Democracy's a bitch, ain't she?
Shopping with guns
by THANE BURNETT, QMI Agency
April 24, 2010 2:00am
NEW BERLIN, Wis. - There's some bother near the broccoli, but the concern is not from customers, who seem oblivious to armed people moving through their supermarket. The tension is from staff, who track the armed duo and the journalist who's in pursuit. Neither holds a permit for their loaded guns, but no sirens wail. Instead, a manager moves in. It's not the guns he's concerned about, but rather the journalist's camera. Once reassured, the manager breathes a sigh of relief, before warning: "Please, just don't video any of the empty bread shelves. Looks bad."
Norman "Griffon" Lapierre, of Saint-Constant, QC, has four permits to carry a weapon in the U.S. "The Americans trust me enough, but my own country doesn't," he says. His group says only 13 concealed gun permits were allotted in Ontario in 2008. "You can't tell me not more than 13 people in Ontario (fear) their life is in danger," Lapierre, a 54-year-old grandfather and vocational school teacher, argues. He's hoping for a change to allow more Canadians to carry concealed weapons.
Source.
Silly Yanks. Carrying on about their "right" to bear arms, but never stopping to read about the Freikorps. Permissive firearms laws make it very easy for private armies to form, and while Americans claim that that will keep the government honest, in recent history it has only caused the reverse to happen. The most famous examples were the Freikorps armies in Germany, which acted on behalf of the Nazis. Far from keeping a government honest, guns in the hands of civilians actively reinforced a corrupt one in that case, by backing up a far right-wing party. Sort of like what's happening in the USA at the moment.
America, classy as always.
The Canadian referenced in the article is far more sad.
Normster, if you're reading this, I can correct some of your misconceptions:
Not more than 13 people in Ontario have a legitimate fear that their lives are in danger. I know of some other people who feel the need to carry a piece... but each one of them is either a current or former drug trafficker, or a local Mafioso. I'm rather under the impression that "the son of that guy I whacked so as to get into our thing might come after me" isn't a legitimate reason. Actually, I think that's the opposite of legit.
Living in an area where such people are my neighbours, I really have reason to think that having a concealed side-arm would make one more of a target, rather than deter anyone from coming after you. You see, thugs in my area have pre-emptively opened fire on uniformed police officers in the past. I can't imagine they'd hesitate to fire on openly-carrying civilians while they were at it - handguns fetch enough money on the black market to make a murder charge worthwhile, and really, once a ganger is wanted for taking pot shots at a cop, shooting civilians is a small matter. It's like adding barbecue sauce to a Bacon Explosion: it's a garnish.
Concealed carry isn't going to do much good either, because with enough experience a ganger can recognise the bulge under the clothes for what it really is. Those Texans wearing slightly baggy jackets should be told that they aren't fooling anyone. Much like how urban kids wearing camouflage fatigues as street wear can be told "we can still see you!"
The only benefit anyone would derive from concealed carry in Canada would be me: Schadenfreude is one of my hobbies. The good laugh I'd have when weapons owners started being targeted specifically because they were carrying would more or less offset the expense of the Kevlar I'd start wearing just in case of stray bullets.
*shakes head*
Gun nuts can blame the Canadian government for "taking their freedom away" all they want, but it is Canadian citizens who have denied the privilege of open carry to people here, not government. Canadian governments are democratically elected, and deny the freedom to carry firearms because they've been instructed by voters that that freedom is not to be allowed under Canadian law.
Hell, of the two political parties that supported it in principle, one went bankrupt after it was reduced to two seats in our Parliament, and the other couldn't get a majority of the seats even with it's chief rival flailing about leaderless and with no plan.
The latter managed to achieve a minority government simply for lack of other right-wing parties for conservatives to vote for, and couldn't even get restrictions on long-barrelled guns rescinded, let alone change the law to allow for handguns to be openly carried. Sadly, Normster seems to have missed that little nugget of information, probably because he's spending too much time applying for permits in a foreign country.
Take a hint, Norm: it's not that your government doesn't trust you, it's that the Canadian people don't.