Prime Minister Paul Martin says the Americans have an obligation to help stop the smuggling of guns into Canada.
Martin made the comment Monday as his government prepares a series of gun-control initiatives aimed at curbing a wave of violence in Toronto. Those measures, which sources say could include suing U.S. weapons manufacturers, will be announced next month. But the prime minister used a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to press the issue immediately.
He said the Americans expect Ottawa to help keep their borders secure and Canada expects the same in return.
“The Americans ask us to do things in terms of the border; I think there’s an obligation on their side to work with us to prevent gun-smuggling into Canada,” Martin told a news conference.
The prime minister said up to half the gun crimes in Canada involve weapons smuggled from the United States.
Spokespersons in the Prime Minister’s office refused to confirm that Paul Martin plans to meet next with Jamaican officials about working with the Federal and Ontario governments to staunch the flow of trigger-pullers into Canada.
It seems to me that the Liberals are going about this all backwards. With clear evidence that crime rates in the United States are inversely proportional to the rate of gun ownership, the solution to the problem of “gun crime” in Canada is obvious – smuggle in more Americans!
update… a McLellan-Martin flip flop?
Kate: thanks. I know what you mean. Touchy and difficult.
Atenor: I hear you but it is just as “logical” to say that the more legal guns that are out there then inevitably the more illegal guns and therefore the more gun-related crimes; or, to put another way, if we wiped out every gun then there would be fewer guns available for criminals. So the logic doesn’t convince me one way or the other which is why I’m looking for some studies – not just studies but analysis. I’m going to check out Peter’s reference tonight, but Porter do you have something backing up your statement that “the presence of “concealed carry” permits, as a municipal jurisdictional issue, shows that violent crime drops like a rock”?
TB
Cerberus
All I know is that the only way they can have my gun is when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
I agrre with Porter, excellent thread, good discussion on the actual issue. Unfortunately “AsI Seeit” had it absolutley right
“Election Optics BS” nothing more, nothing less.
If a tree falls in the forest, or Calgary or Kamsack do the Liberals hear it? Not bloody likely.
If the same happens in the ethnic community in the “Vote-Rich” GTA we are all over it with platitudes.
That’s twice in the last week. Ontario’s(read Toronto) garbage under NAFTA and handguns. Softwood lumber and BSE have been an ongoing issue, Vietnamese gangs in Calgary and nary a word, but trade and killings in GTA and all of a sudden this becomes above the fold headline issues.
Like Claude Rains “I am shocked” (Yeah Right)
The solution to your gun crime problem amongst the Jamaican community is solvable and within the capacity of your parliament to handle. Commit a crime, do the time, then you get a one way ticket home to that tropical hell hole the Jamaicans call home. Never let them back into your country. I wish we could institute something like that here in our own country but we can’t even secure our own southern border.
How is it the Americans fault that Canadian border guards are letting people smuggle guns into Canada?
As for the stats that East Tree Stump Manitoba (I know there is no such town) has a higher murder rate than Toronto are misleading at best.
How about comparing the rate with the population of the Jane/Finch area or the East Scarborough area or that of Regent Park. This is where the bulk of the gun crimes are happening.
And one more thing,
Don’t sweat these shootings .. THEY ARE SHOOTING EACH OTHER … SO …. WHO CARES!!!
Just don’t live near them.
Is it Toronto or is it Iraq? Gun Violence Galore!
The mainstream media (MSM) hasn’t been doing a very good job of bringing to our attention the extent of the endless gun violence in The Big Smoke of late.
Obviously asking the Americans for help is a political stunt. Even Martin knows you dont go through US customs coming to Canada. He is also aware this is State jurisdiction so Washington’s hands are tied. He also knows a law suit against a company for selling a legal product according to the local laws is asinine. What next, suing steak knife manufacturers because of the stabbings ? Unlike tobacco (who deliberatelly lied about the dangers ), gun manufacturers dont claim guns can never kill. What Martin does have control of though, is federal law. Today a couple of thugs were arrested for smuggling guns, pleaded guilty and got 2 years. When are they elligable for parole again ?? My suggestion would be to enforce real minimums for gun crimes and abolish affordable housing. Up in northern Etobicok were a lot of the gun play exists there is a concentration of affordable housing creating a ghetto. A kid may be in a bad familly situation but if he lives in this type of housing he is hanging out with kids in the same boat, never experiencing proper parental role models. If instead we gave out subsidies so they could rent private housing the kid would have to hang out with a lot of children coming from stable families. As well drug dealers would be more intimidated because stable families (especially ones born here)would be less fearful to work with police to drive them out.
Make everybody a criminal! (Then: be the best criminal you can be.)
Just more evidence of the harm done to the country by “liberal” policies of “progressiveness” and all that leftist idealogy.
With its emphasis on rights rather than responsibilities and on forgiveness rather than consequences for wrongdoing, the left and the Liberals in particular have created the climate under which this gun violence has flourished to an extent nearing that seen in the Middle East. The failure of the ruling Paul Martin Liberals to police our border is the cause of the importation of illegal American-made handguns into Canada and the consequent injuries and deaths.
Yet Prime Minister Paul Martin passes the buck to America. Another leftist blaming Bush. Another “Liberal” prime minister refusing to accept responsibility on behalf of his party for its policies’ deleterious effects on Canada.
I did a post last night on this issue, including a link to a lengthy and eye-opening chronological account of the gun violence in Toronto to date. Here’s the post URL:
http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2005/10/is-it-toronto-or-is-it-iraq-gun.html
FYI-Google the Fraser Institute, Failed Experiment, regarding the gun control issue.
In the gun-crime stats debate, the total number of guns becomes a side-bar to other variables. If some law-abiding citizen in the US, for example, lives in an area that goes into sudden decline, with drug/gang violence increasing in the neighbourhood, she may be more likely to arm herself. It would obviously be inaccurate to say that her firearm purchase is the cause of the increased violence in the area, but purely statistically, such a purchase would correlate with increased crime.
The fact that the causal links are impossible to untangle works out really well for the Liberals. Their own immigration bureaucrats can decide that it’s a good thing to bring in planeloads of twenty year-old males from the ghettos of Jamaica, and then, with a straight face, they can blame the inevitable violence on the US, for not patrolling Canada’s border more thoroughly for guns. Sort of like importing drunk drivers, and then blaming US auto-makers for the resulting carnage.
But in this Liberal universe, everything’s upside-down. Bring in gangsta-thugs, set them loose in urban centers, and then, in the name of public safety, pass a law that sets law-enforcement loose on the second-generation Lutheran farmer with the unregistered gopher rifle.
What a Liberal country. Thank you, Ontar-i-ar-i-o.
Part of the solution here is simple: Let Canadian border guards (personally) keep each and every gun they find coming into the country.
Wouldn’t necessarily solve the big problem but would help the officers *and* would supply their arms at the same time.
I used to live in Scarberia. Thank goodness I retired and moved way out west. When I did live there I knew darn well who was doiung the shooting and so did everyone else. I also know they elect all Liberal mp’s. so why should I give two hoots if they get guns and shoot each other. Martins going to ask Jamaica to help? Thats the most hilarious thing I’ve heard in a long time. Help to bring in more shooters?
Canada Border Services workers have long complained about understaffing and the lack of issuance of side arms for border guards. Would any of you like to attempt a search of or apprehension of a suspected gun/drug smuggler with no firearm in your possesion or enough armed personel nearby to back you up? We have to be responsible for our own border.
Meanwhile, Paulie M. continues his dithering… and Torontonians continue their shooting and dying…
Shameful. Thy name is Liberal.
Gun control, gun registry, guns used in crimes, guns across the border… why are these all being lumped together?
First of all, I don’t think that by registering my squirrel gun I will be stopping the Jamacian gangbanger from shooting someone else. This is apples and oranges. Hand guns have been under a tight registration for many years(since at least 1970 when I inquired). You were allowed only to take your gun to the range and back, no stops for bread and milk. A lot of hassle for sure and I doubt even then that the crooks registered.
The idea of a friendly unarmed Canadian Border Patrol is also pie-in-the-sky thinking. Would you turn your truck full of weapons or illegal contraband because Jean/John Canuck at the border says you are not welcome/n’pas benvenue? Easier to drive over them and disappear before the mountie from Regina drives down to investigate.
It would be a fair assessment to say however, that attitudes of people have changed and now an argument after school will more than likely be a knife fight than the old fisticuffs.
Would tougher laws work? Probably not but if we enforced those laws we have and (the important part) used the maximum sentencing consecutively, deported criminals that have sneaked through tighter immigration then maybe the streets will be a little safer. Oh yeah, make the prisons real prisons not Club Fed. A good old military prison would suit the bill nicely.
sorry to ramble…
per ardua
perhaps if Canada took some responsiblilty for,and attempted to stem the flow of, all our fine growop pot heading south (and being exchanged for firearms)our American friends might be a little more amenable to giving some consideration to our “concerns” over guns arriving here from the US. Canada spelled HIPOCRACY.
Stowaway makes an excellent point. Wonder what response Paulie M’s spinmeisters would have him parrot?
Kate had a good point earlier about what really happens at a border crossing. Unless a van full of dread-locked Jamaicans with bong smoke oozing out the windows and Bob Marley playing on the radio shows up at the border, hardly anyone takes notice. Joe average middle aged white guy – like me – can waltz across with nary a question.
But say that the border gets sealed tight. No more guns come across the border. There are one helluva lot of guns (and ammunition) here already. And if they’re kept reasonably warm and dry they will be just as deadly a hundred years from now as they are today. So what to do?
Well, you identify the target areas for a series of raids. The police know where the bad guys are most likely to live. And where they are, so are their guns. So you take about 5000 armed troops from our vast reserves (problem 3) and surround an entire housing complex or apartment block. Then you search every inch of every room in every building. Take the guns and the drugs. Arrest who you can. Then wait for the civil rights groups to start screaming (problem 2).
Of course, keeping something like this a secret and not tipping anyone off beforehand will be the hard part (problem 1).
Oh, and if anyone gives you a hard time? Shoot them.
Listen, my friends, just because most of us are good guys, that doesn’t mean that good=stupid.
There’s way too much consideration of whether guns help or hurt society.
If you hear the tinkle of broken glass tonight and you sneak cowering into you living room and see six patched-in members of the Mongols OMG, the very last thing on earth you need to be thinking about is whether gun ownership is a benefit to society.
You need to have one in your hand and you need to assume that these meth’d out speed freaks are not there because they are spokesmen for Ed McMahon and the Publisher’s House Sweepstakes.
Frankly at that juncture, if society decides that gun ownership is a bad thing, then society has become an enemy that is trying to kill you and your family.
Get real. In Texas our gun laws took a big uptick when some crazed psychopath walked into a Luby’s Cafeteria in Kileen, Texas, with a 17-shot Glock and killed something like 34 people. Some of them even had guns in their cars, but they couldn’t get out of the cafeteria to get their weapon. Something like 34 people sitting and looking at this maniac, waiting to receive their death sentence. Not one person able to return fire. This bastard should have been blown out of his socks as soon as he started shooting.
Oh, and by the way, those meth’d up freaks from the Mongols OMG I mentioned earlier? As soon as you see them, you start blowing them away, because if they’ve made it that far, they’re only there for one reason.
As I type this there are 2 loaded 38s within about 1 second from my hand. Somebody better start thinking about their kids, and their wives and husbands and innocent strangers who are made instant prey by people rambling on about what effects guns are going to have on society.
Greg, my man. There are some things I miss about Texas and Corpus Cristi. The great TexMex food. The roaches, the friendly people and the COMMON SENSE. TG
If I had two loaded guns in my house, I’d probably be worried most about my own kids.
Would it help any if Americans added their firearms to the Canadn registration list?
Peter:
If you had two loaded guns in your house, IT WOULD BE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO EDUCATE THEM ABOUT THE DANGERS – just like driving a car – its actually pretty easy – its kind of a respect thing – not fear.
My nephew studied Law Enforcement at one of the local colleges. Of 300 applicants, he was the only student who had SHOT a firearm. These are our police officers of the future. Face it, our border guards are revenue collectors.
The problem with Lott’s book about guns and crime is one of mobile goalposts.
First, the criers-with-alarm insisted that crime would go up with gun ownership and concealed carry laws.
That didn’t happen.
The criers are now arguing about whether the drop in crime is a result of more guns or independent of more guns.
Nobody’s arguing, except local pols who think there might be somebody out there who doesn’t know better, that more guns means more crime.
Arming border guards probably would not be a big deterrent to any kind of smuggling ( I think they should be armed regardless ). Growing up in southern Sask. I hunted along the US border and there are many areas you could exchange semi-trailers let alone a few handguns. The billion or 2 wasted on a registry could help buy a few helicopters (built this century) to try and patrol all that realestate.
As far as ownership of firearms goes,”A gun in hand is worth 2 cops on the phone”.
Mark Collins:
Re: “The murder rate is skewed by, and to a great extent contained within, certain groups.”
Good point. This issue was discussed on CBC radio Metro Morning this morning with a criminologist who had some interestings stats. The murder rate in Toronto is somewhat over 2 per 100,000 which is low compared to many western cities. The murder rate among blacks (likely Jamaican but no stats on that) is about 5 times higher than the city wide average.
Interestingly, the provincial coroners office and the police are forbidden to collect this information. The criminologist had to glean the data from publicly available sources such as newspapers, interviews, news clips, etc. which reduces the accuracy of the data.
Regarding the border guards issue – this in today’s National Post:
“The Canada Border Services Agency has increased front-line forces by just 10.9% since 1995, compared with a 100% boost in the number of employees at Customs headquarters, newly obtained documents show.”
Nice eh? The funds for increased border security go to the fat assed bureaucrats in HQ and not the front line staff. Typical.
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=236c4419-7c9f-4bfe-bce4-183b40b478d9
JimC:
You have a gun in your house, you children face greater odds of dying by gunshot. Fact.
Peter
This discussion is of great interest to me, an American. I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, where there was seldom a household without loaded firearms, or children, who coincidentally were taught to use them at an early age.
Reason why: No telephone lines or electrical lines in the country, because progress had not yet arrived.
The guns were for the protection of life and property, where it was not possible to summon the deputy sheriff, without someone physically going and getting him.
A very interesting statistic of that era in the Ozarks. People didn’t even have locks on the doors of their houses. In the 1950’s, electricity and telephones came to the Ozarks, tourists discovered our rivers, American kids discovered drugs in the 1960’s, and crime came to the rural areas on the heels of the drug trade.
Today, there are locks on the doors, mercury vapor lights in the farmhouse front yards, and there has been a population explosion of a different kind of family pet, the Rottweiler, the Pit Bull, or the Doberman. Because, even if one calls the law, it’s still going to take him half an hour to get there. Don’t ever ask those people to give up their guns.
Best way to reduce gun crime: Adopt Florida’s 10-20-Life law. If you get caught committing a crime with a gun, you get 10 years, if you discharge the weapon, you get 20 years, and if you kill or injure someone, you get LIFE. Gun crime is way down in Florida.
Think about it, people, guns are only tools. The person handling the gun is the problem, if there is a problem. In my youth, gun control was a means of describing how close you came to hitting the target ‘dead-center’.
Yes, Peter, and if I have a car in the garage my children are more likely to be in a car accident. Fact.
This “culture of safety” gets taken to extremes. And stupid, crypto-fascist gun laws are only one example. Eventually (soon) we arrive at the point where everthing that is not mandatory is illegal. And everybody is safe. And a slave. Followed shortly thereafter by bloody revolution.
I would prefer a free society, as much as it frightens you. I refuse to fear my fellow citizens, and refuse to allow people like you to foment those fears in the interest of nanny-state control. “The pen is mightier than the sword”, and the “culture of fear” coming from the liberal left is far more dangerous to you than me and my firearm.
I will maintain my freedoms as a soveriegn citizen, even if you are so pantingly eager to give yours up in the name of ersatz “safety”.
Mad Mike
Oh, Mad Mike, I am not for gun control. I could take it or leave it. But if you own a gun, and keep it loaded in your house, just face up to the fact that you are endangering your children immensely, and with virtually no benefit.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less whether you do it or not, just be aware of the risk. To use another phrase, which is strangely appropriate, go blow your brains out for all I care.
Peter
Maybe PM Martin should establish a strict set of rules and guidelines that requires shipping companies and other logistics providers to more strictly screen and monitor their cargo. Oh!! Wait a minute. I almost forgot.
C’mon, Peter, the issue is guns and gang crime in TO, and the Liberals reaction to it. Which has nothing to do with safe storage and handling in JimC’s house. Drop the red herring.
What do you think the problems are? And what solutions would YOU suggest?
Mad Mike
MadMike:
You’re as off-topic as I am. I think the problem in Toronto is clearly not that there are not enough guns. The problem is there is some disconnect among the people there in certain neighbourhoods about what is proper and what is improper behaviour. And yes, I think it’s probably partly cultural, and partly contextual (i.e. anyone living in those neighbourhoods would be more likely to display the behaviours at hand; I am not sure of how much more likely, but it’s positive and non-zero).
Frankly, I don’t know what the practical solution is. Deporting all those of Jamaican ancestry just won’t work (though we could do better deporting criminals). Nor would simply expecting people to start identifying perpetrators. It’s a collective action problem, and it’s probably unreasonable to assume that people who live in those neighbourhoods will start coming forward in large numbers. The risk is just too high (higher, certainly, then being the vicitim of random gun violence in a safe suburb, and you and others have already suggested that that risk is high enough to warrant endangering one’s own children by keeping loaded guns at hand).
Equally, I don’t see why adding more guns would make things safer. Even if concealed weapons permits make things safer in certain American states (and the evidence is, quite clearly, inconclusive), none of us actually thinks it’s the guns alone which make American crime stats different. There is a different ethos there, and it can’t be automatically transferred to here. Some things are cultural and hard to change quickly.
So, well I am really neither here nor there philosophically on gun control in Canada, I think it is worth noting that having more lax gun laws will likely not make things safer. And, I think it’s worth noting that if you have children, it’s frankly quite stupid to keep loaded weapons in your house, particularly handguns. There is no debate on this issue.
Peter, you have a valid concern, but one easily dealt with. A lot of lock boxes are made such that the loaded gun is in the box, but only you have the combination or key. One outfit was experimenting with a device that would instantly record your palm print so that the lid would be instantly responsive when you put your palm on it.
In terms of a societal way of dealing with the violent crime issue, you could have all Quebec’s Hell’s Angels put to death tomorrow. And you could have all Jamaican Posse members put to death tomorrow. You could put extreme sanctions on children who are not born into 2 parent homes. You could round up the Mafia and have them all put to death. (Regrettably, this means that some members of the Canadian government would have to go.) And also, I should add that both of our societies would be immensely better off if half the politicians in both countries could be encouraged to commit suicide tommorow.
However, since the above measures are not practical, civilized, or humane, we are stuck with having to figure out how to defend ourselves and our families.
Greg:
You are right about lockboxes. I just wouldn’t trust curious kids not to figure out how to get into them. I remember the lengths I would go through to get into things as a kid.
Peter
Well said. I totally agree with you. The point you are making here does make sense.
If someone like Peter lived next door to me, I would be sure and have a security sign in my yard that read something like, “My house is protected by Smith & Wesson, but the guy next door thinks that guns only hurt their owners”. That should keep me burgler free for years!