Posted on 01/05/2006 10:55:39 PM PST by Coral Snake
Edited on 01/05/2006 10:59:48 PM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Not so Fast on proposed handgun ban
• Area shooters express disgust, concern with Martin’s ‘election ploy’ and its potential impact on fast draw
Darryl Mills
Wednesday January 04, 2006Cochrane Times — f you have lived in Cochrane and area for any of the past five or six years, then you’re likely familiar with a sport that Cochrane and area could claim to be Canada’s capital of -- fast draw.
But, with Prime Minister Paul Martin’s vow to completely ban handguns if re-elected, the sport’s future in Canada might be in jeopardy.
The plan would see all Canadians except for law enforcement officials forced to give up their handguns, or sell them to the government in a buyback program that is estimated could cost the government close to a billion dollars over a number of years.
Critics have slammed the plan, saying it will do nothing to deal with the handguns most used in violent crimes in Canada – illegal ones.
Darryl Blinn runs the Bearspaw Fast Draw and Travelling Wild West Show, and he doesn’t believe the plan will ever see the light of day.
"I believe it is an election ploy," Blinn said earlier this week, his latest in a series of interviews on the subject that has included The Globe and Mail and national radio shows.
"I don’t know where this will go, but I am not concerned one bit," he said. "I don’t think it’s ever going to happen."
He said he cringes at the thought of Paul Martin being prime minister once again, and he oozes sarcasm when he talks of Martin’s proposal.
"Drugs are illegal in this country, and nobody’s using them anymore," he said, adding that drunk driving is illegal, yet an average of four people are killed by drunk drivers in Canada every day.
"The $2 billion boondoggle of a gun registry hasn’t stopped crime one bit, and neither will this."
And Blinn isn’t unsympathetic to the gun violence that has plagued Toronto in recent months, but he said punishing law-abiding gun owners and collectors would do nothing to stem the tide of gun violence.
Handguns have been a part of the Blinn family for six generations, he noted, with his great uncles serving as wardens at Fort Wainwright to his daughter Alanna, who through fast draw has become somewhat of an Alberta celebrity.
"Alanna is a sixth generation gunslinger, he said with pride.
On the flip side, just down the road here in Cochrane, Richard Benedictson, who along with his wife Linda founded the Cochrane Fast Guns in 1999, is very concerned. And, he sees the move as part of a larger, more sinister effort.
"I have a feeling this has been the plan right back to the days of Pierre Trudeau," Benedictson said recently. "It is a plan to completely disarm Canada, but they have to do it in bits and pieces."
He said the gun registry was part of that plan, and now the outright handgun ban would be the next cog.
"They have made a promise to reimburse everybody, and Adolf Hitler did the very same thing in 1932-33 Germany," he said, noting he can’t help but think of the sacrifices made by his father and uncles to fight his oppression and madness.
"I’m not saying Paul Martin is mad, I don’t think he is, I think he is a very clever politician."
But, he said Canadian taxpayers will balk at paying hundreds of millions to buy the estimated 560,000 legal handguns in Canada right now.
And, he criticized the plan for being shortsighted, and said it will do nothing to stem the shootings that have been happening, especially in Canadian cities.
He said he would prefer more emphasis on safety and training when it comes to firearms, and that the justice system start doling out serious punishments for weapons offences.
“I hear a lot of plea bargaining out,” he said. “So, how strong is our law, or do our judges not have the balls to enact it.”
“They have the tools in place, but they don’t use them.”
As for the sport that has become an integral part of his life, he said the ban would be its end in Canada.
oopsie!
That is all it takes for tripe like this to get through any government, anywhere. If enough people believe this, the other side wins.
Hmmm, first post there Snake?
In the immortal words of Archie Bunker:
Gloria:
"Daddy, do you know that guns are the #1 reason for murders in this country."
Archie:
"Would you prefer they were pushed out of windows?"
Wha? Oh my eyes...
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