I’m writing in response to the opinion expressed by Dan Cunin in your February 13th edition of the Cochrane Eagle.
I would like to voice an appreciation for disclosing his point of view in public. The more we talk, the better educated we are on the topics of gun ownership in Canada. I also appreciate the comparison between the gun violence in the USA vs. the UK. Despite no relevance to our situation here.
Such well written letter requires, in my opinion, a response, if nothing else just out of respect to a fellow Canadian. Unfortunately, it’s just another voice that is mostly based (contrary to Mr. Cunin’s assurance) on emotions and not the facts.
What the Federal Government is proposing (despite the clear and opposing conclusions deriving from the so called “consultations”) is to ban previously legal property not through debate and legislation in Parliament, but via a closed-door meeting of the cabinet. After the “consultations” were concluded, the government released a document showing 81 per cent of the respondents did not want a gun ban to be instituted.
It’s certainly worth to notice that lately the Petition e-2341 Demanding Democratic Process on Liberals' Firearms Agenda, collected the highest number of signatures in Canadian history. Ever. Precisely nearly 175,000. That’s substantially more than 20,000 signatures on the Petition e-1923 demanding to ban legally owned firearms by the Canadians.
We all should be aware that the tactic selected by Prime Minister Trudeau is unprecedented in the history of our democracy and goes well beyond any sort of legislative democratic exercise and allows for no discussion on the logical aspects behind banning the legally own firearms in Canada. Perhaps for a very good reason.
Targeting the legal gun owners and punishing them for the clear inability of the federal government to fight the violent crime that is on the rise in our cities is like addressing the drunk driving problem by banning the sober drivers from driving their vehicles … Once and for all.
As Professor Garry Mauser of Simon Fraser University proved using the government's own data, Canadian licensed firearms owners are the least likely people to be involved in violent crimes. It’s backed up by the solid data and police experience. The members of the Canadian crime gangs are arming themselves with the guns sourced from south of the border and not from the legal firearms owners in Canada.
Yes, we have the very real problem with gun violence in our cities perpetrated by the criminals who will never follow any law in the first place … So taking the firearms away from those of us, following the strict rules, will do nothing to fix this problem.
Thank You Mr. Blake Richards, our Cochrane MLA, for voicing the common-sense approach to this topic that seems to be unfortunately incomprehensible to some of our neighbours it seems.
- Adam Banach
