The funeral of the second soldier killed in the last week has just concluded, but the political games have just started.
First, a disclaimer: I own firearms, and have not, until now, been a supporter of the registry. I thought that the PAL system – a licence to own and purchase firearms – was good enough. I guess I was wrong.
If the attacks are the result of drug addiction and mental illness, then why doesn’t the government want to spend more money dealing with the same? Don’t they believe that people can’t actually manage these issues by themselves?
That’s why mental illness is accepted by the courts as grounds for not convicting.
On the other hand, if this really is about domestic terrorism (and its difficult to see how anyone can conclude this, since both individuals were shot dead without ever undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, in spite of subsequent reports that everybody around the two individuals noticed, and in some cases reported, that they were acting like nuts) then shouldn’t we be concerned with the question of how terrorists get their hands on weapons?
And shouldn’t a gun registry–just like an automobile registry, which already exists, complete with compulsory insurance – be an obvious part of this?
If we can stop terrorists from getting guns, or better yet, find out who is supplying them, then we limit them to things like knives and MacGyver-style bombs. And cars, of course. It’s not as though anyone can go out and buy a ton of Amno (ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer which can be used as a bomb) without being examined by the police.... So why not guns?
We don’t have to incarcerate people on suspicion. We don’t have to tap the phones of every birdwatcher in Canada.
Harper just has to admit he was wrong.
Richard Smiley,
Anglemont