Move along folks – nothing here to see.
Arapahoe High gunman held strong political beliefs, classmates said – That’s the headline of the Denver Post news story about Denver high school murderer Karl Pierson.
OK. He had strong political beliefs. Given that that’s the headline, wouldn’t a good reporter tell us up front what those political beliefs were?
Watch Broken Trust – a Sun News feature documentary featuring noted journalist Lorne Gunter on the High River gun grab by the RCMP. It premiers
on December 10 at 7 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. MT on Shaw Digital 177, Bell 506, Shaw Direct 149/517.
The Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP is sending investigators to High River, Alta. as it looks into complaints that Mounties
illegally seized firearms during June flooding there, QMI Agency has learned.
“Commission investigators will be in High River from December 9th to 13th to speak to persons who may have been impacted,” said Richard Evans, the commission’s senior director of operations, in an email to Sun Media.
The commission is conducting an “expedited” investigation after irate citizens spoke out at a public meeting over the summer, complaining about Mounties taking away rifles and shotguns after bursting into flood-abandoned homes to conduct searches.
Evans says anyone who wants to speak to investigators should call 1-800-267-6637 or send an email to reviews@cpc-cpp.gc.ca.
h/t syncrodox
And in the twinkling of a national broadcaster’s eye, civilian oversight of police becomes inappropriate;
Documents obtained by CBC News show just how much pressure the Mounties were under to justify to their political masters the decision to seize firearms from evacuated homes at the height of the Alberta floods last spring. The emails paint a picture of a police force trying to juggle the demands of policing in an emergency with public and political criticisms.
The G20 seems a lifetime ago….
The federal government has cancelled a tender for a study on the environmental impact of lead shot and bullets. […]
“We know that the Liberals and the NDP probably would have continued this study on the grounds that the environmental impact of bullets on the forest floor would have been a good pretext for onerous environmental restrictions on the use of bullets,” Calandra told the Commons.
Write your MP and thank them – particularly if your MP also happens to be a hair-pulling, anti-gun leftist.
Sun News; Despite Toronto police chief Bill Blair’s assurance that scrapping the long-gun registry would make us “less safe”, shootings are down.
About 145 employees of the Doe Run lead smelter [in Herculaneum, Missouri] learned they will lose their jobs at the end of December because of the plant’s closure, the Doe Run Co. said Wednesday. An additional 73 contractor jobs also will be eliminated.
The job cuts were expected. The plant, which has operated for more than a century and is the lone remaining lead smelter in the United States, announced in 2010 that it will cease operations at the end of this year.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the company “made a business decision” to shut down the smelter instead of installing pollution control technologies needed to reduce sulfur dioxide and lead emissions as required by the Clean Air Act.
And more:
Without ammunition, a gun is just a club.
Update: more in the comments.
A new study has found that higher levels of racism in white Americans is associated with having a gun in the home and greater opposition to gun control policies. […]
The research was stimulated by gun control debates in the US after mass shootings such as the Sandy Hook tragedy, and research showing that with all things being equal black Americans are more likely to be shot than whites.
Early Results Favor Pro-Gun Groups In Colorado Recall
Giron and Morse became the targets of recall efforts after helping to pass new gun restrictions including background checks for gun purchasers and limits on the size of ammunition magazines. The laws were spurred by shooting massacres like one in Aurora, Colo. in July 2012, which resulted in 12 dead and 58 people injured.
“They blamed Colorado gun owners for a tragedy they did not commit,” Dudley Brown, the executive director of Rocky Mountain for Gun Owners, told NPR. Brown’s group strongly opposed the gun laws.
Critics of the laws subsequently took steps to initiate the first ever recall of two state lawmakers in Colorado’s history.
The election results will be interpreted nationally as an important marker in the ongoing conflict between advocates and opponents of tightening gun restrictions. Indeed, the national view was that the recalls were an indicator as to whether national pro-gun groups had found a new way to fight gun restrictions. Observers and those involved in the recall elections said that if both Morse and Giron were recalled, pro-gun groups would look to use the same type of recall formula elsewhere in the country. That’s why prominent national gun control groups like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns got involved. The two sides pumped millions of dollars into the races.
Denver Post has more, including results.
@garybtvnews I hope @Premier_Redford will come to my town hall on Sept 5: 1800 residents had their doors broken down. http://t.co/dfD109L9kX
— Danielle Smith (@ElectDanielle) September 3, 2013
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
USA Today, August 21st: An advocacy group has called for “Skip Starbucks Saturday” this weekend – a nationwide boycott on Aug. 24, to pressure the coffee giant to amend its current policy, which allows customers to carry loaded guns into Starbucks stores where permitted by state law.
King5 News, August 24th: “As a barista at Starbucks this was one of the busiest mornings I have ever experienced! Pretty awesome! One customer came through THREE times all before noon just to show support! I love Starbucks customers!”
h/t Lee M.
The White House asked the Centers for Disease Control “to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.”
• “Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue.”
• “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”
• One “body of research” (Kleck and Gertz, 1995) cited by the study found “estimated annual gun use for self-defense” to be “up to 2.5 million incidents, suggesting that self-defense can be an important crime deterrent.”
• “There is empirical evidence that gun turn-in programs are ineffective.”
h/t Kevn B
This could turn anti-gun Hollywood on its head: Paparazzi Turn to Drones
Faster, please. I hope they stalk Jaime Foxx from dawn to dusk.
h/t Bob H.
Confirming suspicions: RCMP seized secured guns in High River
I am phoning my MP today and will be asking them to advise how many firearms have been seized from the Cumberland House Indian Reserve as they have been evacuated as well. I suggest you do the same.