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!
Canadian Lawmakers Approve Elimination of Gun Registry
This week the Canadian government made the first step towards eliminating registration of long guns, by approving in principle a bill that would end the a decade-old registry of hunting rifles and shotguns. Of course this has hardly been reported south of the border in the United States, and in fact, even Reuters in Canada took time to show anti-gun bias:
“Canada took a step on Wednesday to scrapping a controversial gun registry, though rules will still remain much tougher than in the United States.”
Let’s see if this story gets any play from the U.S. mainstream media.
Canada Vote Could Abolish Gun Registry
Another story is developing north of the border, and it is of the type that our American mainstream media doesn’t want you to know about it. Call it a real inconvenient truth and it has nothing to do with global warming or climate change. Rather it is about attitude change and warming opinions on firearm ownership. The CBC (Canadian Broadcast Company) is reporting that law makers in Canada are seeking to overturn a law that requires registration of firearms.
In other words, while liberal law makers in the United States cite Canada as a perfect example of socialized medicine, and the MSM hypes the low gun crime, no word is being made that Bill C-391 would according to the CBC:
“…scrap the decade-old registry and destroy existing data within the system on about seven million shotguns and rifles.”
Of course this is something that the American media probably don’t want you to know about!
Ammo Story Goes International Via WaPo
Apparently there has been so much hype about an increase in the sale of ammunition in the United States that the story continues to go international, and alas with the same liberal bias. This week The Canadian Free Press ran a story with this passage:
“In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves. At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them.”
First, we’d like ask our colleagues north of the border for a source on the point that bullets are actually being sold “faster than factories could make them.” Yes, ammo is selling, but so far even the American press hasn’t stated that dubious claim. Or has it?
A closer look at the story reveals that this wasn’t actually original copy – as in an original article from Canada, but is in fact just a passage quoted from The Washington Post. This story of course offers the usual suggestions that it is fear of Obama taking away guns that are driving the sales.
Additionally, what the Canadian abridged version fails to point out is at least in the WaPo version, which stresses that America is involved in two wars right now. Factor in the additional training, and maybe the ammo shortage isn’t just people hording. While WaPo offers this suggestion, via the argument from ammo makers, the rest of the mainstream media – including that in Canada now – just blames gun owners of course.
Human Addiction Permeates Canadian Double Murder
Kawku Grimpong is accused of shooting Ziad Ahmad and Phillip Salmon two years ago in Ottawa, Canada. The CBC is highlighting the fact that the weapon used by Grimpong was a “straw purchase” smuggled into Canada from the United States. The second paragraph of the story tells the reader what type of weapon was used and points out that the “pistol costs less than a base-model iPod in the U.S. The only inference one can draw from this is that Americans like cheap guns over cheap music players. What the story doesn’t highlight is the fact that human addiction, some state sponsored, runs rampant in this tragedy. Read more
Calgary Daily News Questions Gun Laws North of the Border
Are people really safer if they are murdered with a knife instead of being shot by a gun? That’s an interesting question, and one brought up by The Calgary Herald this week. The paper notes that while murder by firearms have fallen since gun registration was put in place, “substitution” has increased, meaning that people are still finding ways to kill or commit suicide. The big question is why this type of common sense reporting is never considered by the American mainstream media?
