Lucky
Member
Does anyone have a link to the article (JPFO I think) that talked about the mindset of anti-gunners, and delved into their problems with projection? I found 2 similar articles on their site, but not the long one I'm thinking of.
To set the story, recently in a park in Ottawa a naked girl was stabbed and left over night in a park, was found at 5 AM the next morning and died in hospital an hour later. Doing our bit, a bunch of people wrote letters to the paper on behalf of CCW.
But it's not just a liberal town, it's a Liberal town. Here's the paper's response:
Some people just shouldn't read the following article, it will aggravate high blood pressure - you are warned;
To set the story, recently in a park in Ottawa a naked girl was stabbed and left over night in a park, was found at 5 AM the next morning and died in hospital an hour later. Doing our bit, a bunch of people wrote letters to the paper on behalf of CCW.
But it's not just a liberal town, it's a Liberal town. Here's the paper's response:
Some people just shouldn't read the following article, it will aggravate high blood pressure - you are warned;
PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Sun =20
DATE: 2006.12.14=20
EDITION: Final =20
SECTION: Editorial/Opinion =20
PAGE: 15 =20
BYLINE: GEOFF MATTHEWS =20
WORD COUNT: 584=20
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Life under the gun? No thanks=20
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I once owned a gun. Owned it for about a week, in fact.=20
I bought it on a Friday night in a Halifax tavern from a friend of a
friend. It was a .22-calibre rifle that, to the best of my recollection,
cost me $20.=20
It was brand new and, as I understood the story, had "gone missing" from
a shipment to a local store.=20
Why I bought it is a mystery, since I have always been deathly afraid of
the things and would never be able to bring myself to shoot even a rat.=20
But it was Friday night and the beer was flowing and the price was right
so I bought the gun. This, of course, was long before today's regulated
system that would have required registration forms, a firearms
acquisition certificate and some training before I could have made the
purchase.=20
I took the rifle home, shoved it into a closet and did my best to
convince myself that it was a good thing to have on hand. Just in case,
you know, someone ever tried to break in to my house and harm me or a
family member.=20
But just having the weapon in my home had the opposite effect on me.
Instead of feeling secure, I felt frightened.=20
Stupid acts=20
What if, one night, I had too much to drink and I did something stupid
with the gun? Maybe tried to reprise that teenaged event when, using a
friend's gun, I tried to shoot the dot off the "i" on the neon sign
outside the local dairy bar?=20
What if I mistook the footsteps of the landlord for those of an
intruder?=20
What if I tried to pick off a can from the top of the fence and instead
sent a shot through the neighbour's window?=20
A week after acquiring the rifle I resold it -- to another friend in
another tavern. For the same amount I had paid for it. And I have never,
in the 30 or so years since, owned a firearm of any kind.=20
I have shot one the odd time, but only on a target range and always
under the careful supervision of someone who had the training and common
sense to make sure I was doing it safely.=20
I put all this on the record as background before entering into the
debate that has sprung up again over whether ordinary citizens should be
allowed to carry guns with them as they walk the streets of our cities
and towns. Several people have written letters to this newspaper in the
wake of the brutal murder of Kelly Morrisseau, the 27-year-old who was
stabbed and left to die last Sunday in Gatineau Park.=20
There was a similar outpouring after September's shootings at Dawson
College in Montreal.=20
Michel Trahan of Verdun wrote: "It seems like not a week goes by without
some defenceless woman been attacked ... Shouldn't we take action to
allow them to better protect themselves? Why is it socially tolerable
that a woman be attacked by an armed criminal, raped, strangled, stabbed
and dumped in a back alley. But it is not acceptable that she also be
armed to face the threat?"=20
George Penfold of North York asked: "How many of these murdered young
women would be alive today had they been allowed some means of
self-defence? Perhaps these so-called feminists could explain to the
victims' parents why it's better to have a dead daughter than a dead
criminal."=20
And from Bill Kushniryk in Swan River, Man.: "Do you really think some
goon would consider attacking a person if he thought he/she might be
armed. Don't you understand that these scumbags are cowards?"=20
Here's what I do understand: That every additional weapon on our streets
is a threat to public safety. This isn't the Wild West of TV land where
arguments were settled on the street at high noon. It's a civilized
country where respect for one another has to take a front row to getting
even and issuing threats.=20
I know some people get a kick out of target shooting and deer hunting. I
know farmers need guns to chase predators away from their livestock.=20
But the idea of the guy standing next to me at the bar packing a pistol
under his sports jacket scares me a heck of a lot more than the
possibility of a stranger taking a shot at me as I walk home.