Gun Owners Across Canada React to Threats of a Ban on Semi-auto Firearms
Rejuvenated by the Dawson College tragedy, the Coalition for Gun Control, led by Ryerson business professor Wendy Cukier, has been promoting a new assault on law abiding Canadian firearms owners, counselling Dawson College students, amongst others, to get pro-active and spread her particular agenda to strip democratic citizens of their right to own and possess firearms.
There is no question that the Dawson College event was indeed a tragedy. However, like the Ecole Polytechnique shootings, this tragic event has nothing to do with the private ownership of firearms, and in particular, semi-automatic firearms. Like Ecole Polytechnique, Dawson was the work of a suicidal murderous sociopath, who would have used whatever tools he felt would satisfy his particular need. Notwithstanding the hyperbole of the Anti-Gun Lobby, firearms abuse still remains a very small part of the Canadian criminal collective experience.
What is a "semi-automatic" firearm? Simply put, its a means by which a firearm ejects a spent cartridge and reloads another, using some of the energy contained within the cartridge, prior to it being ejected. Its the same action done by a hunter with a bolt-action rifle or pump-action shotgun, only the energy for it is supplied by the gun, not the hand. A semi-automatic firearm is NOT a machine gun, nor, in Canada, are any semi-automatics that can be converted to a machine gun legally available for sale and purchase.
The semi-automatic firearm (the industry term really is "self-loader") is analogous to the difference between a stick-shift and automatic transmission in the family car. It simply reflects a modernization of a technical design for greater convenience in use. There are many popular hunting and sporting firearms that are semi-automatic by design.
Canadian law restricts magazines for semi-automatic rifles (and other types, in the case of hunting laws) to a maximum of five cartridges, just like a typical bolt action hunting rifle. Like everything else in life, manufacturing cost control has promoted the use of synthetics for the manufacture of firearms, just like many other appliances in your home. The traditional attractive walnut-stocked firearm typically associated in the public's mind with "legitimate" sporting firearms, is giving way increasingly to firearms made with synthetic materials in order to keep them affordable. Synthetic stock components also have practical value in the field: they are less easily damaged, and keep their looks longer. Moulding synthetics has also allowed designers to make the firearm more ergonomic, something that is done to everything we use, from forks to furniture.
The downside to the use of synthetic materials for firearms is that it has given the Anti-Gun Lobby a hook to use to try to convince a naive public that firearms made with synthetic components are evil. They're "black", implying they must be military. They're "black" and "semi-automatic", therefore they could only be used for killing people. They further like to append terms like "assault weapon", or "semi-military", to these modern designs.
This, of course, is nonsense. The military uses synthetics too, for the same reasons synthetics are popular with ordinary folk: cost and durability. It should also come as no surprise that ergonomics being what they are, the physical designs of a firearm for the holder would be similar to military firearms as well. A fork is a fork is a fork, whether it be silver plated, or olive drab.
A military assault rifle, by definition, must be a type of machine gun, or fully automatic rifle, and hold many more than the legislated 5 rounds of a civilian firearm. There are no semi-automatic assault firearms. Ordinary Canadian citizens are prohibited from owning a military assault rifle. Yes, certain police departments use firearms commonly available to civilians, for police work. This does not make the firearm a military weapon. Police are not military, and do not conduct policing operations within military assault guidelines, and a conventional firearm, be it "black" or "military-styled", is still a conventional firearm, and like the hunter's and sport shooter's firearms, entirely adequate for its intended use. The most common police long-arm is a "dressed-up" version of the Remington 870 pump action shotgun. It's also the world's most common duck-hunting gun. In black, or camo, or wood.
The "semi-automatic military-styled assault weapon" was a term invented by Josh Sugarman, former director of the Violence Policy Center (a well-known rabid anti-gun organization in the US that would ban all firearms in civilian hands), in order to sway congressional vote in the ill-fated US "assault-weapons ban", a badly flawed bill that focused more on what a firearm looks like rather than how it is used. Congress wisely repealed that law under a sunset clause, but the Anti-Gun Lobby continues to try to use this concocted term to mislead people about the truth about firearms. A semi-automatic cannot be an assault rifle. Canadian citizens are prohibited from owning a military assault rifle.
Canadian firearms owners will not be held responsible for the criminal actions of psychopaths, nor will they tolerate, any longer, being made to bear the brunt of legislation designed to feed the agendas of private individuals, curtail democratic rights, or become the victims of ideologues who would make victims of us all. If you are a legal Canadian firearms owner of any stripe, especially if all you do is hunt, then you MUST go here and do your part. Don't wait, do it today. Your continued firearms ownership depends on it.
There is no question that the Dawson College event was indeed a tragedy. However, like the Ecole Polytechnique shootings, this tragic event has nothing to do with the private ownership of firearms, and in particular, semi-automatic firearms. Like Ecole Polytechnique, Dawson was the work of a suicidal murderous sociopath, who would have used whatever tools he felt would satisfy his particular need. Notwithstanding the hyperbole of the Anti-Gun Lobby, firearms abuse still remains a very small part of the Canadian criminal collective experience.
What is a "semi-automatic" firearm? Simply put, its a means by which a firearm ejects a spent cartridge and reloads another, using some of the energy contained within the cartridge, prior to it being ejected. Its the same action done by a hunter with a bolt-action rifle or pump-action shotgun, only the energy for it is supplied by the gun, not the hand. A semi-automatic firearm is NOT a machine gun, nor, in Canada, are any semi-automatics that can be converted to a machine gun legally available for sale and purchase.
The semi-automatic firearm (the industry term really is "self-loader") is analogous to the difference between a stick-shift and automatic transmission in the family car. It simply reflects a modernization of a technical design for greater convenience in use. There are many popular hunting and sporting firearms that are semi-automatic by design.
Canadian law restricts magazines for semi-automatic rifles (and other types, in the case of hunting laws) to a maximum of five cartridges, just like a typical bolt action hunting rifle. Like everything else in life, manufacturing cost control has promoted the use of synthetics for the manufacture of firearms, just like many other appliances in your home. The traditional attractive walnut-stocked firearm typically associated in the public's mind with "legitimate" sporting firearms, is giving way increasingly to firearms made with synthetic materials in order to keep them affordable. Synthetic stock components also have practical value in the field: they are less easily damaged, and keep their looks longer. Moulding synthetics has also allowed designers to make the firearm more ergonomic, something that is done to everything we use, from forks to furniture.
The downside to the use of synthetic materials for firearms is that it has given the Anti-Gun Lobby a hook to use to try to convince a naive public that firearms made with synthetic components are evil. They're "black", implying they must be military. They're "black" and "semi-automatic", therefore they could only be used for killing people. They further like to append terms like "assault weapon", or "semi-military", to these modern designs.
This, of course, is nonsense. The military uses synthetics too, for the same reasons synthetics are popular with ordinary folk: cost and durability. It should also come as no surprise that ergonomics being what they are, the physical designs of a firearm for the holder would be similar to military firearms as well. A fork is a fork is a fork, whether it be silver plated, or olive drab.
A military assault rifle, by definition, must be a type of machine gun, or fully automatic rifle, and hold many more than the legislated 5 rounds of a civilian firearm. There are no semi-automatic assault firearms. Ordinary Canadian citizens are prohibited from owning a military assault rifle. Yes, certain police departments use firearms commonly available to civilians, for police work. This does not make the firearm a military weapon. Police are not military, and do not conduct policing operations within military assault guidelines, and a conventional firearm, be it "black" or "military-styled", is still a conventional firearm, and like the hunter's and sport shooter's firearms, entirely adequate for its intended use. The most common police long-arm is a "dressed-up" version of the Remington 870 pump action shotgun. It's also the world's most common duck-hunting gun. In black, or camo, or wood.
The "semi-automatic military-styled assault weapon" was a term invented by Josh Sugarman, former director of the Violence Policy Center (a well-known rabid anti-gun organization in the US that would ban all firearms in civilian hands), in order to sway congressional vote in the ill-fated US "assault-weapons ban", a badly flawed bill that focused more on what a firearm looks like rather than how it is used. Congress wisely repealed that law under a sunset clause, but the Anti-Gun Lobby continues to try to use this concocted term to mislead people about the truth about firearms. A semi-automatic cannot be an assault rifle. Canadian citizens are prohibited from owning a military assault rifle.
Canadian firearms owners will not be held responsible for the criminal actions of psychopaths, nor will they tolerate, any longer, being made to bear the brunt of legislation designed to feed the agendas of private individuals, curtail democratic rights, or become the victims of ideologues who would make victims of us all. If you are a legal Canadian firearms owner of any stripe, especially if all you do is hunt, then you MUST go here and do your part. Don't wait, do it today. Your continued firearms ownership depends on it.
posted by Stephen at 8:31 AM
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