Posted on 08/10/2012 6:10:23 PM PDT by george76
An off-duty Michigan police officer's public lament about not being able to carry a handgun in a Calgary park has him taking cyber fire from both sides of the border.
Walt Wawra of Kalamazoo, Mich., wrote a letter to the Calgary Herald this week complaining about a recent daylight encounter he and his wife had while visiting Nose Hill Park, a vast expanse of hilly grassland on the city's north side.
Wawra said two men asked twice in a "very aggressive tone" whether the couple had been to the Calgary Stampede yet. They were "disrespectful" and had a "menacing manner," he recalls.
He said he ignored the two men at first, but when they moved closer he responded: "Gentlemen, I have no need to talk with you. Goodbye."
Everyone walked away peacefully.
But in his letter to the editor, Wawra laments a man should have the right to protect himself when he needs to and said it felt strange not to be able to carry his handgun off duty.
"I thank the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort, but rather concluded it was in their best interest to leave us alone," Wawra writes.
(Excerpt) Read more at winnipegfreepress.com ...
No dog with them I guess.
I don’t think his problem was a lack of a gun. In fact, his problem is having a “cop” attitude in a time and place where that is inappropriate. If he had a gun with him, this could have resulted in tragedy.
The long and the short of it is that like many, he is using a gun as a “crutch”, when other means are called for. This can happen to anyone, and it’s important to look out for it as a gun owner.
Guns are at their best when they instill enough confidence so that you are able to resolve situations without having to use your gun.
I certainly don’t assume that I have the same rights in another country as I have here.
No, the long and short of it is that there are fully paid shills roaming around ready to dredge up the oldest, stupidest myths about gun ownership and re-plaster them into the minds of responsible people in order to keep the liberal buggaboo about guns making people insane, alive.
I'd ask how you live with yourself, but I don't assume you're really alive in the first place, so the question is pointless.
Agree. If he doesn't like a country that forbids foreigners having handguns, he shouldn't go there.
If a couple is violently accosted, and the attackers refuse to back off, and the attackers get shot and killed, that is NOT a tragedy. That is an incredibly good outcome for all of mankind.
IF we had more armed people we'd have far fewer criminals
Something sounds ‘fishy’ here.
Americans don’t ‘speak’ like the gentleman was quoted.
Especially one who wishes he had a gun with him.
Even reading it, it just doesn’t ‘sound’ right.
Just my NSHO.
I agree.
I smell an "I'm special" attitude.
Yeah, everybody knows Canadians don't have guns.
As The Batman said "The cop acted stupidly" "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion".
He put the text of the letter through Babelfish American to Canadian translation before sending it to the Calgary paper.
Good thing they didn't ask him if he ever shot a dog
Apparently a lot of Americans can’t grasp the concept of Canada being a separate nation. My cousin spent a long weekend in a Windsor jail mostly for throwing a tantrum about his constitutional rights. The charged him with disturbing the peace and let him sit in jail for 4 days before calling the American authorities.
He was really mad when the American consulate told him the same. “You don’t have constitutional rights in Canada”.
His problem is the attitude of the a$$hats that will become aggressive for no reason just because they think they can. He managed to not get in trouble but if they had decided to press on, it could have turned very ugly for him. You seem to be saying that because he doesn't like being menaced for no reason, he has "issues". You also seem to imply that we need to place the safety of the a$$hats ahead of the safety of the everyday, mind-your-own-business citizen. Just be tween you and me, I'd rather that 100 a$$hats got shot because they threatened someone than one innocent citizen get a black eye from one of these yo-yos.
Americans dont speak like the gentleman was quoted
= = = == = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Kind of like the ‘spam-mails’ you get from Iraq...
“I am Captain Jonathan Paul Jones, USMC, a soldier posted in Iraq that has been entrusted with guarding 100 trillion bucks.
Would you care to share it with me etc”
Not that I bother to read these at all, but by the time I see USMC, a soldier and posted in the same sentence, the delete button goes to work a lot quicker than if I really thought there was a possibility of it being true.
If you check my postings in the forum, you will discover that I am not, in any way, anti-gun. Having done so, I will expect an apology from you.
This being said, I will elaborate on what I wrote. To start with, at any distance under 25 feet, I will generally prefer to use a knife than a gun, because at short range, it can be much more effective, and the gap can be closed very quickly.
The cop wished he had a gun at the time, but had these two had evil intent, the gap was already closed so the gun could have been less than useless. They might have overpowered him and shot him with his own gun, something that happens to police officers with far too much frequency.
So, without a gun, or a knife, he is pretty reliant on hand-to-hand combat with the two. And in that he has training for this, it is probably his best bet if necessary.
But he wished he had his gun, so it is a psychological crutch for him, an inappropriate tool for his situation. He didn’t have one, so it is not part of the equation.
To me this is a major red flag, and one that often happens to gun users. They assume a gun has “magical” powers, and is the end-all, be-all in any situation. That it automatically imparts control and dominance over any situation.
And this gets a lot of gun owners hurt and killed.
In truth, having a concealed carry gun imparts enormous tactical advantages, even against an assailant who is brandishing a gun. Added up, these can mean, my estimate, over two seconds of advantage, which is huge in a situation where fractions of a second make all the difference.
But as soon as the CC is exposed, the clock is ticking. So if a glib tongue and diplomacy extends this concealment, it gives more and more advantages to the CC holder. Optimally, the situation can resolve with no exposure at all.
This is why using a gun as a psychological crutch is so dangerous, because by exposing, or even brandishing your gun you lose a lot, and if the tactical situation is not optimal for using a gun in the first place, you are just begging to come out of the situation worse for wear.
What we more commonly see is the gun carrier gets the gun out before shooting is necessary, and the potential attacker runs away. This is the most common use of a gun for self defense, and is considered a more desirable result than having to shoot an attacker.
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