Gun Business: Canadian court ruling could zap Taser’s bottom line
Taser X3 multi-shot ECD
Canadian Judge Robert Sewell, denied Taser International Inc.’s (TASR) request to reject the previous findings of a governmental inquiry. A public inquiry into stun gun safety began in May 5, 2008 after the 2007 death of a man in a Vancouver Airport. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) shot the man multiple times with a stun gun and he later died. The inquiry report provided evidence that stun guns also called conducted energy weapons which disable potential targets with up to 50,000 volts of electricity can be lethal.
“It is quite clear to me that there were presentations made to the commissioner by medical experts,” said British Columbia Supreme Court judge Sewell,” and others to the effect that such weapons can cause serious harm and even death in exceptional circumstances.” Read more
Doctors Take Aim at Guns
Watch out, soon the American mainstream media could be reporting the “expert” opinion of doctors on the issues of firearms. In a story from north of the border, CTV.ca offers:
“A group of emergency doctors, nurses and suicide prevention workers asked members of Parliament to vote against a federal bill that seeks to quash the long-gun registry. The group says a significant drop in gun-related suicide since 1995 is evidence the registry works and scrapping it would set them back years in suicide prevention.”
Neither the political motivation, nor the actual size of this “group” is ever actually mentioned, however the article suggests it is at least “61 organizations and medical professionals.” So again, we have to question the motivation, and according to the article the biggest concern is suicide, because a long gun (rifle, shotgun), would offer a far greater success than other methods, notably an overdose. We counter that a long gun would also be better for hunting and home defense than pills.
Who Guards the Guards: Canadian Edition
The anti-gun zealots like to note that every “illegal gun must have been legally owned originally,” and they like to imply that a legal gun owner sold the gun to a criminal. But what about the guns stolen from the police? This happens more often that you think, and it isn’t limited to the United States. Cnews.com is reporting:
“Ottawa police are reviewing how they award contracts to private companies after a security guard became the prime suspect in the theft of a cop’s gun.”
This incident occurred at a police HQ no less.
Guns Seized North of the Border
Michael Moore take notice. A series of raid in the greater Toronto area was found to have more 50 guns, including an Uzi, reports The Toronto Star. The paper noted:
“Five men now face 546 charges in the break-and-enter investigation with police now appealing to the public for help recovering the remainder of 53 guns.”
This followed a robbery added the paper, where the guns had been legally owned. The point we’d like to make is two-fold. First, there is crime north of the border involving guns (despite the hype in the American mainstream media), and second criminals will find a way to get their hands on guns illegally. This isn’t straw purchases or smuggled guns either.
What’s This? Canadians Smuggling Guns!
Time and time again the American mainstream media likes to point out that our neighbor to the north doesn’t have gun crime, but as we’ve been reporting over the last year that is just bad reporting. And while the MSM notes every Americans smuggling guns to Mexico, how about stories that aren’t being picked up on this side of the border. The Windsor Star is reporting such an example:
“Two Windsor men are facing several charges after a seven-month joint forces investigation targeting an organized crime syndicate smuggling guns into Windsor. Project Folkstone, a Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit investigation in partnership with several police services including Windsor, has resulted in 22 people facing more than 250 criminal charges.”
That’s a lot of guns and that’s a lot of people involved. But do you think this will make the news in America? Probably not, and that’s fine. But what do you think that Michael Moore and others will continue to note how few gun crimes there are in Canada in the future?
New York Times Offers Biased Take on Canadian Gun Laws
In an article from The New York Times this week it sounds like the old gray lady believes Canada to be more enlightened about firearms, and health care!
“OTTAWA — Like public health care, Canada’s tight gun-control laws help distinguish the country from its powerful neighbor to the south. But as Canadians commemorated the 20th anniversary of one of the country’s most notorious shooting sprees on Sunday, their Parliament was on course to eliminate one of its most significant gun-control measures.”
The question we’d like to ask is whether these laws actually distinguish Canada in a good way? Anyone? But let’s look at some other questionable points in the article. First up, note how the firearm is described in this passage:
“A decade before the Columbine high school shootings set off a national debate on gun violence in the United States, an angry, unemployed 25-year-old armed with a semiautomatic hunting rifle stormed the École Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal.”
Then the article goes a bit further, and note the use of the wording here:
“The current debate does not involve handguns, whose registration has been required since 1934. Nor does it involve a variety of military-style weapons like assault rifles and sawed-off shotguns, which are banned outright. And the law’s repeal would not alter the requirement that gun buyers take safety courses and obtain a license.”
A “military-style weapon” is not a “hunting rifle” nor is a “sawed-off shotgun” a military weapon or hunting weapon. This is just another case where lots of different scary sounding words are thrown around to confuse the reader. Not exactly solid reporting, now is it?
Canadian Press as Misguided as American Mainstream Media
Responding to Canada’s recent over turning of long run registry The Toronto Star ran an editorial this week, and as we often find with American editorials, the facts don’t seem to matter when making an opinionated statement:
“And we remember the outrage when we learned that military-style weapons were being sold to civilians and that there were 6 million guns in Canada and no one knew who had them.”
What exactly are “military-style weapons? Handguns are used by the military, rifles with scopes are used by the military as well, and of course fully automatic electric powered machine guns with multiple barrels are used by the military. So what defines a small arm that is “military” vs. “civilian.” In Canada fully automatic weapons are nearly impossible for the private citizen to own.
So this is clearly another biased article that suggests just because a firearm looks like an M-16 that it must be an M-16! That’s of course nonsense. An AR-15 is a semi-automatic, civilian version. But if it was a more dangerous weapon why wasn’t it used for hunting? The reason is that it is better at close range, while a hunting rifle is better at a distance. But most militaries around the world still rely on traditional bolt-action rifles. In fact a civilian bolt-action rifle today is probably also more accurate than a true World War II military rifle. And as far as close range, a double barrel shotgun looks nothing like a military weapon, but it can be extremely devastating in close range situations – which is why it is preferred by criminals.
So what we’re saying is why all this nonsense about “military style.” If the anti-gun lobby can tell us what they mean, instead of trying to scare the public with this notion that anyone can buy an AK-47 at a gun show, we’d have a lot more respect for those opposed to our firearms.
Canadian Media Reporting Facts
While we like to point out when the American mainstream media gets the facts right, or shows less biased reporting on the issue of firearms, and gun control. So for that reason, we’ll also note reporting this week from The Vancouver Sun, which took aim at the debate raging in Canada over long guns:
“More than 80 per cent of British Columbians believe that gun crime is at least a moderately serious problem, but only eight per cent believe that Canada’s $1 billion long-gun registry has been effective at preventing crime, according to a survey conducted by pollsters Angus Reid.”
Interesting numbers, not the least of which suggest that Canada isn’t exactly the crime free land that Michael Moore made it seem. To many in the American media, Canada is a carefree land with no crime. Yet, here we see that the citizens note that crime is a problem, and rifles are not really part of the problem!
More Vocal Bias From Canadian Mainstream Media
At Firearmstruth.com we thought it was only the American press that was so staunchly biased against guns, but the Canadian mainstream media seems just as bad. The Vancouver Sun didn’t pull any punches with this editorial headline:
“Scrapping long-gun registry is pandering to vocal minority” Read more
Even Canadian Press Shows Bias
While editorials don’t pretend to be news, these pieces show the motives and motivations behind how the mainstream media feels about the issue of firearms and gun control. And while the United States is typically anti-gun, so too are the editors north of the border. Check out this headline from The Toronto Star by James Travers:
“Travers: Liberals squander big chance”
This “big chance” was to overturn the nation’s highly unpopular long gun registry. The people have spoken, the government has seen the light. But the media calls it’s a defeat. Typical!
