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Reasonable Gun Control: A Canadian Lives with It
As a Canadian I get to live in a country with so-called “common sense” gun control laws. I can share some of the experiences I have had and witnessed in my course of living in a country with these laws.
How common sense is it that, if you own a legal pistol of certain arbitrary calibers (anything greater than a .357), if you want to drive from your home with your gun in a bulletproof locked case to the gun range in order to use it, you must have a police escort. How is that common sense? Yet this is a regulation in Ontario.
I live in the city of Hamilton, where there has been a series of home invasions that have this summer led to the deaths of several home owners. My friend’s house was recently broken into. In this house his elderly father lives along with his 14-year-old sister. His father took one of my friend’s guns from his collection and shot the intruder. My friend’s father now faces multiple charges, including aggravated assault and possession of an unregistered firearm. See, his son had the license and even though they lived in the same house, the father didn’t have the same license. So, the father now faces 10 years in prison. The home invader who has multiple previous convictions will get two years less a day most likely.
Or how about the time a man in southern Ontario had a group of men armed with Molotov cocktails approach his house threatening to firebomb it? He fired three shots in the air to frighten them away. The cops arrived later and, of course, arrested him for firing his gun and charged him.
My understanding is that eventually, after years, he was let go. Of course, I believe he had to sell his home in order to pay his legal bills.
Then there is of course the High River gun grab. Where the federal police seized 600 guns that were safely locked up in an evacuated town. There was of course no one left to “steal” the often times locked up firearms, secured in legal gun cabinets. That didn’t prevent the police from busting into the houses, destroying private property. The cops likely had a forbidden copy of a now destroyed federal database of guns. How much private property was destroyed? $2.3 million worth it seems?
My own experience? I don’t own a gun and I have never fired one in my life. However, three months after buying my old house, a group of what one presumes crackheads. Kicked down the front door of my house. They smashed my cars headlights, they smashed my TV and smashed holes in my wall. They were screaming how they were going to kill everyone in the house. They only seemed to have left as they realized they had smashed into the wrong house.
Fortunately, they left before they smashed me or any of my roommates who had barricaded themselves in their rooms. But after the police response time of 10 minutes and their lackluster investigation (oh, by the way, they never caught the culprits). I have great envy for most Americans who live in places where they can reasonably protect themselves without fear of being arrested by the cops for protecting their life and home from being murdered or destroyed.
So the next time someone goes on about common sense gun control and reasonable law enforcement just point them to this post and tell them exactly how things go for gun owners in Canada. Because when they say they only want reasonable laws, they are lying.
Published in Guns
Thank you, TWW.
This was so enlightening! Could you tell me, Tory, was it like this under Harper? I thought he was so good.
I really, really, really don’t mean to thread-jack, but this sentence confused me.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all who favour “common sense gun control” move to Canada or Cuba? I’m sure they would love the single payer healthcare also. Where is the strength of their convictions?
I took a class a few years ago that had students from Canada. One of them told me that due to a break-in that was similar to your experience, he got an attack dog. Then he started training them, and his business is growing rapidly. It seems Canadian’s want personal protection too, and the dog is still legal, thus the demand.
Thank you for this post. I live in rural (very rural) New Hampshire and know that a lot of my neighbors have guns. I listen to all the progressive bleating about guns and while I know deep inside that people should be allowed to own guns, I’ve never clearly been able to express why or to express why many gun laws are just plain wrong. You just did it for me – thank you.
The guy lives in the house. His father also lives there. His 14-year-old sister, the father’s daughter, also lives there.
When I get home tonight, I intend to reblog this on RushBabe49.com. OK?
My friend is in his lates 30s. His father in the mid 60s. His sister is 13. Old dad, young wife. Now divorced.
Harper was Federal PM. But police is Provincial. The bureaucracy is also very Liberal. So we can appoint good solid conservatives to posts, but they tend over time to become more sympathetic to the bureaucracies they work for than the politics.
The RCMP is the federal Police, but in many jurisdictions it rents it self out to Provinces, such as Alberta. Its really complicated.
Totally feel free to reblog it.
Thank you for answering my question, Tory. I must say that I am still confused. As you say, it sounds very complicated. I’ve heard Mark Steyn over the years talk about the non-freedom to speak and write that seems to be extant there. I feel bad for you.
Incidentally, I may also put this on my blog. Thanks!
Put your questions here, and I will answer them all in detail, when I get home from work tonight.
Thanks. I have three that occur to me:
Please forgive the ignorance? As you as can tell, my knowledge of Canada is pretty limited.
If you believe that database was actually destroyed, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
@misthiocracy What? And here I thought they had a time machine!
So if you have a forbidden gun you will be hurt. But if you have a forbidden database it’s all cool?
Now I have a major objection: mid-60’s isn’t elderly, you young whippersnapper! Elderly is somewhere much farther along the trail.
(I know whereof I talk, I’m 70.)
But congrats to your middle-aged father for hitting the target!
Sorry I couldnt answer your questions last night, Russia I suppose.
That’s what confused me about that sentence – “elderly” father and “14-year-old sister” don’t normally go together (leaving exceptional cases like Tony Randall aside).
The interesting problem with Canadian gun control is there wasn’t so much a dramatic legislative change, but a gradual almost the frog being boiled change in the attitude of law enforcement and prosecutors. For instance the cases of home owners being charged for improper use or storage of a weapon in defense of their life or property. That is not a gun control problem, you are still allowed to use a firearm in self defense, it just depends which cop or prosecutor works your case.
This is not say that the Canadian story shouldn’t be a cautionary tale. But the real danger is not in explicit and clear legislation but in the muddled and arbitrary nature of Canadian laws that allows law enforcement and prosecutors great leeway.
Remember, and this applies to anyone in the world: When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
I thank the Founding Fathers for the 2nd Amendment. I can, and will, protect myself and my family.
Hey Tory guy, I’ll just say that you’ll need to get everyone in the family a .357. With hollow-points, it should be all you’ll ever need.
I caught that too Chuckles and can well remember the day, many years ago, when I thought 40 was old!!
This is why I would never register my guns.