From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V7 #438 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Cdn-Firearms Digest Monday, October 4 2004 Volume 07 : Number 438 In this issue: My letter to the Globe and Mail Subject: Re: Why Are You A Bow Hunter? Report says caribou herds facing uncertain future Winnipeg Sun Editorial: DON'T CREDIT REGISTRY Congress 101: If You Want Success, Don't Mess With the Gun Lobby One-third of police killings are 'suicide by cop': study Guns Are King in Indian State: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 23:07:12 -0600 (CST) From: "Bruce Mills" Subject: My letter to the Globe and Mail Just submitted, not yet printed. Have you written a letter today? - ----- Original Message ----- From: Bruce Mills To: Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 1:04 AM Subject: Re: Disclosure requirements in new ethics code stir controversy I don't know what these MPs are whining about, having to disclose such personal information as how much is in their bank account, and if they pay off their credit cards on time. After all, if they have nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear, right? I think they should add a clause to the policy making it a criminal offence to refuse to disclose such vital information - then they'd know exactly how gun owners feel! It's different when it's *your* ox that's being gored, isn't it? Yours in Liberty, Bruce Hamilton Ontario ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:57:47 -0600 (CST) From: "Frank Cochrane" Subject: Subject: Re: Why Are You A Bow Hunter? I would like to take an opportunity to say that this is one thread that needs to be put to rest. Having people who do not understand each other's sport flaming one another on a digest kinda is like watching how our politicains behave when in session. Guys, I mean no disrespect whatsoever but come on. I am a rifle hunter, most years I come home empty handed so does that make me a bad hunter or an extremely patient one? I used to teach archery for a number of years to cadets (never hunted with a bow) but I recognize it as a very distinct and seperate discipline from that of the sportsmen who uses a gun. I have seen dumbasses and unsafe hunters from both sides of the coin, people who have no concept of what hunting means and surprise people who buy a bow or gun just a couple days before the season and go trudging through the woods and probably did not take the time to learn how to safely and properly use their equipment. This is what is wrong with sportsmen, growing up we never learned how to play with other kids and now we are big kids who still fight over little kid issues, instead of coming together to do the things that ned to be done, like protection of our woodlands and wetlands, protection of our rights and freedoms that are slowly being eroded as we sit idlely by blaming the other guy. I want to challenge people here to put this playground bullying behind us and start working together to fight for common issues. It is apparent to me that there are people who abuse their respective sports (bowhunting or rifle hunting) let us not paint everyone with the same brush by saying that they are lazy or unethical, etc, etc. If you must persist in this then you may as well go to the Liberals and start pointing fingers at the rest of us and saying that all gun owners are dangerous, all hunters barbaric, and so on. When we see abuses to our sports happening lets change that through education and reporting game violations, and so on. Anyway I havesaid enough on this topic as it really needs to be put to rest. Take care all and happy hunting. Frank Cochrane Cochrane Computer Services 902-673-2504 902-899-8959 info@cochranecomputers.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:58:31 -0600 (CST) From: "Linda J." Subject: Report says caribou herds facing uncertain future http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/10/03/caribou041003.html Report says caribou herds facing uncertain future Last Updated Mon, 04 Oct 2004 08:18:26 EDT YELLOWKNIFE - An environmental group is about to release a report claiming Canada's caribou population is in serious decline. If the research is correct, the caribou may be in danger. "There are only about 37 years left before caribou in Alberta are totally eliminated," said researcher Rick Schneider. The destruction of habitat is to blame, according to the report. The rapid development in the oil, natural gas and forestry sectors are the main reasons. "What scientists have concluded in Canada's woodland caribou population is undergoing what they term slow moving extinction," said Tim Gray, spokesperson for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which is releasing the report. Herb Norwegian, the Grand Chief of the Deh Cho First Nation agrees that the disappearing boreal forest is to blame for the reduction of the caribou herds. "It really throws them off, especially when they're moving around from their rutting areas to their calving areas, and then to their wintering areas," he said. Norwegian says he's worried about the future of the caribou in the Northwest Territories and he wants the government to expand Nahanni National park to include an area where many of the caribou are found. Gray's wilderness group says there are fewer than 200,000 caribou left, but by sounding the alarm now it hopes people, industry and governments will take action. "If we can't even manage to maintain one of our most iconic species in our forests, what else does that tell us about what's going on out there?" said Gray. Written by CBC News Online staff ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:02:36 -0600 (CST) From: Breitkreuz@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca, Garry - Assistant 1 Subject: Winnipeg Sun Editorial: DON'T CREDIT REGISTRY PUBLICATION: The Winnipeg Sun DATE: 2004.10.04 EDITION: Final SECTION: Editorial/Opinion PAGE: 8 COLUMN: Editorial - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DON'T CREDIT REGISTRY - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Statistics Canada reported some good news this week, saying that the national homicide rate has fallen by 7% and is now at its lowest level since 1967. And we're certainly not going to dismiss that bit of information as insignificant or irrelevant. But it doesn't mean we're going to give the Liberals' national firearms registry credit for the dropping homicide rate. Steve Sullivan, president of the Canadian Recourse Centre for Victims of Crime, said, "Opponents of the registry always say criminals don't use rifles and shotguns, but we know people who kill in their own house do. I think the fact that those numbers are down is encouraging." Sullivan was referring to the fact that while guns are the murder choice of weapons in this country, the use of rifles and shotguns in committing the most heinous of crimes has fallen by half -- from 40% to 20% -- over the past decade. But that hardly proves that registering guns is effective in preventing crimes. Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz, Canada's most effective critic of the gun registry, noted last week that handguns have been registered in Canada for 70 years, but the number of handgun-related murders continues to climb, even as the number of rifle and shotgun murders drops. According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, in 1974 about 27% of firearm homicides were committed with a handgun, while a rifle or shotgun was used in 64% of the cases. By 2002, however, the numbers had essentially been reversed, with handguns being responsible for 66% of firearm homicides versus 25% for rifles and shotguns. Breitkreuz points out that Statistics Canada reported last year that 72% of the handguns recovered from murder scenes since 1997 were not registered. In the other 28% of the cases, he notes dryly, the registration paper didn't prevent the crime. Says Breitkreuz: "The sad fact is that the Liberal government's firearms program only tracks two million law-abiding, licensed gun owners -- not violent criminals, not the 131,000 convicted criminals that have been prohibited from owning firearms by the courts, not the 34,000 persons with restraining orders against them, and not the 13,000 persons that have had their firearms licences refused or revoked." And, of course, while shootings were the most common method of killing someone, accounting for 29% of all homicides, knife-related homicides were a close second at 26%. Beatings were third at 22%. Let's hope the federal Liberals never notice that, lest we end up with registries for knives, blunt objects and pool balls that are about as useful as the ones we have for handguns and long guns. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:03:54 -0600 (CST) From: Breitkreuz@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca, Garry - Assistant 1 Subject: Congress 101: If You Want Success, Don't Mess With the Gun Lobby PUBLICATION: The New York Times SECTION: Editorial EDITION: Late Edition - Final DATE: 2004.10.03 PAGE: 10 COLUMN: Editorial Observer BYLINE: DOROTHY SAMUELS - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Congress 101: If You Want Success, Don't Mess With the Gun Lobby - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For devoted foes of gun control, September was a banner month. It opened with Congress ignoring pleas from every major national police group to let the hard-won 1994 ban on assault weapons expire, and ended last week with the House approving a loony measure repealing Washington's strict gun laws. And that's not all. In between reinstating every hunter's sacred Second Amendment right to nail Bambi with an AK-47, and mischievously meddling in local affairs to pass a one-chamber bill to weaken public safety in the nation's capital, the National Rifle Association and its busy-beaver allies quietly scored another legislative coup -- this one without even trying. This little-noted achievement -- if you can call it that -- relates to a glaring omission in the new initiative to prevent youth suicide just approved by the House and Senate, and awaiting President Bush's signature. Named for Garrett Lee Smith, the 21-year-old son of Senator Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon, who killed himself in his college dorm room a year ago, the measure addresses a serious problem. Some 4,000 young Americans take their own lives each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is impossible not to admire Senator Smith's determination to wring something positive from his terrible personal tragedy by going public with his family's pain, and rallying colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get behind legislation to expand counseling services and other state efforts to identify and help youngsters at risk of killing themselves. There's no question that the $82 million the legislation authorizes over the next three years to improve early-intervention suicide prevention efforts, including on college campuses, will save some lives (albeit fewer than it might have, owing to a parental consent requirement right-wing House Republicans insisted upon that will inevitably deter some troubled kids from getting timely help). But the bill's positive aspects notwithstanding, it fails to address perhaps the most salient risk factor for troubled young people -- the presence of a gun in the home. This avoidance is particularly frustrating given the scant chance that Congress will revisit the teenage suicide issue anytime soon, and the fact that it doesn't take a brain surgeon -- just a lowly editorial writer -- to see a couple of common sense steps that Congress could have taken to protect kids, and didn't take. Firearms figure in about half of all youth suicides, and by now it is neither secret nor speculative that having a firearm at home significantly increases the chance of a depressed adolescent ending his or her own life. Nor should it come as a surprise that states with the highest rates of gun ownership also have the highest overall suicide rates. Perhaps the most obvious way to reduce the deadly toll would be to insist that parents do a better job of locking up guns. Even as Congress was deliberating over fine print of the antisuicide bill, a telling new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Annenberg Public Policy Center appeared in the Aug. 4 Journal of the American Medical Association. This study found an 8.3 percent decrease in suicide rates among 14- to 17-year-olds in 18 states that have enacted some form of child access prevention, or C.A.P., law, making it a crime to store guns carelessly in a way that permits easy access by kids. Why are there no provisions in the antisuicide bill creating federal incentives to encourage states without C.A.P. laws to adopt them, following the approach successfully used to nudge states to tighten their drunken driving rules? Why does the new legislation omit the simple life-saving step of requiring gun dealers to provide an effective safety lock with every weapon sold? When I directed these questions to a couple of the measure's supporters, they politely suggested I must be living on another planet. As it was, they had to accept the damaging parental consent language to get the bill through the House. Including the sort of child-protective gun provisions I was talking about would have invited rabid reflexive opposition from the gun lobby, very likely dooming any progress at all on the teenage suicide issue. "The power of the lobby is tremendous, and anything hinting of gun control, however sensible, is radioactive, especially in the House," explained Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a lead Democratic sponsor of the teenage suicide bill along with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and a strong gun control supporter. It is hard to quarrel with Senator Dodd's political assessment. But what a grim reflection on the present climate in Washington that small, reasonable steps like mandatory trigger locks cannot be openly raised and debated even in the context of trying to prevent children from committing suicide. Fear of the gun lobby is such, the subject never came up. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:04:23 -0600 (CST) From: Breitkreuz@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca, Garry - Assistant 1 Subject: One-third of police killings are 'suicide by cop': study PUBLICATION: Vancouver Sun DATE: 2004.10.04 EDITION: Final SECTION: News PAGE: A1 / Front BYLINE: Krisendra Bisetty SOURCE: Vancouver Sun - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ One-third of police killings are 'suicide by cop': study - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ About one-third of all police shootings in Canada are precipitated by the victims, 10 per cent of whom are predisposed to suicide or mental illness, says the first nationwide study focusing on "suicide-by-cop." The study was done by Sgt. Rick Parent, a 25-year veteran of the Delta police, for a doctoral degree in criminology to be awarded by Simon Fraser University on Thursday. It says police officers in Canada are increasingly having to deal with irrational people who attack without warning or reason. These "kamikaze" individuals are likely to be shot and killed or wounded by police officers who have just seconds to react, said Parent, who did a smaller B.C. study on police use of deadly force in 1996 for his master's degree. B.C. has an average of five fatal police shootings a year, half of all such incidents nationwide. Canada averages 10 fatal police shootings a year. Parent said this figure ties in with his findings that police in B.C. are dealing with a high number of "irrational" and "abnormal" people. He said the drug problem in B.C., and particularly in Vancouver, are obvious factors. Another is the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and the lack of facilities for them in the community. The study recommends a greater emphasis on training police in verbal and tactical skills so they can better deal with the suicidal or mentally ill. It also calls for the use of less lethal police weaponry, like Taser stun-guns and other alternatives to firearms, such as the "bean-bag" shotgun and pepper-spray guns used by police in the Lower Mainland. Victim-precipitated homicide, or "suicide by cop" as the phenomenon is known, happens when those with suicidal tendencies, mental illness or those prone to irrational behaviour, confront police with the intention of being killed. They make statements like, "Shoot me," or "I want to die," before attacking police with weapons ranging from knives, sticks and pipes, to imaginary weapons or even using a finger to simulate a gun. "They attack in almost a kamikaze manner," Parent said. "In the past, this was regarded as someone who was crazy, but it is not mental illness. It is a planned and deliberate suicide." His research is based on an analysis of 409 police shootings in Canada between 1980 and 2002, and 434 others in the U.S during the same period. In 417 of the total number of incidents in both countries, police had responded to lethal threats by discharging their firearms, killing a total of 419 people (two people were shot in two of these incidents). In roughly one-third (273) of the cases in Canada and the U.S., officers had responded to a lethal threat of victim-precipitated homicide, the study revealed. As part of his data-collection process, which included getting material from coroner's records and through police contacts, Parent interviewed 27 police officers who were involved in shootings. He also interviewed 52 federal inmates in the Lower Mainland who were involved in shootings. Interestingly, Parent said, he was able to speak to three inmates and also the three police officers who shot and wounded them. Their perspectives were obviously different, with the inmates claiming they had no intention of killing the officers, but just of scaring them. The officers involved believed their lives were in danger, were often traumatized by the incidents, had difficulty sleeping, and were bothered by the idea that they should have done something to avoid the shooting. Parent's analysis of the files and interviews revealed that 10 per cent of all the cases involved people with suicidal tendencies or suffering from mental illness. Parent said police members operate under different circumstances now than 20 years ago, when there was more violent crime. Now they deal with more social issues, he said. In a fast-paced society with more stress and fewer support structures, people are looking to the police, who are only a phone call away, to solve their problems, he said. So when situations become ugly, police need to be prepared. Officers should gather as much information as possible on a situation before arriving on the scene and, once there, should slow things down and use physical barriers like a chair or table, from the person causing the disturbance. Parent, a former instructor at the Justice Institute Police Academy in New Westminster who has written several published papers on suicide-by-cop, said the study revealed that inmates who had committed crimes in both the U.S. and Canada had praise for police here, believing them to be less trigger-happy than their counterparts south of the border. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:05:22 -0600 (CST) From: Breitkreuz@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca, Garry - Assistant 1 Subject: Guns Are King in Indian State: PUBLICATION: The Washington Post SECTION: World DATE: 2004.10.03 PAGE: A28 BYLINE: Rama Lakshmi - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Guns Are King in Indian State: Viewed as Key to Respect, Firearms Proliferate Among All Castes - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ UNNAO, India -- Early in September, a lawmaker here celebrated his 41st birthday with a packed poolside party of dancing, drunken, gun-wielding guests at a highway resort called Fantasy motel. As the party moved into full swing around midnight, people began firing into the air in delirious joy. Suddenly, the politician fell, fatally wounded by a bullet from his own bodyguard's weapon. For residents of Unnao, a high-crime town in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the widely publicized death was a reminder of their state's expanding gun culture. But it had no apparent effect on people's desire for firearms. Uttar Pradesh officials say they receive thousands of applications daily for gun licenses, and at last count 500,000 cases were pending. "Times are bad, we have to protect ourselves," said Virendra Singh, a corn farmer in Dostinagar village, not far from the motel. Singh has a handgun and a rifle, which cost him the equivalent of about $1, 400, and has applied for licenses for three more guns. "If you have weapons, the crime rate will go down," he said, as he sat next to a heap of freshly harvested corn in his front yard. He said he needs guns to protect his crop from robbers and to chase away thieves trying to steal his tractor. "A gun brings respect," Singh said. "In the cities, when you come into a little money you buy a car. Here in the village you buy a gun." Half a century after this country gained independence from Britain through the doctrine of nonviolence of Mohandas Gandhi, guns are proliferating in many regions. "The gun is the ultimate status symbol in the villages these days," said Kamal Saksena, a senior police officer in Lucknow. "And they display it openly as it gives them a feeling of raw power." It is not uncommon to see a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder or a revolver at his waist on the state's highways. "If your neighbor has it, then you feel pressured to have it, too," said Saksena. Getting a gun license is a complicated process. Applicants have to demonstrate that they face a perceived threat and prove that they have no criminal record. But Saksena said the police records in the state are not computerized and that applicants with criminal pasts can often get licenses. In 2002, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, 24 percent of murders nationwide were committed with guns, compared with 20 percent in 2000. In Uttar Pradesh state, the share of gun murders stood at 54 percent in 2002. More than a third of the people of Unnao district live in desperate poverty. But in Uttar Pradesh, the district has the highest number of applicants for weapons, which can cost dearly. "The queue is very long. Nine out of ten applications I get every day in my office are for gun licenses," said Anil Kumar Sagar, Unnao's chief bureaucrat. In Dostinagar village, Gangaram Trivedi, a potbellied potato farmer, bought a single-barrel shotgun four years ago, although he acknowledges he had never been attacked or threatened. "People think I am somebody important. They just . . . step aside if I walk in with a gun hanging on my shoulders," Trivedi said, as he lounged in his veranda with his gun hanging on a wooden nail behind him. He said he never formally learned how to shoot. "I know how to fire, whether I can aim or not," Trivedi laughed. Aradhna Shukla, a senior bureaucrat in Lucknow who has earmarked a day each week to deal with requests for gun licenses, said guns can turn minor spats into fatal violence. "Even a small situation like two women fighting over water at a street hand pump can flare up if one of their husbands brings out a gun," he said. To slow down the race, two districts in Uttar Pradesh recently announced they would give preference to license applicants who have small families and agree to sterilization. Sterilization is an important part of India's birth control program and over the years authorities have offered elaborate incentives to people willing to undergo the procedure. In the two districts, a single-barrel shotgun would require agreement for two people to be sterilized; for a handgun license, the price would be four people. The government is investigating a case in which a rich farmer seeking a gun license is said to have had five of his laborers forcibly sterilized at a nearby government clinic. For people who cannot afford a license or a factory-made gun, cheap country-made guns are an easy option -- and it is these guns that account for the bulk of gun crimes. "The licensed guns are mostly for display and intimidation. Crimes are not committed by these, as we can easily trace it back to them," said Sagar, Unnao's chief bureaucrat. In Muras village, 13 miles from the nearest police station, a locksmith who gave his name as Gappu supports his family of five by making guns in his thatch-roofed mud hut. Gappu said he could make a gun from a metal bicycle rod or a car steering wheel rod in just a week. He said it cost him the equivalent of about $10 to make a gun; he can sell it for about $60. "I know it is illegal, but it is not easy to make ends meet as a locksmith," he said. Locally made guns have also found their way into rural India's periodic wars between members of different social castes. In August, a poor family of lower-caste masons in Dungarpur village was attacked by gun-wielding upper-caste men from the village as part of a yearlong caste battle. Ram Naresh Jatav, the only breadwinner in the family, was shot with a licensed firearm and died on his way to the hospital. "If the powerful upper-caste families in the village keep big weapons, how do we protect ourselves?" asked his widow, Ramvati Jatav, 37. "I will have to get a locally made gun, even if I have to sell my buffalo to pay for it." ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V7 #438 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:akimoya@cogeco.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) 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