Dec 09 2005
Gun ban: Letter writing
This morning I decided I would do a little letter writing. It’s just the start but an email to the MP for my riding seemed the obvious choice. I’ve taken a few liberties for dramatic effect, but I s’pose grandstanding is a two-way street, no?
To: Yasmin Ratansi (Ratansi.Y@parl.gc.ca)
Date: November 9, 2005Yasmin,
I have been a supporter of the Liberal party for years, Don Valley East has been a Liberal riding for quite some time, and I feel you have served us well. I was more than willing to support you again in the upcoming election, that is until yesterday when I heard the Prime Ministers announcement regarding the banning of handguns in Canada.
I am a shooting enthusiast, and while I supported the gun registry this step has clearly gone too far. I’m afraid the gun ban seems to do little to address the concerns we Torontonians have about escalating crime in our city, and instead it penalizes law abiding gun owners diverting resources that might better be spent in the pursuit of criminals.
I’m afraid that I am being forced to reassess my vote in the upcoming election, as much as it pains me I do not feel that I can, in good conscience, support the Liberals with this issue unresolved.
Erik Ingerman
And just because the address is easy to find, a quick letter to the prime minister.
To: Paul Martin (Martin.P@parl.gc.ca)
Date: November 9, 2005Dear Prime Minister Martin,
I know the chances of you actually reading this missive are slight, but I hope that it will find its way across your desk and that you will take a moment to read it.
I am a quiet Canadian sir, I go to work each day to support my wife and child, I pay my taxes, I vote Liberal when it is time for me to offer my meagre participation in our electoral system. I have no soapbox sir, I am usually content to sit on the sidelines and leave the process of government to the government.
Your recent announcement regarding a handgun ban, however, has shattered my support for the Liberal party. A party that, until recently, I viewed as a reliable voice among the din of rhetoric and hyperbole.
I am a gun owner you see, and while I supported the firearms registry, despite it’s massive cost overruns, I cannot support further measures that penalize law abiding citizens. Diverting resources that would be better spent investigating and prosecuting those behind the escalating violence our country has stood witness to.
I have been made to feel victimized despite committing no crime. I have been made to feel unclean despite my strict adherence to the regulations that have been forced upon me. I feel I am being told that I am worse than the criminals walking our streets, and certainly no more trustworthy.
Mr. Prime Minister I implore you to rethink this course of action, so that quiet Canadians like myself will not be forced to support another party when it comes time to cast our ballot.
Sincerely,
Erik Ingerman
[Hard copies to be mailed out shortly]
C’mon Cannuck gun owners, sound off. What are YOU doing to fight this? What should WE be doing to fight this?
Registration always leads to confiscation.
I could have told you so.
How about we do a trade? Maybe half a million liberal Washingtonians for a bunch of gun-toting Canadians? To sweeten the deal, we’ll even give you a ten to one exchange rate!
…….Mr. C.
I wrote a letter to Gordon Campbell. Flatly put, nobody in Ottawa can find BC on a map, let alone care what we think out here. Writing to a Canadian politician while living in BC may feel good, but our letters get filed in the same bin as the protest letters from Bolivia.
I figure, like lots of other firearms owners, if we pile on the BC Liberals(Despite them having no connection with the Canadian Liberals)to state without question that they don’t support this and not one nickel of the BC law enforcement budget will be spent on it(Remember, 90% of the LE budget comes from the province and the municipalities).
good thing all things can be hidden, or put a stock on it and call it a long gun
As a fan of your site from down south, I gotta ask: what good is a gun registry, other than to be a future confiscation checklist? How many criminals registered their handguns? I know the argument about “we license cars but not handguns”, nuts to that!
This is probably a cliche argument, but it seems like it’s being proven true: that being that banning one gun is just an increment for the next.
The evolution:
“Nobody needs a .50 cal barrett rifle”
“Nobody needs a semi-auto AK, you can’t hunt with that, you don’t need a thirty round clip”
“Nobody needs handguns”
“Nobody needs large bore rifles”
“Nobody needs more than a single action rifle”
“We’ve banned everything else, nobody needs .22 rifles”.
Sorry to be a jerk. We’d welcome you guys down here, but Toronto’s a cool town. Stay and fight.
Greg: Agreed, I don’t like letters personally, but it provides some outlet, and somewhere some bean counter ticks off a column under the heading “against”.
Med56: Hidden? I have no recollection of the events in question sir.
How’ve ya been anyway Scott?
Steve: I dunno, I used to be a bit of a moderate, but I find myself being pushed farther and farther to the extreme end of the spectrum on this.
My original thought was that a registry, assuming the government doesn’t have a hidden agenda seeking to disarm the populace, was not a bad idea. Owners should be licenced and the firearms should be registered. Much like vehicles. For the few million price tag originally forcast, it seemed like a good idea.
Even in my short time as a recreational shooter and gun owner I’ve watched the “incremental approach” you’ve described begin it’s magic, No more I say. Moderation has entirely failed to serve the firearms owners of this country.
We’ve no constitutional right to firearms, but we’d better defend each and every concession we have with respect to them, or they’ll all be whittled away one by one.
Should we lose I’ll buy you a beer. It’ll be easy, because I’ll be living south of the border myself.
(Nah, you’re not being a jerk… but at the very least, if we lose this fight it should serve as a shining example to gun owners south of the line)
yep it’s me been in hidding thought I would come back and visit here for awhile and see how the crazy gun toting people are doing.