or, failing that, a court order," wrote Justice Jamie Saunders in his decision. "I do not accept [Mr. Hicks'] submission at the hearing before us that allowing the Crown's appeal in this case would lead to an 'open season' of provincial inspectors 'leaping fences' to shut down family barbecues or cottage picnics." If only this were the case. Unfortunately, otherwise law-abiding Canadians are bullied by provincial and municipal inspectors all the time, often resulting in considerable financial losses. Take the case of Mark Barnfield from Welland, Ont. In 2005, Barnfield purchased a chunk of land near Niagara Falls. In 2009, after losing his job, he decided to open a paintball range on the property. Barnfield conducted an environmental assessment, obtained all the necessary permits from the province and the municipality, and proceeded to clear rusting cars and other junk from the property and build a dirt path to provide access for future customers. Ontario could certainly use more entrepreneurs like Barnfield, but instead of giving him a pat on the back and allowing him to earn an honest living, the government sent inspectors from the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA) to trespass on his property. After one of them found a dead turtle, the land was reclassified from an industrial zone to a Provincially Significant Wetland. The NPCA has dragged Barnfield through successive court battles for over three years now, continually appealing lower court decisions, despite the fact that, save one dead turtle, none of the protected species claimed to live on the property have ever been found. Nor would having a paintball range be all that damaging to the ecosystem, and Barnfield has already removed large scraps of metal from the property, reverting it to a more natural state than when he found it. The NPCA has also willfully trampled on Barnfield's private property rights and thrown the rule of law right out the window by changing the rules on whether a business can be setup on the land in the middle of the game. All this will be decided by a Superior Court judge who heard the case in February. In the meantime, Barnfield has been prevented from opening his small business, faces a possible $30,000 fine and will likely have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to cover legal costs and the removal of the dirt path. While stories such as these rarely make front-page news, they are all too common across this country. Years of enacting silly municipal bylaws and nit-picky federal and provincial regulations have created a whole host of rules that government inspectors can use to harass property owners who are just trying to enjoy their property or earn a living. At the very least, environmental inspectors and bylaw officers should be held to the same standard as law enforcement officers: They should be required to obtain a warrant before trespassing on private property, even if they are confining themselves to the yard. Yet, in Ontario, the Municipal Act gives city employees the right to walk into anyone's backyard "at any reasonable time." Changing provincial laws, such as this, would be a good first step. But Canadians won't truly be secure from government agents trampling on their land, until property rights are enshrined in the Charter. National Post . Email: jkline@nationalpost.com | Twitter: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 09:50:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Lorne Gunter: Jumping the gun Jumping the gun By Lorne Gunter ,QMI Agency First posted: Saturday, July 13, 2013 10:00 PM MDT The American Thinker magazine has just published a study by researcher Sierra Rayne comparing the effect of gun laws on crime rates in 102 countries. The results don't surprise me a bit. According to Rayne, “there is no significant correlation between the rate of gun ownership and the homicide rate by guns among these countries. There is also no correlation, either, between gun ownership and the rate of other violent gun crimes such as armed robbery and assault with a weapon. That means limiting civilian gun ownership does not reduce crime. There are countries such as Norway and Switzerland that have high rates of gun ownership (similar to those in the United States), yet have very low rates of gun crime. Meanwhile, there are countries that have very low official rates of gun ownership and lots of gun controls - Russia, for one - that have gun-crime rates at or above America's. Rayne found no beneficial effect on crime regardless of what legal controls national governments imposed on gun owners. Licensing doesn't make our streets safer, for instance, nor does the registration of guns whether rifles, shotguns or handguns. Rayne doesn't state this, but the reason is obvious: Criminals ignore gun controls. I have always thought it absurd that anti-gun activists could believe that regulating legal gun ownership could cut down on violent crime. By definition, criminals have no regard for the law. That's why they cheat, rob, steal, break-in, beat and kill in the first place. Yet somehow it makes sense to otherwise highly educated gun-control supporters that criminals will obey mandatory licensing and registration requirements. Criminals who never hesitate to break laws against murder, theft, rape and more will suddenly stop what they are doing and stand in line to register their guns. Rayne's research shows once again that law-abiding citizens with guns are no threat to the community. George Orwell once wrote that the "rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy."ť It is a sign of who is in charge in a country - the people, not the politicians or police. I refuse to trust any government that doesn't trust my law-abiding neighbours - the manager of the local hardware store, the farmer or rancher down the road, the target shooting enthusiast, the guy whose hobby is collecting antique firearms - to own guns. We are in trouble when our governments start to look upon ordinary citizens with suspicion just because they own guns. But that is exactly what has happened in Canada. It's that attitude that was behind the RCMP's recent gun grab in High River. Another effect of this mentality is government misdirection of tax dollars. A gun registry that cost $2 billion or $3 billion makes sense only after you've convinced yourself that regular people with guns are as dangerous as criminals with guns. Only then can you justify spending so much money setting up a central database and bureaucracy rather than spending it rounding up drug dealers and gangbangers. To further illustrate how futile it is for police to spend their time running around harassing law-abiding gun owners, consider what Gary Mauser, an emeritus professor at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. found 2011: Gun owners are less than half as likely to commit murder as the population as a whole. Indeed, the rates of all sorts of crime - violent and otherwise - are much lower among gun owners than among the general population. No matter how much governments harass, probe, interrogate and watch over legal gun owners, their efforts will never have a meaningful impact crime stats. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 11:01:48 -0600 From: Larry James Fillo Subject: "What's behind Canada's improving crime stats?" An interesting article, the comment about politicians trying to take credit for trends that were already in play is telling. The other, about people being reluctant to report even some serious crimes as confidence in the justice system(industry?) is now a major issue. If Ian Thompson had not called 9-11 about the attempt on his life, would he not have been better off? He'd be $60,000 less in debt. On the plus side he and millions of others know to fear not only violent criminals but also the state who so enthusiastically protects them. Not reporting crime is safer, being less likely to be a victim of the justice industry for lawful gun owners now? Being a witness to crime is now a suspicious act under Canada's Firearms Laws. The major under reporting was the massive spike in crime on January 1, 2001, when suddenly 3-4 million citizens became criminals committed 7-8 million crimes simply for possessing their own property. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's behind Canada's improving crime stats? Latest drop likely not linked to government's 'tough-on-crime' policies, experts say By Kazi Stastna, CBC News Posted: Jul 26, 2013 5:03 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 26, 2013 12:00 PM ET Last year's three per cent decrease in Canada's overall police-reported crime rate conforms to the general downward trend that has seen the rate of crime reported by police drop 26 per cent between 2002 and 2012. (Luke Macgregor/Reuters) Feds to defend mandatory minimum sentences as constitutional Canada's crime rate lowest since 1972 Feds on collision course with courts over omnibus crime law Counting crime in Canada External Links Read the StatsCan report (Note:CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.) Statistics Canada figures released Thursday suggest the crime rate in Canada fell again last year, dropping three per cent between 2011 and 2012. But experts are warning Canadians not to read too much into the numbers. Governments and police like to take credit when crime statistics improve, but more often than not, such numbers point to broad long-term trends rather than the effect of specific policies, says Anthony Doob, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto. • Read the report The rates of most kinds of police-reported crime have been dropping steadily since about 1991, long before the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper began introducing its "tough-on-crime" polices, such as increased mandatory minimum sentences and restrictions on credit for time served. The overall crime rate has dropped 26 per cent since 2002, and violent crime is down 17 per cent in that period. The latest year-to-year drop is "more of the same," says Doob, and is perfectly in line with the decrease in crime that Canada and other countries have been experiencing in the past two decades. "The one thing that's clear is this is a long-term trend and has nothing to do with any of the so-called crime policies of the government," Doob said. 'Peaks and valleys' in crime stats To truly assess the impact of specific measures would require a more nuanced breakdown of crime statistics than the latest report provides, Doob said. To evaluate whether the increase in mandatory minimum sentences for certain firearm offences that the government introduced in 2008 as part of its omnibus crime bill decreased the crime rate, one would need to know, for example, whether there has been a change in the number of robberies committed with a firearm. "This level of things doesn't tell you that, because they don't break down robberies by firearms or not, and you'd [also] want to look at exactly when the changes occur," he said. "Most of the more notable things that the government has done are kind of broad and across-the-board things like the [restricting of] credit for pre-sentence custody, and those things, you wouldn't expect to have any effect [on the crime rate]." Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, agrees that the country's crime rate, while reflecting some of what police on the ground experience, doesn't capture the whole picture. Homicide rates and the incidence of gun-related crimes in urban areas, for example, can be closely linked to shifts in gang activity or particular police operations, he said. "There are peaks and valleys, and it really depends on what the organized crime groups are doing, who they're feuding with, what their activities are," he said. "In B.C, where we've had some significant decreases in homicide rates (a 19 per cent drop in 2012), you can really correlate that to the gang activity and some pretty large-scale investigations." Targeted policing Still, Stamatakis insists that changes in police methods and the investments made in policing (about $20.3 billion in 2011-12 on criminal justice in general, which includes jails, court costs and policing) deserve some of the credit for the falling crime rates . 'We do a much better job of targeting specific problem areas or problem crimes, and we definitely do a lot more analytical work.'— Tom Stamatakis, president, Canadian Police Association "We do a much better job of targeting specific problem areas or problem crimes, and we definitely do a lot more analytical work, which then informs us as we target certain activities or certain people," Stamatakis said. But he also admitted that the crime rate is affected by a lot more than public policies and policing tactics. Everything from the falling birth rate to the aging population to the greater time young men under 30, who make up the largest proportion of offenders, spend playing with electronics inside rather than running around outside potentially getting into trouble has played a role in driving down the crime rate, he said. Technology has also played a part in reducing certain kinds of crime, says University of Ottawa criminologist Irvin Waller. The Statistics Canada numbers show that property crime has dropped 33 per cent since 2002, motor vehicle theft is down 57 per cent and break-and-enter crimes were down 43 per cent since 2002, improvements that are largely the result of advances in anti-theft technologies, Waller said. "It's basically quite hard for an amateur to steal a car today whereas Dodge Caravans in the 90s were very easy to steal," he said. "The same, up to a point, is true for break-ins, because people increasingly have alarms." Rates depend on reporting Looking at crime trends in terms of what's going on with specific types of offences is a lot more instructive than looking at the overall crime rate or the Statistics Canada's Crime Severity Index, which weights each type of offence based on the sentence it carries and has also been on the decline in recent years. "The separation of property crime from violent crime from 'other' [offences] is extraordinarily important," Waller said. "The vast majority of violent crimes are assaults, and these are very much subject to decisions as to whether the victim calls the police and also whether the police record it, so you can get quite large changes in assault that have nothing to do with the reality changing." • Feds defend mandatory minimum sentences The number of drug offences reported, which falls under the "other" category in the Statistics Canada numbers, can depend largely on whether police are choosing to more actively enforce cannabis laws, for example, rather than any actual rise in the number of offences being committed. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has introduced a series of legislative measures aimed at imposing tougher punishments on certain criminals. But experts say they had little to do with reducing Canada's crime rate. (Chris Wattie/Reuters) The role that the reporting of crime plays in crime statistics is a contentious issue. The government itself has cited the failure of police-reported crime statistics to capture the true extent of criminal activity when justifying its tougher crime legislation. According to the 2009 General Social Survey, only 31 per cent of crime is reported, although this varies greatly depending on the type of crime. Sexual assaults, for example, are grossly underreported, with only 12 per cent of assaults reported to police while break-ins are the most likely household crime to be reported, with 54 per cent of incidents reported to police. There are also regional variations. Quebec has a higher reporting rate than Ontario, Waller said, largely as a result of greater availability of government services for victims and greater compensation for victims of violent crime. "There are a lot of serious crimes that go underreported," said Stamatakis. "We see a lot of reluctance from victims. Often, they're afraid of reprisal [or] they find the criminal justice system quite frustrating." Common crimes Stamatakis also takes issue with some aspects of Statistics Canada's methodology, such as the fact that when an incident involves multiple offences, only the most serious offence is counted as the reported crime. The agency says that this is so that crimes can be tracked more consistently over time, but Stamatakis says the overall effect is an underreporting of crime. "The other area of crime that's completely underreported and that we're just not paying enough attention to is internet-based crime, technological crime," he adds. 'Most of us within the last week — probably within the last couple of days — have been victims of crimes.'— Anthony Doob, criminologist This burgeoning area of criminal activity includes everything from child pornography to commercial crime to various uses of technology to defraud individuals of large amounts of money, Stamatakis said. But other experts disagree and say underreporting is not significant enough to truly skew crime statistics. Doob says underreporting is largely the result of people's failure to report the many minor crimes they encounter in their daily lives but that they feel don't warrant police attention or won't be pursued by police. "Most of us within the last week — probably within the last couple of days — have been victims of crimes," he said. "The most common crime that occurs to anybody with a computer is some attempt at fraudulent behaviour. "We all receive the Nigerian request emails ... but nobody I know has ever even thought about referring those to the police, but surely, they're all crimes." ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V15 #841 *********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca Moderator 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".)