Keep your powder dry...and so long...

As of this weekend, Gun Control Canada, the dot-org, dot-com and dot-ca domains, will be allowed to expire. The core programming, the Blogger link guncontrol-canada.blogspot.com will continue for a time, as will the links (for as long as they remain valid) and the articles on the blog pages. Most of the articles referenced in the links were archived off for safe-keeping in the event the link went bad.

I thought long and hard as to whether I would keep funding the domains or not. When they came up for renewal this month, I decided it was time to let them go, "to all things, there is a season". Traffic levels have never been high enough to support the efforts, even amongst those who profess to defend the right to bear arms in Canada, and while the fight continues in earnest, my time is done. I am simply getting too old to continue the fight on the front lines. I will do what I can when I am able, but its time for me to focus my remaining good years on the many other things that I enjoy, and to maintaining some quality of life as I enter old age.

The Conservatives have been a huge disappointment on the gun rights front. While their lack of majority has prevented some of the legislative changes, they also have not taken advantage of the orders-in-council approaches they might have. Moving the registry to the RCMP was a huge strategic blunder on their part. No police organization in Canada supports an armed citizenry. While individual rank and file members get why the right to bear arms is a fundamental necessity to a free people, its simply counter to the objectives of para-military forces to support such freedoms. The legislative changes they introduced only hands the registry off to the provinces.

The Conservatives have also squandered an opportunity to fix a horribly broken and patronized civil service. Thirteen years of Liberal trough-dipping and grossly incompetent mismanagement have left departmental ruin in its wake. My own department, in which I am a LEO, has now been given the last rites - it is no longer capable of even the simplest of effective enforcement programs.

Forced attrition through programmed staff budget cuts, retirements (and, indeed, early retirements of those no longer interested in carrying on in such an environment), lack of new hires, suspension of meaningful training programs, "corporatization" initiatives, and senior management postings filled with people who don't understand what the work is, or how its done, have destroyed what was once a proud, attuned, professional cadre of civil servants looking out for Canada's interests. Repairs will now take two parliamentary cycles and a massive expenditure. Billions of tax dollars have been squandered, and will have to be spent, to fix what could have been done in the first year of the new Conservative mandate.

The last British WWI veteran was laid to rest this week. My crystal ball, cloudy as it is, predicts that freedom as we understood it, and fought for it, was buried alongside him. The outrageous thuggery of Obama and his administration may be a bellweather of the turmoil to come, if the Americans don't re-align things in 2010. He is well on his way to becoming the most ignoble of US presidents. Americans may need their right to bear arms before his administration finishes.

I will have control of the domains for about 20 days longer for anyone on the side of right wishes to acquire them. Email me.

And to those young enough to carry the torch, hold it high, for the sake of the children (an inside joke, perhaps, but never more appropriate). See you on the range, or in the camp. ... Skip

Anatomy of a Murder - Book Review

How journalists dropped the ball on the Columbine massacre

By Steve Weinberg

Columbine By Dave Cullen | Twelve | 403 pages, $26.99

Ten years ago, two Colorado high school students nudged the name Columbine into general circulation as they massacred students, staff, and faculty, then shot themselves. Naturally, a horde of journalists gravitated to the scene of the crime, a small town outside Denver. Reports from Columbine, including those by a Colorado freelance journalist named Dave Cullen, reached into the most remote American locales.

Eventually, the interest of most journalists in what really happened at the high school waned. Cullen remained interested. He spent years reporting on the massacre, the follow-up by law-enforcement agencies, and the lives of mass murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Most of all, he took pains to separate the myths about April 20, 1999 from the truth.

Now Cullen has published Columbine (Twelve). This superb work of investigation looks to be a definitive account. Unfortunately for the craft of journalism, it is also a searing indictment of almost all the reporters and editors involved in the coverage—the author included. Columbine, it should be said, is not intended primarily as a book of media criticism. The critique is so pervasive, however, that no reader can overlook it.

Most journalists portrayed the slaughter along identical lines. On a whim, went this scenario, two outcast teenagers carried guns to their high school and started shooting, aiming at the jocks who had tormented them but killing others along the way. This bloodbath was the ultimate revenge of the so-called “Trench Coat Mafia,” a Goth splinter group with an affinity for automatic weapons. As Cullen notes, reporters “filtered every new development through that lens.”

The reality is far different. Although quirky, neither Harris nor Klebold was an outcast. They came from loving, two-parent families. They inhabited nice homes in pleasant neighborhoods. They made friends, worked part-time jobs, earned high grades in their classes, planned to attend college, and harbored no special animus against jocks. The killers, contrary to media coverage, were not part of the Trench Coat Mafia, were not Goths, did not celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, and were not born-again Christians.

Nor did the attack stem from a whim. Harris, the primary predator who more or less gave Klebold his orders, had been planning mass murder at the high school for years. He left behind detailed documentation, which he meant to be discovered. Most journalists never reported that horrifying reality.

In fact, most journalists failed to grasp that Harris and Klebold had devised a plan far more deadly than anything they could have accomplished with their arsenal of automatic weapons. They had built propane bombs—fifty-pound explosive devices concealed in duffel bugs, which they planted around the building, undetected, in the middle of a busy school day. If the bombs had detonated as planned, the school building would have collapsed, crushing hundreds and possibly thousands of individuals. The two teenagers were planning a mass murder far surpassing the number of fatalities at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Law-enforcement investigators often make errors in judgment and reach mistaken conclusions. Yet they understood immediately the implications of the propane bombs. Why, then, did countless experienced journalists fail readers, viewers, and listeners on that vital element of the story? Not even Cullen can truly explain this failure. Yet he’s quite clear on how the process worked: due to incomplete and otherwise careless reporting, most journalists formed their frame of reference for the story early, then screened out contradictory evidence. The lesson for working journalists is obvious, but often remains undigested.

Reporters, take heart. At least one news outlet got it right. “The first print story arrived in an extra edition of the Rocky Mountain News,” Cullen notes. “It went to press at three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, before the bodies in the library were found. The Rocky’s 900-word summary of the massacre was an extraordinary piece of journalism—gripping, empathetic, and astonishingly accurate. It nailed the details and the big picture: two ruthless killers picking off students indiscriminately. It was the first story published that spring to get the essence of the attack right—and one of the last.” (Alas, this exemplar of scrupulous reporting went out of business on Friday, February 27, just a few weeks before Columbine hit the shelves.)

Throughout his narrative, Cullen names names of news organizations and individuals who got the story wrong (and those who came close to getting it right). Reading the book carefully for these darts and laurels would constitute a rewarding exercise for any journalist. Beyond that worthy if gossipy exercise, the author’s investigative reporting techniques are on abundant display, not only in the text but in the forty pages of endnotes and bibliography. Columbine promises to be a classic of in-depth journalism—with, again, some sobering evidence of how widely journalists can miss the mark.

Obama to disarm Pilots as first wave of Democratic Citizen Disarmament Program?

H/T HotAir

After 9/11, the US began a new program allowing airline pilots to arm themselves in order to defend the cockpit against terrorist incursion. Along with air marshals, the armed pilots formed a last line of defense against hijackings and worse, such as the al-Qaeda actions that killed 3,000 Americans by using commercial jets as guided missiles. The Washington Times reports that the Obama administration has decided to end the program without letting anyone know about it:

After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings.

Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.

The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots.

It’s not just a diversion of funds from training, either. The Times editorial accuses the new administration of hostility towards the program and using bureaucratic red tape to kneecap it. The pilots who want to defend themselves and their passengers cannot speak out publicly for fear of retribution:

Since Mr. Obama’s election, pilots have told us that the approval process for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the pilots who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval process has stalled out.

Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who act in any way that causes a “loss of confidence” in the armed pilot program risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program. Despite these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have raised real concerns in multiple interviews.

The only people wanting to disarm pilots, as the Times notes in its editorial, are anti-gun extremists … and terrorists. It costs next to nothing to have a pilot arm him/herself. The $2 million in training directly contributes to airline safety. Compare that spending to Porkulus, where $5 million of the $700 billion in government money will go to buy snowmakers. In Duluth.

Only about 3% of all flights have air marshals. That makes for a good deterrent for a single hijacker, but AQ and other organized terrorists can overcome that by using multiple attacks, just as they did on 9/11. Cockpit doors have been reinforced, but they are not impenetrable. An armed pilot, properly trained and equipped, can make the difference between life and death, and not just for the people in the air.

If the Obama administration is pandering to the anti-gun lobby with this initiative — and it’s hard to see why else Obama would shut down this program — then gun owners should dread what comes next out of the White House.

Outdoor Wire Names Obama "Gun Salesman of the Year"

"In recognition of the unprece­dented demand for firearms by nervous consumers, The Outdoor Wire has named President-elect Barack Obama its "Gun Salesman of the Year". For me, it was a simple fact of recognizing that without President-elect Obama's frightening consumers into action, the firearms industry might be suffering the same sort of business slumps that have befallen the automotive and housing industries.It's credit where credit is due. Mr. Obama has consistently voted against individual rights to firearms, appointed a re-tread Clinton administration full of gun banners, and made it plain to anti-gun groups that despite what he might say to the contrary, he's on their side That history, along with the unquestioned support of anti-gun organizations has spooked consumers into a buying frenzy for firearms that could be outlawed in another Assault Weapons Ban.Manufacturers are months behind on orders for semi-automatic pistols, AR-style rifles, and anything with so-called 'high-capacity magazines, buyers we've surveyed across the country seem to have a single explanation for their rush to purchase firearms - Obama.The buying panic is not limited to people you might be described as aficionados or even 'gun nuts'. Recently, I was in a gun store when a gentleman came and said he'd never wanted to own a gun before, but wanted to get one while he still could."Since the November Presidential election, firearms sales have been at unprecedented levels. For December 2008 the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) recorded a twenty-four percent increase in background checks for 2008 (1,523,426) over December 2007 (1,230,525).This follows a forty-two percent (42%) increase in November 2008, the highest number of NICS checks in the system's history. Those FBI background checks are required under federal law for all individuals purchasing firearms from federally licensed firearms retailers. In other words, gun sales have never been better.Sales are so good that on Tuesday, January 6, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a notice to all federal firearms licensees that "an unprecedented increase in demand for ATF Form 4473 had run supplies low enough that dealers were temporarily given permission to photocopy the form until supplies caught up with demand. Completion of a form 4473 is required whenever a federal firearms licensee sells a fire­arm.As a journalist with more than two decades of national newsgathering experience, I've never seen anything approaching what he calls the "Obama effect". In fact, gun and ammunition sales are at such frantic levels that they have surpassed the panic-buying of Y2K or anything during the Clinton years when the first Assault Weapons Ban was passed. This time, he says, concerned consumers are buying guns and ammunition in anticipation of Obama Administration actions to prohibit certain types of firearms.In 1999, the fear was that computers would shut down, crippling the world. Those fears were unfounded. I don't think the fears of an Obama administration banning guns are unfounded. His record speaks for itself. He's never failed to support an anti-gun measure, despite saying he supports the Second Amendment.Moves to prohibit firearms sales would drastically impact a billion-dollar industry that is not only healthy, but pours more than one hundred fifty million dollars annually into conservation programs through an eleven percent tax collected on guns and ammo.The Pittman-Robertson Act provides the vast majority of funding for wildlife agencies at the federal, state and local levels and that money comes directly from the tax levied against gun owners. Damaging the firearms industry won't just put workers in the gun business out of work, it will severely impact wildlife and conservation efforts nationally. That damage could take decades to repair - if it can be undone."Choosing President-elect Obama as the Gun Salesman of the Year is a lot like a good-news, bad-news joke.His election has driven gun sales into the stratosphere, but his opposition to guns and gun ownership may be the biggest threat the industry has ever faced. If he puts scoring political points with anti-gun groups ahead of economic realities, he will be deliberately putting thousands of people out of work. I don't see that as an economic stimulus plan with much of a future.""Today, the facts are indisputable. Barack Obama has spurred gun sales in a time when the entire economy seems to be tanking. If that doesn't make him the gun salesman of the year - if not the decade - I don't know what would. - Jim Shepherd"

2008 WeblogAwards

Small Dead Animals is currently in a dead heat with the U.S. Ace of Spades for Best Conservative Blog. This is a huge endorsement for Kate and SDA, as Ace is a well-known conservative agitator/aggregator who was particularly active during the U.S. presidential election. Support Canadian conservative presence in North America! Toss a vote for SDA today! Poll ends Jan. 13! Show the Yanks, Canuckistan rules!

VOTE NOW! Polls close at 5:00PM EST today!

Best Conservative Blog

Update: Success! By a narrow margin, the Canadian blog Small Dead Animals succeeded in knocking off popular U.S. blog Ace of Spades for Best Conservative Blog. SDA was Best Canadian Blog from 2004-2007, and was bumped into the broader based Best Conservative Blog category this year in order to open the field for Best Canadian Blog. That category was won this year by Ezra Levant, in recognition of Ezra's efforts against the egregious abuses of Canadian human rights commissions and attempts by their proxies to personally shut him down.

Gunter: Gun bans don't prevent murder

Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, October 27, 2008

There is no one more persistent than a liberal with a bad idea. He knows his intellectual and moral superiority make him infallible, so he easily convinces himself there is nothing wrong with his idea; it is the world that is mistaken Even the facts cannot be the facts when they disagree with his idea. So he forges ahead against all reason, attempting to remake the world until it accepts he was correct all along.

Which brings me to the subject of gun bans. As useless as bans have proven, liberal politicians will raise the subject over and over. Thankfully new, unconnected reports from Statistics Canada and Chicago once again point out the futility of banning guns as a way of lowering crime.

This week, Chicago took over as murder capital of the United States. There are several cities that have higher murder rates per 100,000 population, but no city with more total murders.

Even with a population of just over 3 million, Chicagoans can expect more murders -- 500 -- in their city, than in New York (400 murders and 5 million population) or Los Angeles (300 murders and 3.8 million people).

Chicago is also the gun-confiscation and voluntary hand-in capital of the U. S. Over the past decade, Chicago police have confiscated or had surrendered to them an average of 10,800 guns per year. Chicago has also had a complete ban on handgun sales and possession since 1982.

How come there are so many handgun murders and so many confiscations in the Windy City if handguns are banned?

The answer is simple: Criminals ignore laws against handgun ownership more contemptuously even than they ignore those again robbery, assault, rape, drug-dealing and murder.

Crusading politicians may keep law-abiding citizens from possessing guns, but that will do nothing to stop firearms crimes because law-abiding citizens aren't shooting down their rival meth pushers outside strip clubs at 2 a. m.

Statistics Canada reported this week that "while the overall rate of homicides committed with a firearm has generally been decreasing since the mid-1970s [see the top line in the attached chart], the use of handguns has been on the rise. In 2007, handguns were used in two-thirds of all firearm homicides, up from about one-quarter 20 years ago."

This is significant for two reasons.

First, firearms homicides, like total homicides, have been falling since beforeOttawa's initial attempts at gun control in the late 1970s. The cause is demographic, not legislative.

The three major gun control laws passed since 1977 have had little or no effect on gun crime. The decline has been the result of a shrinking population of murdering-age individuals.

There are fewer murders because there are fewer males aged 16 to 30.

The one statistical area stubbornly resistant to decline has been youth homicides. Last year witnessed "the second highest youth homicide rate since data were first collected in 1961," StatsCan reported. If we had more youths, we'd have more murders -- gun control laws or not.

The decline in firearms murders has mirrored the drop in the overall murder rate. If the rate of murders with knives, clubs, fists and other non-firearms has been falling at the same pace as firearms murders, then it is impossible to say gun control laws are behind the fall, unless we also want to assert that gun controls are behind the drop in stabbings, bludgeonings and strangulations, too.

The second reason it is significant that StatsCan's revealed handgun murders have "more than doubled over the past 20 years," is that it has been the law in Canada since 1934 that all handguns be registered. Moreover, after the Liberals implemented their most recent controls in 1998, they confiscated nearly two-thirds of the legally held handguns in the country -- without paying their lawful owners a dime in compensation.

And yet, in Canada, handguns are far and away the most popular type of firearm used in murders.

A handgun is the weapon of choice in twice as many murders as all other gun types combined. In urban areas, according to StasCan, "81% of all firearm-related homicides were committed with a handgun."

If registration and confiscation worked, we would see it in our own handgun murder stats. Instead, we see what an utter failure it has been (and always will be) to take guns away from law-abiding Canadians.

lgunter@shaw.ca

On Tuesday, get out and vote - Conservative!

"When Leftists want to restrict guns, it's because if they had a gun themselves, they'd shoot the Conservative next door out of sheer outrage at their neighbor's politics."

No, this, even said flippantly, is another fallacy about the left's obsession with eliminating firearms in civilian hands.

Its best to think of the left as not wanting to eliminate civilian firearms, but to eliminate civilian firepower. They will allow a food-gathering single-shot longarm for this purpose (and then, only until they eliminate the "need" to hunt).

No, the real rationale of the left has always been to eliminate the ability of the citizen to reclaim his government. To be able to meet and overpower the agents of reclamation and put them down. Its the reason for the interest on semi-automatic and automatic weapons first. These are the equalizers in a skirmish for state control. As long as the state has them and the citizens do not, the odds are tilted in favour of the state.

Same with handguns. The concern is not that citizens will shoot one another with them, or that the streets will turn into a "wild west" gunfight; they already know that that's not true. Its the worry that a citizen with one will come after them, quietly, surreptitiously, and take control away.

David Miller isn't concerned about handguns because black dudes shoot one another at Jane and Finch. He's concerned that someone with a handgun will sneak up and shoot him.

On Tuesday, Canadians are voting to keep control of government in their hands; don't let it slip away. If the thought of a coalition of the moonbats doesn't scare the bejebus out of anyone in Canada, you neither understand nor deserve freedom. Vote for the only party which can assure Canada's (and allow you to protect your own) security in the world turmoil that is coming. Vote Conservative.