this is from the third (?) last time I moved. tomorrow everything I own will yet again be crammed into some vehicles, ferried over to a new place, unpacked and set up again. except this time there’s the added weight of some real furniture. so, you know, more lifting and stuff. the downside to that is having to carry it all down three floors out of here. the benefit is that my new place is on the ground floor and the patio doors are right there so there’s none of this lugging shit through hallways mess. nope, out of the van, over the lawn, through the patio doors and we’re done.
tomorrow will be an exercise in rapidity since I have to go do the move in inspection, then haul as much crap over as I can, then go to a ref meeting which is likely going to end in bloody murder for one person, and then come back here and clean up and then sleep and then wait for my dad to get here on wednesday morning to finish hauling stuff over.
and then beer.
on a totally shiny new topic…
jack layton and firearms regulation. yes, that’s what I said. whilst perusing the news sites at lunch today I read up on the latest in bickering about registration and moral issues surrounding the support of owning guns.
in the last week I’ve had three people say “I never figured you for a gun nut.”
aside from the shrug I can give as a “so?” answer, let’s examine the connotation of the term ‘gun nut’.
what immediately pops into your head when you hear that term? I’m willing to bet an image of some kind of angry Tory supporter who must be a wacko for owning something that has lethal potential. and don’t lie, I’ve discussed this with too many people to know that that’s the immediate reaction of *most* (not all) people. you know, the image of the kind of person who says the firearms registry is a joke! a waste of taxpayer dollars! a Liberal boondoggle!
people tend to get confused when they ask if I shoot and/or own firearms and then I tell them that I’ve voted NDP and support registration. yes, it really can happen. that actually ended up as a conversation in one of my MPP classes where my prof, after having heard me say that, said I was the kind of person that pollsters hate because I don’t follow immediately recognizable trends in firearms support data.
the reason i find jack layton’s decision interesting is twofold. one, he’s allowing his MPs a free vote on the issues. several NDP MPs have stated they will vote to kill the firearms registry because that’s what the majority of their constituents want. I’m a huge proponent of my Parliamentary representative making a vote in the House based on the majority will of their riding. to me, that represents true democratic will ad representation. I applaud Layton’s decision to allow this vote to be free to his MPs in that regard.
however, the second reason I find it interesting is that the NDP is one of the most vocal supporters of registering firearms. allowing a vote to take place that might actually succeed in doing away with the long gun registry runs counter to party policy and belief. Layton then put forward suggestions on how to improve it. first, if the registry is dead, how do you fix it? Second, if Bill C-391 (the private members bill put forth by Tory MP Candice Hoeppner to end the long gun registry) passes, how do you propose to build another one from scratch and avoid the immense amounts of political and public pressure for having just done away with one only to turn around and make a new one that for all intents and purposes might be just as cumbersome?
the solutions presented by Layton (warnings for not registering, upholding treaty rights, no charge for registration, allowing municipalities to ban handguns) are probably policies that, should bill C-391 fail, the Tories will absorb, try to tack onto the current registry and claim as their own. except for the banning handguns part. while I agree with most of them, the proposal to allow municipalities to ban handguns seems like a large political and legal obstacle that most politicians probably wouldn’t want to get too involved in. I think it’s safe to assume that most Canadians aren’t actually aware of just how large the gun lobby is in this country. you try and drum up support for a ban on something they own in a non uniform way and see what happens. guaranteed you will run into years of court challenges.
while the ownership of firearms is not a constitutional right like it is in the US, having passed all the Federally mandated safety courses and training, RCMP background checks, purchasing memberships at firing ranges, etc., I feel that I’m well within my right to own and use whatever type of firearm I can legally purchase. here’s where the conflict of interest sort of sets in. As an individual who has proven to the authorities that I am well able to safely handle these weapons and feel it is my right to do so in an uninhibited manner, I also think that registration and monitoring of ownership is a good idea. that’s where the political class comes from in part. gun owners feel that the government treats them as criminals because the RCMP has their information, knows how many guns they have and so on. My thoughts are that if you’re willing to take the required safety courses and go through the registration process, you have no reason to argue about the information you openly provide to these agencies. the problem I have is when agencies, or individuals, suggest that an object I’ve trained to use, allowed personal information to be kept, and ensure that policing agencies know of its whereabouts at all times, tell me that I’m now not allowed to own it.
a common argument against handgun ownership is “they’re only designed to kill.” so are rifles. that argument really holds no substance when someone can just as easily kill an animal as they can another person with a hunting rifle.
if you really wanted to make headway with that argument, you’d change it to focus on penalizing unsafe and irresponsible owners of any type of firearm. you know, like those assholes in Saskatchewan who poached ducks and were stupid enough to post video of it online. the gun community in this country was screaming its head off at the judge to hand them the maximum sentence to make an example of them as poor firearms owners and users. of course that didn’t happen, leaving most of us shaking our heads wondering why, if the community using these firearms is asking for a precedent to be set, a judge wouldn’t do just that even when presented with overwhelming evidence and opportunity to.
I’m fairly certain that opponents of firearms ownership have no idea what the cost is, both financially and time wise, to be properly trained, licensed and registered to own a gun in Canada. having been through the process many, many times I can say that it’s not painless and it’s not as efficient as people make it out to be sometimes. yet I’ve still put up with it, as have other family members, because we believe in responsible and safe ownership. opponents to guns often conveniently forget that people like us exist sometimes.
but back to Jack. I applaud you for the free vote, I question you solutions to the current registry, and don’t forget that those constituents who are telling your MPs how to vote will not be shy about speaking up if you try to enforce any sort of ban anywhere in the country.
right. that’s all I’ve got for now. back to the packing.