Central to Michael Moore’s ‘documentary’ Bowling For Columbine was his theory that Canada is so much safer than the United States because of its laws restricting gun ownership and requiring tighter control, and his implication that firearms should be therefore restricted in the same way in the United States.
That theory, along with almost every other ‘fact’ in Bowling, never managed to convince me, since statistics such as the ones I cite in previous articles on the topic would appear to strongly disagree. But perhaps the most pertinent, powerful and tragic rebuttal of Moore’s (and the Left’s) entire conjecture occurred in the form of today’s school shooting in Montreal.
“Reports said about 20 people were wounded in the attack on Dawson College in the city center. One woman died later in hospital and several other victims were listed in critical condition,” reports Reuters Canada. “‘He said nothing. He had a stone cold face, there was nothing on his face, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t yell out any slogans or anything. He just started opening fire. He was a cold blooded killer,’ said student Soher Marous.”
Reports indicate that the guy was white, about 19, and looked like “the stereotype, with the long black trenchcoat and all the studs and piercings and stuff like that.”
But how can this happen in a country which has strict laws concerning such guns? Surely shootings are only to be found in those nations which permit its citizens to own and carry firearms? Stricter gun controls equal immunity from this sort of thing, do they not?
Rosie O’Donnell made a television appearance after the Columbine tragedy during which she angrily asserted that allowing citizens to freely own and carry firearms resulted in the shooting. Yet the kids that committed the act broke eleven laws on the day they did it; O’Donnell’s claim that a few more laws are the answer is patently ridiculous. Blaming the tool rather than the perp is simply classic bullshit.
Britain’s anal retentive anti-gun law failed to prevent the devastating Dunblane school shooting in Scotland, or the huge gun crime problem all across the United Kingdom. When are the Left going to address the facts instead of their feelings on this issue?
Meantime, most appear to have escaped the Montreal incident today with their lives, with a couple of exceptions including the shooter himself who was taken down by a Canadian SWAT team.
“Cold-blooded killers” are usually unbalanced individuals whose problems are not gun ownership - their problems are derangement, insanity, severe narcissism or a momentous lack of moral judgment. Today’s shooting tragically proves that they will act with or without anti-gun laws.
John Wright
9 responses so far ↓
1 Lavidge442 // Sep 14, 2006 at 9:33 am
Absolutely correct, I couldn’t agree more. There is a science to this stuff, it isn’t an estimation, gun control laws do not prevent or reduce gun crime, it is fallacious to suggest otherwise since, as you point out, the statistics tell a different story. This is a horrible thing to happen in Canada, but I understand that our strict gun laws do not do what the politicians said they would do.
2 S Quinney // Sep 15, 2006 at 9:13 am
This was a horrible event. Nevertheless scum exists everywhere and of course banning guns never stopped anyone who wanted to commit crime with them, all they do is take guns out of the hands of people who need them to protect themselves.
3 Stephen // Sep 15, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Here’s the truth: the bad guys already have guns - gun laws do not prevent this. I live in Belfast, Northern Ireland and the truth of this assertion is all too stark.
Here’s the question: should law abiding people also be allowed guns for their own protection?
I agree they that they should. Gun laws only take guns out of the hands of good people - not bad people.
SG
4 Matt // Sep 15, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Again John I have read through several of your articles on this and am not sure that providing people with more guns is the way forward for society, but you definately make some good points.
5 Stephen // Sep 16, 2006 at 1:12 am
Matt:
It has nothing to do with providing people with more guns. The wrong people either already have guns or will get them. The only question you need to answer is should law-abiding people be permitted to own them?
SG
6 JT // Sep 16, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Yes I have yet to see anyone including the Brady campaign to whom you rightly refer in your previous posts on this issue adequately link gun control laws to reduced crime. As you pointed out in previous months the opposite seems to be true. Thankfully in the U.S. at least there is no shortage of people willing to point that out to the blinded liberals.
7 CS // Sep 20, 2006 at 1:45 pm
It is a long hashed out debate but really common sense prevails when people realize that guns are not beneficial to society.
8 Stephen // Sep 20, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Well…it depends on who has the guns really, doesn’t it? I would have thought common sense would make that clear to anyone with more than 3 neutrons firing in their heads. Are guns in the hands of the police or military bad? And, like I said earlier, bad guys already have or can acquire guns. Now, why not the rest of us?
SG
9 John Wright // Oct 2, 2006 at 9:45 pm
For those still reading this post after 10/2/2006, it looks like another school shooting today at an Amish schoolroom: about 10 females shot execution-style by a milk-truck driver with a 20-year grudge. There are no good solutions to the problem of suicidal people who wish to take others down with them; we’re feeling the same problem with Islamist terrorism. But I’m really beginning to wonder if it isn’t time to start permitting teachers to carry concealed weapons and to offer defence courses as part of their training.
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