[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]Gun owners responsible for ensuring laws rooted in common sense
Winning the war of public opinion means they must behave with care
By Matt Gurney, National Post October 11, 2011
RCMP display seized guns in Vancouver.Photograph by: Jason Payne, The ProvinceThe last several years have seen a radical shift in fortune for Canada's long-beleaguered lawful firearms owners. The election of a Conservative majority last spring has all-but assured us the widely disparaged long-gun registry will be scrapped. In Ontario, even the banhappy McGuinty Liberals made a campaign pledge not to replace it with a provincial program. And a new Canadian study, soon to be released, statistically supports what millions of Canadians have long believed intuitively: The gun registry has never saved lives and was always a misused political prop for the federal Liberal party.
New data from the United States, while emerging from a very different and more dangerous gun culture, is still good news for those Canadians who want stronger legal protections for citizens who use firearms in selfdefence: After handgun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C. were struck down as unconstitutional, violent crime rates in both cities fell sharply - and disproportionately, compared to the national average.
Yet there remains much to be done to rationalize Canada's politically skewed firearms laws. As The Edmonton Journal's Lorne Gunter wrote in Wednesday's National Post, the "safe storage" provisions for firearms and ammunition under the Firearms Act are vaguely worded messes, often sloppily enforced by law enforcement. This has led many to justifiably wonder if the purpose of these provisions is less to prevent the theft of firearms than to give police and Crown attorneys "catch-all" charges to levy against law-abiding firearms owners who have acted in good faith, but in some way fell afoul of the regulatory state. These laws make it extremely difficult for Canadians to use their legally owned firearms for self-defence in case of home invasions.
The arbitrary classification of firearms into three categories also needs reform. While the difference between a single-shot shotgun and an assault rifle should indeed be recognized by the law, many of the classifications of firearms were determined more by how scary a panel of bureaucrats thought the gun looked, rather than the risk it poses in the hands of a violent criminal.
In other words, there's much to be done and Canada's well-organized firearms-owning community will continue to pressure their elected officials in Ottawa to make sure it happens. But that's going to take more than just phone calls and letters to local MPs. It means that Canada's firearms owners must continue to always act in good faith and with discipline - every misstep made by any of them will be used to tar the whole community.
This will almost certainly prove to be the case with the tragedy that recently unfolded in Jaffray, B.C. On June 16, a group of children and teenagers gathered in the home of George Lewis Phillips. During the social gathering, at which no adults were present, a 12-year-old child, the stepson of Phillips, had what police have described as "unimpeded" access to a loaded shotgun. The boy brought out the firearm, without threatening intent, to show it to the guests in the home. The shotgun was accidentally discharged. Michael Voth, 17, was instantly killed. Police have laid charges of criminal negligence causing death and unsafe storage of a firearm against Phillips (his unidentified stepson is too young to be criminally charged).
In announcing that the Crown would be laying charges, RCMP Corporal Chris Faulkner correctly noted that this incident is a tragedy for all concerned. "A 17-year-old is dead. We have an immediate family that is still grieving and suffering. We have the (child) who, I'm sure, feels a ton of remorse," he told reporters.
Whatever the admitted and serious flaws of the Firearm Act's safe storage provisions may be, it is never - under any circumstances - acceptable for a young boy to have unimpeded access to a powerful, loaded weapon. The death of young Voth and the legal troubles now facing Phillips are a painful reminder of the tragic toll that firearms can take if not safely stored and used. On a political level, they also serve as a reminder to Canada's lawful firearms owners: The last few years have brought much good news, but winning the war of public opinion requires each of you to do your duty to ensure that gun ownership in Canada remains safe, law-abiding and always rooted in common sense.
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
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Jeu 13 Oct 2011 - 7:45