The Great Gun Control Debate

[Redeye]

I see the proponents of tightened gun laws in Switzerland seem to be concerned about the high rate of firearm-related suicide....

I guess they're not concerned about preventing suicide, they just want people to stop using a firearm to do so. :nod:

As I recall a lot of suicide prevention research focused on the fact that it is often an impulsive act, so it would follow that removing a means with a high probability of "success" from homes would help.  Read yesterday (BBC I believe) that Switzerland had about 700 firearms suicides per year with somewhere between 100-200 committed with service rifles.  It is not unreasonable to infer that if that means was not present there's some chance the rate would drop.  It doesn't solve the whole problem, of course, but when you don't have the perfect solution you look at things that would help.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Yes, but overall suicide rates don't change much regardless of what measures are taken to remove the object from the person. I got to watch quite few people jump off of bridges (We were supposed to rescue them, but water does funny things to humans impacting it at velocity) watching their faces with high power bino's, you will see their face change just prior to the jump, once they decide to do it for real, all their concerns are taken care of, they look relieved and almost happy.

 

[mariomike]

Yes, but overall suicide rates don't change much regardless of what measures are taken to remove the object from the person.

Is your opinion based on subject matter experience?
It would mean that the time and money spent on suicide barriers on subways, buildings and bridges around the world has been wasted. It does not make suicide impossible, but it shows that we, as a caring society, at least make an effort at prevention.

I got to watch quite few people jump off of bridges (We were supposed to rescue them, but water does funny things to humans impacting it at velocity) watching their faces with high power bino's, you will see their face change just prior to the jump, once they decide to do it for real, all their concerns are taken care of, they look relieved and almost happy.

Who handled the rescue / recovery? Our Marine Unit responds to all water related emergencies. Even obvious DOA's are recovered for autopsy and Next of Kin.

At any rate, better they hit water than a pedestrian doing a Peter Pan from a skyscraper.

The Bloor Viaduct was the second ranking suicide magnet in North America, until Toronto put a six million dollar "luminous veil" on it in 2003.
I believe they considered using a circus net, barbed wire, or low voltage.
Being over the Don Valley Parkway, jumpers had killed motorists and caused accidents. There were emergency phones at each end.
Spectators would slow down or park their cars on the DVP to watch. Sometimes many police were tied up with crowd control up on the Viaduct, while trying to grab jumpers, or talk them out of it. It could take hours, and some would come back the next day. Lots of news reports about traffic tie-ups, but seldom, if ever, about the cause. The theory seemed to be that reporting would encourage copycats.
They could have used the nearby Queen St. bridge, but it did not seem to have the same attraction.
As far as guns go, in my experience, they have always been a popular choice.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Is your opinion based on subject matter experience?
It would mean that the time and money spent on suicide barriers on subways, buildings and bridges around the world has been wasted. It does not make suicide impossible, but it shows that we, as a caring society, at least make an effort at prevention.

It's not so much prevention as it is making the act not a public spectacle and/or danger.

Folks who REALLY want to end it go quietly into the night, those who are doing it for other reasons go public.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Let's not get off on a suicide tangent here please.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[NavyShooter]

Back sort of on topic...did anyone see the planned changes to Canada's Self defense and Citizen's Arrest provisions that were presented today?

 

[Dissident]

Saw them. Waiting for a lawyer to give me a good interpretation.

 

[GAP]

Long-gun registry to be shot down Thursday
By BRYN WEESE, Parliamentary Bureau
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/10/19/18850681.html

OTTAWA -- The feds are taking aim at the controversial long-gun registry Thursday when they are expected to table a bill to scrap it.

The bill is expected to pass easily in the Conservative majority Parliament.

According to Sara MacIntyre, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister, this bill is a "priority" for the government.

"It is one of our commitments. It is something we're moving forward on," MacIntyre said Wednesday. "It's a priority piece of legislation."

While the order paper notice only hints at amendments to the Firearms Act, a source close to the file told QMI Agency the bill is expected to fully repeal the requirement to register long-guns. It will also re-write the Firearms Act to specify only restricted and prohibited firearms need to be registered.

Also, according to the source, all long-gun registry records will be destroyed.

The long-gun registry was introduced in 1995 by Jean Chretien's Liberal government and while it said the program would only cost $2 million, costs ballooned to over $1 billion.

Gun control advocates and the country's chiefs of police have argued it provides valuable information to officers, and have also suggested it has lowered rates of domestic violence.

Critics, though, have blasted the registry as ineffective and wasteful, and say it does not improve public safety, but rather targets law-abiding shotgun and rifle owners.
end of article

 

[Sig_Des]

Bill to Scrap the LGR being table today, looks like. About time

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/19/long-gun-registry-to-be-shot-down-thursday

Long-gun registry to be shot down Thursday

OTTAWA - The feds are taking aim at the controversial long-gun registry Thursday when they are expected to table a bill to scrap it.

The bill is expected to pass easily in the Conservative majority Parliament.

According to Sara MacIntyre, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister, this bill is a "priority" for the government.

"It is one of our commitments. It is something we're moving forward on," MacIntyre said Wednesday. "It's a priority piece of legislation."

While the order paper notice only hints at amendments to the Firearms Act, a source close to the file told QMI Agency the bill is expected to fully repeal the requirement to register long-guns. It will also re-write the Firearms Act to specify only restricted and prohibited firearms need to be registered.

Also, according to the source, all long-gun registry records will be destroyed.

Let's hope they handle that part efficiently.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Bill to Scrap the LGR being table today, looks like. About time

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/19/long-gun-registry-to-be-shot-down-thursday

Let's hope they handle that part efficiently.

The tax payer's assn want the licensing to go out the window too.  They want to see a return to the FAC.  Hope the HG does just that.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Bill has been delayed no one is sure why and when it will appear.

 

[Sig_Des]

Bill has been delayed no one is sure why and when it will appear.

Apparently "dotting i's and crossing t's"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/10/hey-what-happened-to-that-long-gun-registry-bill.html

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting idea about gun control south of the border:

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/10/daniel-zimmerman/should-there-be-a-gun-purchase-individual-mandate/

Should Government Enact A Gun Purchase Individual Mandate?
Posted on October 20, 2011 by Dan Zimmerman

To say that ObamaCare is controversial is like saying that Grace Kelly was attractive; it doesn’t begin to to capture the depth and breadth of the point being made. And probably the most controversial aspect of healthcare nationalization is the requirement – under penalty of law – that individuals buy health insurance. The constitutionality of that particular issue is moving inexorably toward resolution by the Supreme Court. Opponents argue that if you can tell people they have to buy insurance, there’s no limit to the requirements with which government can saddle them. James Johnson, in a letter to the editor of syracuse.com, takes the idea of an individual mandate to the next logical level suggesting that Americans also be required to purchase a gun. Full text of the letter after the jump…

To the Editor:

There is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees a citizen the right to health care. Yet the Obama administration passed a law that contains an individual mandate for citizens to purchase health care. The justification is an extremely warped interpretation of the commerce clause.

In contrast, the Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Heller decision affirming Second Amendment rights, violent crimes plummeted in Chicago. Murder fell by 14 percent, robberies using guns fell by 25 percent and assaults using guns fell by 37 percent.

Also, an armed citizenry is the first line of defense. Based on this, the Republicans in the House should introduce legislation that all citizens who can pass a background check be mandated to purchase a firearm. There is far more justification for this mandate based on the Second Amendment than for the Obamacare mandate, no matter how you try to stretch the commerce clause.

This may not get through the Democratic Senate or past President Obama. If nothing else though, it may give the liberals on the Supreme Court something to think about. After all, there may come a day when the Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency. If the government can make us buy health care insurance against our will, there is nothing to stop them from mandating purchase of a firearm.

James Johnson
Baldwinsville

And as Instapundit points out, this would in fact be Constittional:

Well, unlike the ObamaCare mandate, Congress has an enumerated power for that one. In fact, the Militia Act of 1792 contained just such a mandate.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Interesting idea about gun control south of the border:

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/10/daniel-zimmerman/should-there-be-a-gun-purchase-individual-mandate/

Thanks for that Thucydides and an intertesting point. However, let's try keep this thread focused, as it has been, on the Canadian firearms laws.

We have enough problems of our own, in Canada, without muddying the waters with hypotheticals from south of the border.

Cheers.

 

[Sig_Des]

Bill has been TABLED!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/25/pol-gun-registry.html

New long-gun registry bill would destroy records
By Meagan Fitzpatrick, CBC News Posted: Oct 25, 2011 11:00 AM ET Last Updated: Oct 25, 2011 11:03 AM ET

The Conservative government has tabled its bill to scrap the long-gun registry.

The proposed legislation was introduced in the House of Commons Tuesday morning by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who will hold an event later in the day to talk about the government's latest attempt to kill the registry. He will be joined by Tory MP Candice Hoeppner, whose private member's bill to eliminate the registry nearly passed in the last session of Parliament.

The bill tabled Tuesday goes further than Hoeppner's bill, which provided for the elimination of the requirement to obtain a registration certificate for firearms that are neither prohibited nor restricted firearms. The new bill also provides for the destruction of all records held in the Firearms Registry.

As the federal government prepared to scrap the long gun registry, it was being urged by a number of groups to go beyond simply scrapping it. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has launched a campaign to try to persuade the government to do away with the current licensing scheme as well.

Despite the pressure, Toews said, the government is committed to firearms licensing. "We will continue to license firearms owners to ensure that they are properly qualified to have firearms," the minister said.

More to come

 

[The Bread Guy]

Here you go....

The Conservative government has introduced legislation to scrap the registration of rifles and shotguns.

Police, health and victims groups are among those who are immediately voicing their opposition the bill, which marks the beginning of the end of the controversial long-gun registry.

A private member's bill to kill it was narrowly defeated in the last Parliament, but the Tories promised to try again.

Now with a majority Conservative government, the bill seems certain to pass.

The Tories argue the registration of long guns is wasteful and unnecessary, although they support the licensing of gun owners and the registration of prohibited and restricted weapons.

An internal RCMP evaluation found the federal gun registry was a useful tool for police.

The Coalition for Gun Control says it is urging Canadians to tell their MPs to oppose the legislation.

The group accuses the government of proposing "an archaic rollback of the clock."

The umbrella group for Quebec police forces says rifles and shotguns are most used to kill police officers in domestic violence cases, suicides and incidents involving youth.

It called on the government to transfer registry data to the provinces, something Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has ruled out ....

The Canadian Press, 25 Oct 11

 

[08rangerdan]

finally! Thanks for the confirmation

 

[RussBar119]

It's going to be a mess when the provinces attempt to enact their own registries.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

It's going to be a mess when the provinces attempt to enact their own registries.

No need to fear monger. The only one that has even hinted at it is Quebec. Starting from scratch, it's probably more than they will like to pay. Most have already flat out stated they won't do it.

 

[Loachman]

This is still only baby steps.

There are far worse aspects to the Lieberals' firearms programme, but these have not received the attention in the media that they deserve because of their complexity. Wasted money was a simple concept for journalists though.

Licensing and criminalization of gun owners has to go.

Attacks on constitutionally-guaranteed rights and freedoms (unless one is a law-abiding gun owner) have to go.

"Good gun/bad gun" classifications (prohibitted/restricted/unrestricted) classifications, and, with them, the ridiculous concept of "grandfathering", have to go.

Bans on certain firearms, usually based upon nothing more than "scary" looks have to go.

Idiotic magazine bans have to go.

The political/police/media mindset that guns are evil and owners are deranged criminals-in-waiting has to go.

Pressure has to be maintained on politicians.

I refuse to be a scapegoat for failed Lieberal hug-a-thug policies.