Barbarians At the Gate: Got books? Guns?
Police say people must not lose focus on why Hamiltonians want to get rid of guns.
"The people of Hamilton have an intolerance for gun violence," [Deputy Chief] Leendertse said. "If we save one life, that's worth more than any history." Hamilton Spectator
The city of Hamilton, Ontario, like all good little McGuinty communities, had its own version of the now famous "Ontario Gun Amnesty" thoroughout the month of March. The amnesty programs held in Toronto, Ottawa, and now Hamilton, were "intended" to allow gang bangers and friends of gang bangers, to turn in street weapons with relative impunity.
Of course, as was predicted, the vast majority of firearms that were turned in were from ordinary citizens getting rid of an old military trophy or an unused gun belonging to a deceased or senior relative. Very few came from thugs, naturally.
The usual take in these amnesties is 300-500 firearms. Not to be undone by Toronto or Ottawa, the good gun-naive citizens of Hamilton turned in some 1200 firearms. Most, as expected, were old military rifles and the like, but there were also a fair number of valuable antiques and rare guns.
The police, bless their hearts, care not a wit for the history. A couple of the guns are exceedily rare, one or two century old historical weapons. One in particular, a Brown Bess, caught the attention of the Canadian War Museum.
"You just ruined my day," said special projects director Daniel Glenney. "How do I get that Brown Bess?"
Glenney said the British India Pattern musket was manufactured between 1797 and 1805 and used in Canada by the regular British troops in the War of 1812. It was then used by the Canadian militia in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.
"Based on the picture, you only see ones in that nice a condition very rarely."
The firearms are slated to go to the steel smelter at the end of the month.
Police subtly softened their stance yesterday, after maintaining all through the amnesty that all weapons would be destroyed regardless of historic value.
The whole point of the gun amnesty is community safety, said Deputy Chief Ken Leendertse. Owners who turned in guns did so knowing they were entering into a contract with police.
"They signed a form that acknowledged they turned it over to the police service for destruction.
"Citizens had an opportunity to turn these weapons over to museums before they turned them over to us."
The story has attracted national attention, being carried by Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Sun, and by the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
So, are the Liberals out to rewrite history in Canada, by denying its existence? As a government they had little use for veterans on Remembrance Day, barely acknowledging them in government departments throughout Canada.
Now, in the gun control zeal of Liberal dominated Ontario police forces, erasing the tangible evidence of Canadian history is just fine, apparently. After all, Deputy Chief Leendertse apparently believes gang-bangers are lining up to acquire muskets and antique firearms for their next drive-by pop. Therefore, Canada's heritage has to go.
I wonder if he understands hundreds of thousands of Canadians (and a few Dutch) died to prevent history from being rewritten. I might have a copy of Fahrenheit 451, he'd like to read ...
Send your thoughts to the Hamilton Police.
Update: The Hamilton Police Department apparently has got the message (well, sort of):
Spectator update
Hamilton police will now try to save a rare 200-year-old British musket from the War of 1812 after a plea from the Canadian War Museum not to melt it down.
But, warns Chief Brian Mullan, it will depend on the wishes of the owner who turned in the Brown Bess India Pattern musket during a month-long gun amnesty in Hamilton.
The owner gave the gun to police under a signed understanding it would be destroyed, Mullan said.
"It's our intention to contact the owner of the flintlock" to ask if they would consider donating it to the national war museum in Ottawa, he said.
"Ultimately, if an owner wants it destroyed, regardless of the historical value, we will be proceeding forward with their wishes for destruction," he said.
"That includes the Brown Bess."
Odd, how the police will trample all over your rights when it suits them (C-68) and respect them - when it suits them.
posted by Stephen | 4/06/2006 06:31:00 PM
3 Comments:
When Chief Brian Mullans is on the wait list for a heart operation, I want the right to erase his name.
Not so odd that McGuinty desires a police state remedy focused at disarming honest citizens while avoiding armed criminals.....also not so odd that police usually spear head the ambitions of an uncivil fanatic regime...that is the historical pattern.
Civilly malicious political regimes must control and have the force of the civilian police function to usher in their civilly destructive agendas/policies...They must also create ( through massive propaganda) urban/social myths so that citizens will willingly accept civilly irresponsible self destructive social policies....this is also amply established in the historic record.
If one studies the historic record of the modern political epoch, you realize that Police functions are prone to become the tool of the autocrat. Police functionaries will not fight him for restoration of civil justice or the common people as their political/personal fortunes are tied to those of the autocrat. A totally apolitical police function has always been employed by an autocracy to control the population...it's less about "to serve and protect" as it is “to control and coerce” where the civilian population is concerned. At the upper levels the police function is political and part of political policy enforcement...in any statist authoritarian regime ( such as Dolton's kleptocratic statism) the police function becomes integral in enforcing and promoting "policy" as a primary function. The despot’s personal ideals as expressed in "Policy" IS NOT the law, and often conflicts with the law and civil liberty.
In the case of this so called gun amnesty, it is just another theatrical placebo meant to dupe the population into the notion that guns are the root of all evil/crime...hypocritical at best as police use guns to enforce the peace and protect themselves from criminals at the same time spreading the myth that armed self defense is a right denied the citizen....the gun is a tool to protect the person behind it. This is the reality that Statist left using propaganda and police state remedies to obliterate a right of free citizenship in the public mind. To do it they engage in dozens of asinine theatrics like confiscating kid's water guns or raiding toy stores and "seizing" toy guns...or offering "amnesty" for surrendering civilian arms to police (as if they would let a crook go who turned in a gun used in a crime)...totally vacant police state theatrics that obfuscate a more sinister motive....an active state propaganda program focused on obscuring the state’s & police inability to control armed criminals preying on unarmed defenseless civilians. Instead stigmatization and fear mongering are employed to intimidate citizens into the belief they are powerless unarmed wards of a police state which claims a monopoly on armed self defense, yet that same armed police function demonstrably cannot use that presumed armed force monopoly to adequately defend unarmed law-abiding civilians from armed criminals. In this reality, disarming civilians and criminalizing civil arms ownership is an act of injustice and state immorality.
Instead of targeting crime the police and irresponsible politicians fear monger and whip up public hysteria that attempts to demonize and criminalize lawful civilian arms owners and ownership and stigmatize guns and their defensive use by responsible and capable civilians. This is probably the greatest case of official blame/responsibility shifting in the modern political age.
Does there not seem to be something intrinsically immoral about a state/police function which advocates civilian disarmament and prosecution of those exercising armed self defense, yet is totally incapable of offering armed police intervention in 99% of all violent fatal criminal attacks on unarmed civilians?
The greatest “official” denial of fact that I have heard in my lifetime is when Liberal deconstructionists started spreading the myth that Canada does not have a “gun culture”. Any historic record of our nation’s development (that has not been politically sanitized) will tell the story of a wilderness that was tamed largely by men exercising the British common law civil right to bear personal arms for personal defense….this was born out throughout our history from the citizen militias in the Galt colonies and war of 1812, to the Steel’s scouts and western militias in the Riel rebellions and the 200 years of Canadian legal judgements that supported a civilian protecting himself, his family and property with a firearm he has a right to own for that purpose. Canada is awash in arms t built specifically for or in our nation; the HBC trade rifles, the trap door Snider Enfield carbines, Martini Enfield carbines and RCMP Winchester 86 Mannlichers . Many locally made percussion pistols and revolvers, Canadian Webley-scotts and a dozen locally made break-top small caliber revolvers that the Canadian civilian population bought for personal defense in the post confederal era. Then there were the historic Ross rifles and Canadian modified Lee-Enfield #4Mk1 long branch rifle still used by Canadian rangers, the long branch Stirling SMGs…the lowly and well loved Cooey rimfire rifles of the nation’s farmers, trappers and kids. Today we have the Diemaco , timberwolf , para-ordnance. These are lasting concrete artifacts of Canada’s history and our “gun culture”… a civil and responsible gun culture by all historic fact.
Is it any wonder that Canada’s deconstructionist utopian left must erase this rich history of responsible civilian firearms ownership if they are to usher in their statist socialist dystopia ( complete with police state functions). Is it any wonder that the last desparate act of a corrupt Liberal dystopian regime under Martin was to promise a law that would have put 200 years of Canadian historical record into the grinder? From The HBC and voyageur belt pistols to Riel’s Colt, to Sam Steel’s Webley to d’arcy McGee’s .32…all would have been taken from museums and collectors to the grinder…all to placate a utopian concept which has never born fruit for anyone other than political dictators.
There is a vast propaganda war raging in this nation and at the center of it is the traditional civilian freedom to own arms….historic fact demonstrates that responsible and traditional civilian firearms owners are not a problem…except to autocratic regimes…you have to ask yourself what sort of agenda a government has which wishes to criminalize and remove the basic civil right to lawful armed self defense while criminal misuse of firearms goes on unaddressed and unabated.
That post says it all!!
good one, and glory to you
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