Publius, in one of the best posts I’ve seen for a while, eviscerates the Canadian punditocracy :
Damn Yankees: The Tucson Shootings and Anti-Americanism
When Gabrielle Giffords was shot, the American Left promptly blamed the American Right. The American Right returned the compliment by fingering the gunman as a Left-wing loner. So far, so predictable. The American political and media markets are highly competitive. When a political figure is shot, there is an almost instinctive response to blame the proponents of political Brand Y, since no sensible adherent to Brand X would ever do something so crazy. We see the enemy where we want to see him.
For much of the Canadian MSM, especially in its more Leftish precincts, the culprit was clear: It was America. Not a particular American. Not some group of Americans. It was Uncle Sam himself taking shots at Congresswoman Giffords. The evil that is the United States of America was just expressing itself. Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s Warren Kinsella:Why do these things happen? Because, in some ways, America’s heart is sick, too. Because – unlike up here – Americans make guns far more available than they should. And they make guns more readily available to sick young men such as Loughner.
That, mostly, is why these things keep happening.Let’s re-read that quote above, and replace the word America with Nigeria and American with Nigerian. The statement is much more accurate in describing an unstable third-world hell hole like Nigeria, than the United States of America. Most of the world is far, far more violent than the United States. Is most of the world sick too?
American murder rates are conspicuous higher than those of most advanced western liberal democracies. The bulk of these “excess” murders occur not among gun toting rednecks, but in urban ghettoes during drug related turf wars. The typical American, who is not a resident of a housing project, or involved in the hard drug trade, is about as safe as any Canadian. America’s blighted inner cities are about as indicative of America, as Canada’s aboriginal reserves are indicative of this country…
Americans are “hostile to opposing viewpoints?” Ever tried questioning the value of Medicare at a Toronto cocktail party? Or fourth-year humanities seminar? Or over a water cooler? It’s been a generation since Canada has any serious public debate on abortion. Who’s afraid of opposing viewpoints?..
The obsession with registration and control by the Left, on both sides of the 49th, manifests both a vast ambition and dangerous naivety. Rather than confront an uncertain world, – where illness, unemployment and all manner of injustice lurk – with a sober eye and cautious attitude, the Left calls for the abolition of uncertainty. Such a thing is impossible…
Read the whole damn thing, please.
The Leader of the Opposition’s hosannas for the long-gun registry are misplaced. The Liberals – and much of the MSM – ascribes magical powers to the registry. It is not a government policy, it is a talisman – not unlike Medicare – used to ward off evil spirits. It’s practical value is close to nil.
We should have a “Snow plow registry” for the latest assault on a peace officer!!
Alternatively, we could ‘politician registry’, in case they do the public harm…they could be locked down and stored in a safe place.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
It’s a good thing that Canada has the RCMP to prevent these gun-tottin’, wad-chewing, knuckle-draggin’ loony-toon Americans from spilling over the border to claim Canada’s oil, eh?
It’s eatin’ all that catsmeat that’s warpin’ Warren.
Conspiracy theories are proof of the creative genius of the human mind.
There is a limit to knowledge, but there are no limits to the human imagination.
I read the whole thing Mark and you are right, Publius eviscerates Canadian MSM. I also read Warren’s articles. Warren is a doctor? Who knew?
Canada desperately needs Sun TV News.
An excellent post – thanks for the link Mark.
One of the things that I use to silence Canadian anti-gun zealots is to point out to them that if Canada had a native Indian population of 20% of the total population, the Canadian homicide rate would be the same as in the US. Stats Canada must have slipped up once as it reported homicide statistics based on race and, among native Indians, the homicide rate was, IIRC, 14.9/100,000. This is above the total US rate, but about the same as the homicide rate among blacks in the US.
Of course native Indians in Canada are exempt from firearms registration because the use of firearms to kill each other is a longstanding cultural tradition that was present long before Europeans corrupted the N. American noble savages. /sarc
As far as debating medicare in Canada, I make a point of letting people know my opinion of medicare whenever it comes up and I get the impression that people are so shocked that a doctor would have such a negative view of medicare that they don’t know how to respond besides the “it’s part of what makes us Canadian”, a meaningless platitude.
Two things:
1) We must be sick too because for all our gun laws, Dawson College still happened. Other European countries must be sick as well…
2) There was an armed citizen in the area who rushed to the shooting and helped detain the insane shooter. As he said, he would have attempted to kill the shooter had the shooter not dropped his magazine on the ground. Because this citizen was around people had a chance.
To add to the above, for all the left’s hatred of the “armed citizen”, the hero acted with remarkable restraint. He assess the situation, realized that the shooter was in the process of being obtained, did not shoot the clumsy citizen holding the gun but instead disarmed him and forced him to put the gun on the ground and stand on it making everyone safe from accidental shooting by police and then helped hold down the shooter…
Gun ownership is mandatory in Switzerland.
Therefore, it cannot be the gun itself, an inanimate object, that’s the problem.
Of course, lefties also believe that the inanimate clump of gasses, solids and liquids known as the universe are also living, breathing things.
I’ve noticed that particular trait, treating inanimate objects as living things, among many of my fellow human beings.
I also had that experience where I believed the celing was a living, breathing thing the only time I dropped acid. Of course, dopers will tell you that those substances allow you to see things in a different way.
I never disagree with them.
“…they make guns more readily available to sick young men such as Loughner”
Kinsella should have said “sick young LEFTISTS like Loughner.”
So how about a compromise solution? We simply make it illegal for Leftists, Islamic radicals, and their progressive apologists like Kinsella, to ever own a gun! Since these are the people — and their proxies — who usually do all the political violence, they should never be allowed to have firearms.
Only Conservatives should be allowed have firearms, because as the name implies we “conserve” and “protect” life, and our actions have heretofore spoken for themselves. Conservatives have proven themselves responsible.
I wonder how many conservative drug dealers and gang-bangers Kinsella has known?
“…they make guns more readily available to sick young men such as Loughner”
Kinsella should have said “sick young LEFTISTS like Loughner.”
So how about a compromise solution? We simply make it illegal for Leftists, Islamic radicals, and their progressive apologists like Kinsella, to ever own a gun! Since these are the people — and their proxies — who usually do all the political violence, they should never be allowed to have firearms.
Only Conservatives should be allowed to have firearms, because as the name implies we “conserve” and “protect” life, and our actions have heretofore spoken for themselves. Conservatives have proven themselves responsible.
I wonder how many conservative drug dealers and gang-bangers Kinsella has known?
(sorry, didn’t mean to post 3 times — server problems)
Oh HELL yes! Maclean’s had nothing but boilerplate Lefty gungrabberism and HateAmerica last week, I about threw the damn thing on the floor and stomped on it.
Which would have been kinda bad, seeing as how I was in Chapters at the time…
I’m all in favor of resricting the free availability of magazines
Magazines like Macleans
loki said: “I get the impression that people are so shocked that a doctor would have such a negative view of medicare…”
I guess they don’t know many doctors. ~:D
Good to see Kinsella is still Stuck on Stupid.
Winder if he’s satisfied his cat meat craving yet?
He’s such a putz, we should consider ourselves lucky we have such free entertainment available to normal people.
Mark, I echo the earlier sentiments – thank you so much for posting this!
A dirty little secret that most Americans are not aware of is that there’s an undercurrent of antipathy towards America & Americans from Canada’s Left. It’s not altogether different than how American Leftists views others in their own country, but equally as misguided.
A book, “The Best Defence” Robert A Waters.
A must read. Available on Amazon!!
When guns save lives no tells you about. Waters does. The story of an armed citizen saving the life of a highway patrolman is an incredible story. The respect shown him by officers arriving on the scene heartening.
The story of a women living alone remarkably remembered her gun when beaten near death and saved herself. Her terrifying experience ended with her preserving her life…by defending herself.
The book Liberals don’t want you to read.
Here’s the piece that torqued me off so bad.
//www2.macleans.ca/2011/01/14/you-cant-outsmart-crazy-or-can-you/
Andrew Potter is this knob’s name. Check it out:
“In a society where mentally ill individuals regularly go on gun rampages, you can do one of two things. You can take steps to keep guns away from them, or you can make it easier for them to get the help they need. Ideally you would do both, but for pro-gun anti-health-care conservatives, the better solution is to do neither. Instead, guns are made as accessible as possible, while basic mental health care is unavailable to those who need it most but can least afford it.”
Sure. But what does little Andrew know about guns? Not a hell of a lot: “The gun that Loughner used to spray the crowd, killing six and wounding 14 others, had a 31-round magazine.”
THIS is what gets published in Canada’s supposed national “news” magazine? The lazy son of a b1tch couldn’t look that up? A thirty one round mag, are you freakin’ kidding me?
I’d be hard money he knows exactly the same about about mental illness, America, and most other things to boot.
This is not a guy looking for the solution to a problem. This is the kind of bile one sees at a Klan meeting when the subject of blacks comes up.
The registry is likened to Q-Ray bracelets, don’t really do anything but make a few people feel better. That was a great rantm
@ Phantom:
You can purchase (not in Canada) 30+ round magazines for a Glock handgun (depending on the calibre).
Not that it makes a difference, I can change magazines faster than someone who is scared can grab me. Luckily for the crowd the idiot dropped his second magazine at the feet of some woman who grabbed it.
Still the moron who wrote the article has no idea of how many shootings armed citizens have stopped. Moreover he has no idea how difficult it would be to make physicians evaluate everyone who wants to buy a gun. Even in Canada, they attempted to make this part of the legislation in the 1990’s but the Canadian Medical Association was very much against this: no physician wants to be liable for some crazy.
Loughner had at least 5 “contacts” with law enforcement before the shooting. He had also made death threats to multiple people, but they were not acted upon by the sheriff’s department, and in fact the targets of the death threats were told that Loughner was being adequately managed by the mental health services.
The significance of this is that, had the sheriff’s department acted on these prior incidents, Loughner would have been flagged by the NICS database, which is the instant check system used to screen purchasers of firearms. So while the shopworn canard of “we need reasonable gun laws” was fully expected from the Left, the fact of the matter is that existing laws would have prevented Loughner from obtaining a firearm had the local sheriff done his job properly.
It casts a certain light on Sheriff Stupnik’s zeal to immediately politicize the tragedy and assign blame to all manner of bizarre things. The blame lies, of course, with Loughner himself, but the Left’s Hero Sheriff is guilty of a sin of omission.
I have been subscribing to Mclean’s for about two years now after a previous hiatus of few years due to their left slant. Since Mark Steyn no longer appears on their pages and the commentary content has once again moved considerably to the left I am seriously considering dropping them once again.
Besides, I might need the money to buy a satellite subscription to Sun TV News.:-)
The truth is that it is unlikely that any type of restriction would have stopped this batshit crazy wanker. He would have found some other way of killing, it would be likened to someone trying to legislate against tornado’s.. Hey come to think of it, ol’ al gore tried that. The loonies on the left.
lamgman, you can get 20 and 30 round extended mags for the Glock 19. Not 31. Nobody on earth makes a 31 round mag for anything. 30 in the mag plus one up the spout makes 31, but Potter has no clue about that. He’s probably never even seen a Glock 19, much less fired one.
Point being, if Potter doesn’t know that what else doesn’t he know? A bunch, given that rangy column. Like for example that Laughner’s shooting that day was pretty accurate. You can’t “spray” a crowd of running people and get that many hits, or most likely any hits at all.
Potter’s a hater. All he needs is a white bed sheet, a cross and a can of gasoline. Why is he working for Maclean’s?
An important point to note about the left, is the comment in the post above “the Left calls for the abolition of uncertainty”. Exactly. That’s basic Marxism.
Marxism is historicism, which is a theory that society exists within certain natural laws; these laws are deterministic and as such, can be used to predict the future. That’s the ‘abolition of uncertainty’ – historical determinism. That’s Marxism.
As Marx says, his aim is to “find the law according to which any state of society produces the state which succeeds it”…”the natural law that determines its own movement”.
This belief in a predetermined future, operating not by the will of the gods but by the will of scientific laws – that’s Marxism, the domain of the left.
The fact that human beings cannot be reduced to chemical molecules and are, instead, operating within and as complex adaptive systems – Marx didn’t know this and probably wouldn’t have accepted it.
His focus on certainty, the inexorable linear predictive path of social organization; his ignorance of ecology, his ignorance of societal organization – prevented him from acknowledging that societies are not chemical combinations but are complex systems.
The real story here is that the Sun thinks anyone cares what Katsmeat has to say.
Interesting point ET. It fits. Kinda like Azimov’s psychohistory, the mathematical prediction of future social movement. Both Marxism and psychohistory are science fiction.
But I’d go further and say the Left calls for the abolition of uncertainty as a trick on the path to absolute power. The useful idiots believe in historicism, the leaders believe in slave labor for us and really nice mansions for themselves.
MisAnthropy.
I think it was reported that the murderer had stole the gun from his father. A thoroughly “registered gun.
@ Phantom: Sorry. I understand what you meant in regard to the mag size. I was kind of wondering why you were suprised at the 30+ mag because in your past comments I recognize a fellow firearms enthusiast, now I see you were referring to his specific numerical error.
And of course you are correct, Potter is speaking out his idiot-hole in regards to firearms.
My point, which I think is even more relevent, is that mag size is completely irrelevent. It is important if you are involved in tactical combat as a member of a combat team against an armed enemy.
In terms of unarmed citizens, magazine size is irrelevent, and limiting their size isn’t going to help. I can change a magazine faster than some scared unarmed person can figure out what to do. And as some British insane individual demonstrated even a shotgun pinned to a single shell magazine can still be used to inflict harm on multiple citizens while driving around in his car.
If, as Misanthropy had pointed out, the leftards had done their jobs and actually flagged this guy with a criminal charge for his multiple episodes of death threats etc. he would have been on the FBI system and not been allowed to obtain a firearm in the first place.
This is the way I see it. In a society that everyone is held to a litigious standard you get apathy. The Army knew he was problematic..no report to authorities. The school knew he was problematic..no report to authorities. Institutions are risk averse so how do guys like this get reported so they are flagged as problematic and can’t buy guns? They don’t. Get sued or get shot.
I know of no State that willingly sells guns to the mantally ill knowingly.
“…America’s blighted inner cities are about as indicative of America, as Canada’s aboriginal reserves are indicative of this country…”
I agree.
but on the other hand they are both indicative of how f***ed up liberals are on both side of the border.
If we had a registry of penises then rape would be a thing of the past.
Just applying liberal logic here, that is all.
Fred
I prefer to think of it as quality entertainment at the usual price.
Its good that Kinsella is around to remind us what the elites think.
Because his accuracy is always spot on, and he does has a way with langauge doesn’t he?
This is not to suggest that the elites consider Kinsella one of theirs, or that Kinsella thinks anything other than that he is just common folk. One of the common folk that can’t seem to find a use for their law degree, and that no law firm seems willing to employ him, and just as other simple folk living in the big smoke toil away as unpaid volunteers for liberal politicians.
Yes I can really see how this relates to me….really I wouldn’t make this up.
I think it is the lowest denominator to suggest that America and Americans are just violent and guns are the source of their social ills. Assuming that more socialist (for a leftist, read: “humane”) approach to socio-cultural problems is a cure-all, note the welfarist approach to fixing problems in black American communities. It clearly hasn’t worked. If anything, Canadians should know that nanny-state interference is a colossal failure. Have we integrated Aboriginals into mainstream society? No, we’ve put them in northern ghettos called reservations. We refuse to see them as Canadians or human beings with free will and the power to use it. Does that make us better than the Americans? Marc Lepine shot fourteen women. How did he acquire the weapon? Who tried to stop him? Why not bring up his Islamic heritage and his ineffectual mother? We certainly know the killings have padded Canadian feminist pockets for years.
We look down our noses at the Americans because it helps us forget our own failings, not understand what makes them tick.
“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”
– Dr Johnson
“Anti-Americanism is the last refuge of the Canadian intellectual.”
– JJM
The US has been, and remains, a very great country.
Smug little nonentities such as Warren K. diminish themselves, and to a degree other Canadians, by their petty condescension.
Phantom @8:51 – quoting Andrew Potter in Macleans “”In a society where mentally ill individuals regularly go on gun rampages, you can do one of two things. You can take steps to keep guns away from them, or you can make it easier for them to get the help they need. Ideally you would do both, but for pro-gun anti-health-care conservatives, the better solution is to do neither. Instead, guns are made as accessible as possible, while basic mental health care is unavailable to those who need it most but can least afford it.”
I haven’t looked up the laws for each country – whaddami, a professional journalist writing for a major magazine? – but I’m thinking it was likely that noted conservative organization the ACLU who agitated for the laws which make it impossible to have dangerously insane people (like Loughner) committed and/or medicated even against their will (which is the only way he would have been).
(Abortion, unmedicated psychotics on the streets… how come the only freedoms from government intrusion the lefties like are the awful ones?)
@RobertW
“A dirty little secret that most Americans are not aware of is that there’s an undercurrent of antipathy towards America & Americans from Canada’s Left.”
Americans are pretty well aware that most of the rest of the West hates us, well at least the self-appointed commentariat of those countries do. They’re about to get their wish finally, because there is a powerful isolationist tendency among the American populace, which combined with new economic realities will result in a much less intervention-minded US.
It will be up to historians to decide the point at which the Pax Americana ended and the era of global dominance by Red China began. It may have already happened. I hope the world will find the Pax Sinica more to its liking.
As for the USA itself, the seeds of balkanization sown and tended by the Left for decades will finally germinate. I doubt very much the present territorial integrity of the USA will even exist in 50 years’ time. A significant part of it will be subsumed into the greater Latin American fold. The rest, who knows. Maybe what’s left of Anglo USA will merge with western Canada into something new.
I’m going to hell V 2.0.
If we had a registry of penises then rape would be a thing of the past.
Just applying liberal logic here, that is all.
~Friend of USA
There is already a penis registry, it’s called marriage.
Liberals don’t seemed to be enthusiastic about marriage, though, unless the signatories in the marriage are armed with the exact same equipment.
Author of that article in Maclean’s didn’t do his homework.
He wrote:U.S. also has, by far, the highest rates of serious mental illness in the world. A 2004 study by the World Health Organization found that 26 per cent of Americans had some form of mental disorder, including depression, anxiety, and substance abuse
But of course he did not check European rates for mental illnesses (w/o substance abuse)
A 2005 review of surveys in 16 European countries found that 27% of adult Europeans are affected by at least one mental disorder in a 12 month period.
Neither did he check homicide rates in some countries where there is a gun control
Russia has 22 homicides per 100,000 people (2006 ) which is 4 times higher than rate of homicides in US.
But hey, these data would blow up his whole story, so better just say like an old, broken, gramophone record: “everything is fault of US, is fault of US, is fault of US….”.
For someone to say that X-country has ‘the highest rate of mental illness in the world’ is an unscientific statement.
That’s because mental illness is not an infection, it is not caused by a social factor but is a psychological state. That means that mental illness has to be common to all human populations over the world. The author could be, ignorantly, looking at statistics that describe mental illness in each country but such data is only as valid as the definitions and the gathering of the data.
Then, for the author to declare that conservatives reject health care is stupid and provocative. They don’t reject health care; they reject government control of health care and people.
Ah well, typical of the left to hide and slide with facts.
Every time I see the word Kinsella I get an immediate gag response bordering on a dry heave.
30 rounds, or single shot, if someone is in a killing mood, he’s hard to stop.
A crazy old man in my home town slipped through the cracks for decades. He used to walk around with a hammer in one hand, and a hatchet in the other. I and other kids would run into the woods and hide when he walked by. The adults always said he was harmless, but kids seemed to know better. He became more and more paranoid as he got older. He’d been bickering with neighbours, who’d been drinking on his dime, and one day he came up the driveway with a single shot shotgun. The husband grabbed a rifle and confronted him. He then shot the wife through the head, while her husband just could not pull the trigger of the rifle. He then reloaded, and shot the husband(who survived).
The trial revealed years of paranoid behaviour, that had been laughed off as harmless. The man happened to be my best friend’s uncle. It was hard for his family to understand how things got so out of hand. Most everyone else’s reaction was “I’m not surprised”. Society is reactive, not proactive. Kids know better, though. When they see a lunatic with a weapon, they run into the woods and hide.
Actually she is right in that too many guns get into the wrong hands here in the US (and I am as anti-Obama as it is possible to be). I know of too many people who were killed by criminals, accidents, and suicides by firearms. America is great (at least pre-Obama) but we have our curses.
FOA
I called for the “Long Dong Registry” a few years back.
“The rest, who knows. Maybe what’s left of Anglo USA will merge with western Canada into something new.”
I’ve been touting this theory for sometime. With the exodus of middle class families from the major cities to the the rural middle America states(which has been documented over the last 15 years) I believe it is very likely that Western Canadians and those Americans you speak of will join in the common cause of sovereignty. We are well on our way to being the Israel of N.America.
ella
That depends on what you consider ‘homework’.
This article seems to be “peer reviewed” thus making it ‘settled’ fact. Don’tcha know?