The Great Gun Control Debate

[Fishbone Jones]

Most of us that are active in the gun debate are more than familiar with the shit show in some parts of the US. While parallels can be drawn, this thread is about Canadian Gun Control.

Thanks.

 

[a_majoor]

Indeed, but where do you think most of these ideas about gun control come from?

 

[a_majoor]

A crackdown in Jamaca finally reduces some of the gun related crime in Toronto. Having been in Jamaca several years ago (and not in the Tourist Bubble) I was struck by the daily recounting of murders on the radio each morning (not to mention the "burgler bars" across all the windows and doors, and the warning to never leave them unlocked or open when we were inside the house). Reducing violence in Jamaca is a good thing on its own, the fact it has positive effect here is even better (the fact the CBC actually reported this and connected the dots? Priceless):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/01/18/shower-posse-jamaica-gang-toronto.html

Toronto murders drop after Jamaica-based gang crackdown
Kingston-based Shower Posse suspected of drug-, arms-running in Canada, U.S., Jamaica
By Nazim Baksh, CBC News Posted: Jan 19, 2012 5:01 AM ET Last Updated: Jan 19, 2012 8:36 PM ET Read 156 comments156

Police in Toronto and Jamaica say gang-related homicides have significantly declined in the 20 months since the arrests of key leaders of the Shower Posse, a violent criminal organization involved in drug and arms trafficking that operates in several countries.

Jamaican officials say a drastic 32 per cent decline in the Caribbean country's homicide rate is largely thanks to a 2010 crackdown on the Shower Posse, considered to be one of the most dangerous gangs in the world.

In Toronto, homicide rates dropped to a 25-year low last year following a two-year anti-gang campaign that disrupted the Posse.

Toronto police Chief Bill Blair says the decline cannot be specifically attributed to the arrest of Shower Posse leaders but that the gang's influence in the city has "diminished quite significantly."

Several of the alleged leaders of the Toronto wing of the Shower Posse have recently pleaded guilty to a slew of charges, ranging from drug trafficking and conspiracy to racketeering and gun running.

However, none of them has pleaded guilty to membership in a criminal organization — which comes as no surprise to Toronto police Det. Douglas Backus of the guns and gangs task force.

In gangs, pleading guilty to membership in a criminal organization is tantamount to being an "informant" or a "snitch," Backus said.

"It's a death sentence," said the detective.

Kingston crackdown
Since the Shower Posse's inception, the West Kingston neighbourhood of Tivoli Gardens had served as a sanctuary and base for the gang, whose leader, Christopher (Dudus) Coke, had absolute control over the area and was known to its residents as "president."

That changed in May 2010 when Jamaican authorities, under pressure from the U.S., which had requested Coke's extradition on drug and firearms trafficking charges, raided Tivoli Gardens in search of Coke.

Coke's supporters put up barricades to try to prevent the incursion, but the Jamaican police and army smashed through, storming the community.

At least 73 people died in the raid, but Coke was not found at the time. He was arrested the following month and extradited to the U.S., where he pleaded guilty in 2011 to racketeering conspiracy and drug-trafficking charges.

An investigation is still underway into accusations that during the raid, security forces indiscriminately rounded up unarmed residents and shot them in what amounted to extrajudicial executions. However, the investigation has been heavily criticized by groups such as Amnesty International for being ineffective and under-resourced.

Wiretaps reveal connections
Backus has no doubt that the Shower Posse — so called because of the gang's penchant for showering enemies with bullets — has had a significant presence in Toronto and other Canadian cities.

Wiretaps collected by Toronto police reveal that leaders of the Toronto wing frequently chatted with a handful of Shower Posse leaders in Jamaica at the height of the country's attempted takedown of the gang's alleged kingpin, Christopher (Dudus) Coke.

In late May 2010, at least 73 people died in the West Kingston neighbourhood of Tivoli Gardens, the gang's home base, when police raided the area in search of Coke.

"They talked about how Tivoli Gardens would be a disaster and how the parishes of West Kingston would come together to fight to prevent it," Backus said.

Toronto police say the wiretapped phone calls are a clear indication of a formidable alliance between Posse members in Toronto and Kingston.

However, a defence lawyer for a man accused of being Toronto's Shower Posse leader argues that there's no evidence that the gang even exists and says the intercepted conversations don't prove anything.

The deputy commissioner of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Glenmore Hinds, confirmed that his force's investigation showed that Coke certainly had a "franchise in Canada," with members of his Posse distributing drugs in Canada and sending back "tribute payments in the form of cash or illegal guns to Coke."

CBC News has also learned that some of the alleged Posse leaders in Toronto would send a substantial portion of their own earnings to Jamaica, where they bought lavish homes in upscale neighbourhoods and laundered their ill-begotten revenue by investing in legitimate businesses such as trucking, road construction, high-end bars and restaurants.

In wiretaps of Coke's sister, who lives in the Greater Toronto Area, she can be heard telling an associate that her brother was "chilling" in Toronto. Although Toronto police say they never saw him in the city, a reliable source told CBC News that some time in 2009, the notorious drug kingpin, indeed, visited relatives and friends in Toronto and that he was using an alias at the time.

Flying under the radar
Toronto police teamed up in 2008 with their counterparts in the U.S. and Jamaica to launch a massive crackdown against violent street gangs operating in the Greater Toronto Area.

[PHOTO]
Investigators discovered that large quantities of cocaine and marijuana were being shipped from Jamaica to U.S. cities before being smuggled into Canada, where the drugs were repackaged and sold by street gangs in major cities.

Police zeroed in on a handful of suspected drug suppliers and began wire tapping their conversations. In all, over 200,000 wiretaps were conducted over five years.

In 2009 and 2010, police officers conducted raids in Ontario, seizing firearms and drugs. More than 100 suspected gang members were arrested, including key leaders of the Shower Posse, Toronto police say.

With street names such as "Whoppy King," "Blue" and "Showerman," Posse leaders managed to fly under the radar of investigators. Backus says Posse members were also older and more experienced than the young "hot heads" who run typical street gangs.

"[Shower Posse members] are often quiet and sophisticated when compared to the street gangs that do their dirty work for them," Backus said.

The future fight
But the fight against the notorious Posse is far from over.

Blair and Hinds say much more work needs to be done, both in Toronto and in Kingston.

Jamaican police and armed forces cracked down on the Shower Posse's home base in West Kingston neighbourhood in 2010. (Hans Deryk/Reuters)
Jamaican police estimate that 80 per cent of all homicides in the country are committed by criminal gangs.

"If we are able to dismantle these gangs, then we'll see a reduction of at least 80 per cent of our murders, and that will lead to a better quality of life," said Hinds.

Toronto's police chief is optimistic in the aftermath of the city's gang raids.

"There have been significantly fewer homicides this [past] year, and sometimes, it is difficult to quantify what didn't happen," said Blair.

Blair says the force's new community-focused approach could yield even bigger dividends in the future.

"We are not just cutting off the head, but we are making it difficult for anyone to step in and take up the slack that we've created," said Blair. "I think that is important."

"We have learned that lesson, and as we apply it, we are going to have a more positive effect."

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Speaking to a buddy of mine at SHOT, the US market absorbed 660,000 new AR's last year. Intials feelings from SHOT is 2012 will also be a good year for guns and ammo sales, likely not as good as 2008 though.

 

[GAP]

Lorne Gunter: The gun-control lobby’s statistical black hole
Lorne Gunter  Jan 25, 2012
Article Link

Last month, the RCMP and Statistics Canada were forced to admit that they don’t keep statistics relating to the number of violent gun crimes in Canada that are committed by licenced gun owners using registered guns.

“Please note,” Statistics Canada wrote in response to an access to information request filed by the National Firearms Association, “that the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) survey does not collect information on licensing of either guns or gun owners related to the incidents of violent crime reported by police.” Nor does StatsCan’s annual homicide survey “collect information on the registration status of the firearm used to commit a homicide.”

This raises the question: Why did it take so long for the government to begin ridding Canada of the horribly expensive, unjustifiably intrusive federal gun registry? If no one in Ottawa had any systematic way of tracking whether or not Canadians suspected of committing a violent gun crime were licensed to own a gun and had registered the gun being used, then they had no way of knowing whether registration and licensing were having a positive impact on crime.

There are around 340,000 violent crimes reported to police in Canada each year. Just over 2% of those (around 8,000) involve firearms. (There’s another reason to question the initial wisdom of the gun registry: Why was Ottawa expending so much time, effort and taxpayer money on such a tiny percentage of violent crimes, while doing comparatively little to prevent the 98% of murders, robberies, kidnappings, rapes and beatings not committed with a gun?)

Typically, gun crime is committed by street criminals using stolen or contraband weapons. The gun registry never had any effect on this class of thug. Some of the 8,000 violent gun crimes no doubt were committed by licensed owners using registered guns — people who might be tracked or even deterred using a registry system. But since no one in Ottawa ever had any idea how many people are in this latter group, they had no way of determining the usefulness of the registry.

A cynic might say that not knowing was the point all along. Backers of the registry knew it would produce very little impact, so they deliberately didn’t bother collecting data that would confirm the database’s uselessness.

I think the truth is less conspiratorial (and far more arrogant): Backers were so sure the registry would produce tangible benefits, they never thought they might need to show proof. After all, they were experts and they had thought it up, so how could it not work?
More on link

 

[Foxhound]

Two articles on the same story from the National Post.

‘No choice’: Homeowner had to arm himself after firebomb attack, gun trial hears

WELLAND • Ian Thomson was jolted awake at 6:37 a.m. by the sound of explosions; outside his secluded farmhouse, three masked men were hurling fire bombs at his house while one bellowed: “Are you ready to die?”

Mr. Thomson was not.

A former firearms instructor, he instead called out a warning, took one of his several pistols, marched outside in his underwear and fired one shot into the ground and two into the trees in the direction of the men, who scurried away.

And...

Ian Thomson case shows how the Crown feels about self-defence

On Monday, Port Colborne, Ont. resident Ian Thomson went on trial on two charges of unsafe storage of a firearm, relating to a well-publicized self-defence incident. In 2010, in the early morning hours of Aug. 22, Mr. Thomson was at home when three masked men, shouting death threats, attacked his house with firebombs, hurling them at the house and through his windows, injuring one of Mr. Thomson’s pet dogs. Mr. Thomson, a trained firearms instructor, armed himself with a properly registered .38-calibre firearm and fired three warning shots, driving off the attackers without causing injury to any.

More at links.

 

[Kat Stevens]

He should also be charged with improper control of a firearm... Three rounds, no hits?  Shameful.

 

[GAP]

Watch the video clip.............and we're not supposed to protect ourselves? really............

Court adjourns homeowner’s self-defence trial to clarify confusing gun control law
Adrian Humphreys  Jan 31, 2012
Article Link

WELLAND, Ont. — Canada’s laws on the storage and handling of guns and ammunition are so complicated that a veteran judge needed to adjourn court to allow two experienced lawyers more time for legal arguments and a search of case law to help parse and dissect them.

It was a dud of an ending after two scheduled days of trial in the case of Ian Thomson, a 54-year-old Port Colborne man who fired three shots from a legally owned gun to scare off three masked men who were firebombing his secluded farmhouse while one threatened: “Are you ready to die?”

The most serious charges against Mr. Thomson — dangerous use of a firearm and pointing a firearm — were dropped by prosecutors before trial. He pleaded not guilty to two charges of careless storage of a firearm.

The shocking nature of the attack on Mr. Thomson’s home, which was caught on video by surveillance cameras, and the fact that Mr. Thomson is a former firearms instructor, sparked a national debate over the right of Canadians to defend themselves and the government’s attitude toward gun ownership.

Tuesday, scheduled to be the last day of the trial, started with assistant Crown attorney Robert Mahler attacking Mr. Thomson’s credibility.

He said Mr. Thomson concocted an improbable sequence of events to explain away the likelihood that he had kept loaded handguns ready in his bedside table because he was involved in a neighbour dispute that was boiling over, and not, as he maintains, locked away in a safe.

“This story you’ve given, this sequence you’ve given simply couldn’t be done,” said Mr. Mahler.

“That’s what happened,” replied Mr. Thomson.

“If those guns were in my bedside table,” Mr. Thomson said, he would not have needed to run out the front door to shoot, once the firebombs started landing on his house. “I would have used that gun right there, through the bedroom window. I wouldn’t have hesitated… when I noticed a masked assassin outside my house.”

Mr. Mahler said Mr. Thomson was “less than forthcoming” and “secretive” when police arrived, trying to hide the fact he had frightened off his attackers by firing a gun.

Mr. Mahler suggested Mr. Thomson even picked up the spent shell casings from his porch after he fired his gun and took them inside to hide them in his bedside table.

Seeming confused, Mr. Thomson said he didn’t understand.

“Didn’t they fall to the ground?” Mr. Mahler asked, apparently thinking shell casings from a .38-calibre revolver were ejected from the gun with each shot, similar to casings that spit out of a semi-automatic handgun, as is typically seen on TV.

“No,” said Mr. Thomson as the crowd of gun advocates watching from the public gallery chuckled and guffawed at Mr. Mahler’s mistake.

Spent shells from a .38 remain in the gun’s cylinder until it is opened and they are removed. Mr. Thomson took the casings out at the same time he opened the gun to reload it, which was at the bedside table, where the casings were when police arrived, he said.
More on link

 

[The_Falcon]

All I can say is wow. What an epic failure on the part of the legal system.  But not surprising.  Go post this article on the Blueline.ca forum and voice your opinion in support of this guy, and watch how quickly you get flamed by the members who say they are cops. 

 

[Loachman]

This

“Didn’t they fall to the ground?” Mr. Mahler asked, apparently thinking shell casings from a .38-calibre revolver were ejected from the gun with each shot, similar to casings that spit out of a semi-automatic handgun, as is typically seen on TV.

“No,” said Mr. Thomson as the crowd of gun advocates watching from the public gallery chuckled and guffawed at Mr. Mahler’s mistake.

is pure gold, and should rate an immediate acquittal, followed by an apology from the Crown Numpty.

 

[Jarnhamar]

This is why I now have a "live" Katana beside my bed for home defense and not a firearm.

Our firearm laws are very idiotic.

I used to support registering all firearms, whats the big deal I thought?
Now I see the government decide that X gun "looks" bad so they hop on the registry system to see who owns said offending guns then send them letters ordering them to turn them in or dispose of them or whatever?  Thats total crap.

 

[Loachman]

That is the only function that firearms registries perform.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Thomson needs your help. Contibutions to his legal defense fund can be made via "Ed Burlew In Trust" at his office in Thornhill. 16 John St, Thornhill, ON, L3T1X8.
You can make a contribution on credit card by calling the office at (905) 882-2422

 

[Jarnhamar]

I'm becoming really disappointed with our police services.

My father taught firearms safety and hunting courses for a long time.  He was a corrections officer his whole life, no charges and never in trouble with the police. Very law and order type guy (philosophy, not the show..). He's a pretty good guy.

Recently a family friend had his firearms removed. After going to court and a bunch of shit my father was given the responsibility of taking his friends confiscated firearms and selling them (to someone totally unaffiliated with the friend) and giving the friend the money.

The amount of shit my fathers had to go through to get these firearms back is staggering. And it wasn't like he was trying to get it on a whim, he had a court ordered document saying he was to take the guns back off the police.

The police have been nothing but dick heads blowing off appointments to meet him not returning his phone calls canceling last minute meetings and giving him the run around making him play phone tag.
The police seemed to have did everything in their power to jerk him around and it was pretty obvious that their intention was for him to say screw it and just leave the guns with the police.
The guns weren't being returned to the friend, they were being sold so it's not a case of the police just trying to protect the community or some line like that.

Interestingly enough when my father finally got a hold of someone to help (we're talking 6+ months later) she confirmed that the firearms, which the court ordered to be returned) were scheduled for destruction.

oops

If my father wouldn't have been persistent then thousands of dollars worth of firearms would have been destroyed- I'm pretty confident the police wouldn't have cowboyed up and paid for their mistake either.  A bunch of 2 hour trips and over half a year of phone tag later the firearms were finally returned. Without the crossbows. Because they needed a different letter for those, which took more time and another 2 hour trip.  Plus the gun safe which the police decided to take and destroy the locks on it to get the firearms even though the friend gave them the key apparently.

Having a few buddies as police officers (and having been done a solid favor by some local cops once too) I'm very pro-law enforcement but all these things that keep popping up make me really wonder why the police (not all obviously)  seem to have such a hard on for being anti-firearms.

It's been mentioned a few times here that we're innocent until proven guilty- I hate saying it but that's something that needs to be reinforced during police college.

 

[fraserdw]

Interesting story, what province, RCMP or Other Police?  It seems that Ontario, Quebec and RCM Police forces have made Gun Control a personal crusade.  Even the local line RCMP cops talk to you here, one on one, outside work, talk about gun owners like gun owners were demons.  Yet they seem to have nothing but sympathy for wayward drug pushers and the poor B&Eers around here.  I find it incredible how 15 years of Socialist proproganda in this country has made into many police into tools of political action rather than criminial protection.  When I was out West the county mounties were very much on the side of the gun owner but the Federal mounties seem to have made it religious crusade.

 

[ballz]

Today during questions period, on the topic of being allowed to fire WARNING shots to protect your person/property.

Bob Rae:
"Does he (Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson) not understand the danger of promoting vigilante justice in our society?"

Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice:
"If somebody is coming onto your property setting fire to your car, breaking into your house, or attacking your family, Mr. Speaker, those are the bad guys, Mr. Speaker, why can't the Liberal party ever figure that out? How come they can't figure out who the real victims are and stand up for them for a change?"

Is the pendulum finally starting to swing the other way?

PS. "Vigilante justice" ??? Seriously?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Perhaps too many police officers are being recruited after too many years of post-secondary drifting instead of straight out of high school.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Perhaps too many police officers are being recruited after too many years of post-secondary drifting instead of straight out of high school.

Perhaps too many people aren't smart enough to know that police officers don't make any rules?

 

[Brad Sallows]

If there was a time when police had no difficulty making the traditional distinction between the three classes of people - other police, citizens, and azzholes - and also had no difficulty relegating azzholes to the lowest tier and assuming citizens were entitled to as much liberty in their affairs as possible, and that time has passed, then I surmise too much of what passes for life experience and values development before candidates enter the respective academies has had an adverse influence.  I refer to fraswerdw's post; that is my point.  The fact that rules dictate what must precede academy is almost beside the point.  For those who think it is a direct reflection on police officers, it is not - it is a reflection on how we develop them.

A person who thinks he directly or indirectly (through government) needs to know details about his basically law-abiding neighbours' firearms is deficient in values.  A person who thinks he needs to deny firearms is very deficient in values.  Public safety arguments are excuses, not reasons.  The public has generally been very safe from basically law-abiding firearms owners for centuries.

I trust the basic character of a firearms owner more than I trust the basic character of someone who adamantly wishes to take firearms away or who deprecates people who possess and enjoy firearms.  I do not respect people whose belief systems encourage them to control others.

 

[Jed]

I trust the basic character of a firearms owner more than I trust the basic character of someone who adamantly wishes to take firearms away or who deprecates people who possess and enjoy firearms.  I do not respect people whose belief systems encourage them to control others.

Well said. I support our LEOs more than most, but I don't appreciate the current trend of newly minted LEOs who miss this critical point.