Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory is calling on his political counterparts to join him in a crackdown on illegal guns and those who use them in response to this weekend's six shootings in Toronto, three of which were fatal.Mr. Tory said Monday that provincial and city leaders must come together to convince the federal government that stricter security at borders and tougher minimum sentences could be part of the solution.
"It's time for Ontario and Canada to close the border to illegal guns," he said.
This lead from the Tuesday, August 2nd Globe and Mail article focusing on the proliferation of illegal weaponry in Canada, specifically Ontario, shows how much Canada and the United States differ on the issue of guns. How many conservative leaders in the United States would say: “That means too many guns in the hands of too many people”?
To be perfectly fair I will add that this also highlights the differences among conservatives in Canada. Although the federal Conservative Party of Canada makes the claim to be strong on law and order, they have long been opposed to the government’s gun registry program. (All privately owned guns have to be registered by their owners with the government.) They claim it is an unnecessary infringement on individual rights.
That right there is the crux of the matter. The primary argument used in America against gun control revolves around a clause in their constitution guaranteeing the right to bear arms.
Whatever the original meaning of that clause may have been, the fact remains that the sentiment has become firmly entrenched in the American psyche.
Until 1981, Canada did not even have a document equivalent to the American Bill of Rights. Nothing existed. At least, not one that could create the same lasting impression and imbue opinion with such passion. It’s hard to get excited about something called The British North American Act. (The B.N.A.)
In my opinion, all major differences between the two countries can be traced back to the means of their formation. While the United States was born out of revolution, Canada was created by an act of British Parliament.
Article comments
1 - Victor Lana
Your article is intelligent and informative. I think there are different issues on both sides of the border, and the concepts of "law" and "tradition" play a major role in how one sees the situation.
The truth is we can and should appreciate someone else's opinion. In this subject or, for that matter, any other. The problem these days is that intelligent discourse has gone the way of the dinosaur.
When people start respecting other people's opinions on gun control, abortion, gay rights, terrorism, etc., the world will be a more civilized place. Right now it seems those who rant rule. I'd like to see those who can discuss and listen get back into the ballgame.
2 - Bill
The Canadian approach to gun control, is only a dysfunctional bunch of mostly indecipherable intertwined laws, regulations, and orders in council, aimed at only the hunters, target shooters, and collectors of firearms. Canada does not need gun control, Canada needs 'criminal control'. As fast as the cops catch the gun toting criminal morons, the courts and/or parole boards set them free, in many cases faster than the cop can complete his now increasing volumes of paperwork. Gun control in Canada is a total farce. It does nothing to take guns away from, or make them unavailable to criminals. As a matter of fact, if you are barred from owning firearms in Canada, you are completely REMOVED from the firearms database, and no one gives a rats ass where you live, or if you even have guns, you are simply not in the system anymore, because the government only tracks the law abiding gun owner.
The conservative party want's to convert the registry of law abiding gun owners into a registry of people who are not allowed to own firearms, and do what the Liberals fail to do, is MAKE SURE people who are barred by the courts from owning firearms, don't own firearms. If you use a gun in a crime, you do another 10 years ONTOP of any other crime you committed while using the gun. This makes much more sense than harassing the usual soft target of duck hunters and sportsmen/women. The 2 Billion dollars wasted on this bit of Liberal social engineering is enough. Unfortunately for the liberals, it's getting harder and harder to hear their dogma over the gunfire in our major cities.
3 - deano
Someone once wrote (and for the life of me I can't recall who) that you can sum up a nation's character often with a single word, that the geography, climate and landscape shape a people and a culture accordingly. The gist of it was that if you dropped the Mongels into France, within a few hundred years you would have a nation of bon vivants, chewing their snails and sipping their wine - despite the original cultural differences.
Obviously it is a bit of an overstatement but when you think about it, it can often work - provided you find the right word to describe the nation. By way of example, the word for the UK was "island".
The word for the US was "frontier" - which naturally enough is a fairly apt description of the US's approach and attitude towards the availability of guns and their fit within a society of individuals.
The word cited for Canada was "survival". Given the overall fierce climate, difficult geography and inherent challenges in the environment, the focus became based on the concept of the common good solution - the need for a strong civil (and controlled to an extent) society in order to function and survive. This is the ethos from which Canada is distilled...
Remember when the West was settled in Canada, one of the first things that happened was the dispatch of the North-West Mounted Police to close down the whisky traders and establish law and order across the frontier - the exact opposite of the US which saw the settlers pioneering with the law gradually following.
4 - Boyd
"and establish law and order across the frontier - the exact opposite of the US which saw the settlers pioneering with the law gradually following."
Not really, the settlers in the west were generally preceeded by the cavalry, most of the old west towns started life as military forts (or alongside them). The "land rush" pictures made great newspapers, but it was the military (and military law enforcement) that generally led the charge.
5 - WTF
He who has the gold (guns) makes the rules....
It's that easy.
I am not giving them up. On principle.
Sorry. End of story. If you try and take them, you will pay the ultimate price for you're stupidity... and maybe your replacement will have second thoughts.
But that's the process.
I will live life standing on my feet.
Not bowing on my knees.
PERIOD.