The War Room

IS MICHAEL BRYANT LYING ABOUT GUN STATS?

I am happy that the Federal Conservatives, at least at this juncture in time, are not allowing themselves to be bullied on this issue. The permanently outraged left, as always seem to be a bit confused.

First, they flat out denied that there was any hand gun issue in Toronto. Any mention of handguns or gangs led to accusations of fearmongering and racism. Now that the issue is undeniable, they want to blame everyone but the culprits themselves.

But...

"...Ontario's Attorney-General Michael Bryant said a ban would eliminate 30% to 50% of guns on the street that are stolen from Canadian households.

"If there's no gun, then there's no funeral," said Mr. Bryant. "It's the law of supply and demand, and one of the major sources of illegal guns is the 5,000 guns stolen from Canadians from their homes every single year. They don't end up, those guns, in recycling bins. They end up in the hands of people who use guns to wreak havoc on communities and obviously to cause terrible tragedies.""

Quite frankly, I do not believe this stat. Yes, I believe Bryant is either making things up or conciously lying through his teeth. Can this stat of FIFTY PERCENT be proven. I'll gladly acknowledge my error if this is so but until then, I do not believe it. Why won't someone ask him to source this stat?

As a matter of fact, if the number can be proven to be this high I might change my mind on this issue. But it sounds like liberal spin to me.

Gun collecting is a very expensive hobby. It is very elitist. The majority of weapons found in gun collectors homes tend to be antiques; WWI rifles, WWII weapons, pirate guns, rifles with bayonets etc. The types of guns that no longer fire or guns where it would be near impossible to find ammunition for.

The types of collectors that own these weapons by and large are wealthy and do not have homes you can casually break into before you go out to engage in some good ol'fashioned, North American street violence. They tend to live in gated communities and have complex alarm systems. When their homes get broken into, it gets reported.

Michael Coren addresses the issue brilliantly in his current column.

"Such drivel does not, however, explain how Norway, with one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, manages to have one of the lowest crime rates.

Or how Israel, a society where guns are extraordinarily common, has so few criminal shootings.

Or how Britain with some of the most stringent gun control laws in the world has a violent crime rate that is virtually out of control.

It's too late to play silly games any more. If handguns are the cause of all this we have to ask why there are so few shootings in, for example, the Dutch, Ukrainian, Irish, Portuguese, Korean, Hindu or African communities. Why, in fact, there are so few shootings in any community outside of the West Indian and specifically Jamaican. "

The fact is, the real root causes for this complicated issue entails all of the issues the left does not want to deal with and has been running away from for years:

1. Moral relativism

2. Anti-family culture of nihilism

3. Racial cultural issues

Toronto it seems will be willing to have a lot more shootings before it can deal with this issue. Whether it is taxes, guns or gangs, Torontonians seem unwilling to accept any other solution other than the most facile of left wing pronouncments. Then they complain, elect another socialist politician and rinse, wash, repeat.

Hard to have sympathy for that. I do have sympathy for the families whose lives are affected by this violence. My future wife and I were accosted by a gang member at Yonge and St. Clair in Toronto on New Year's Eve, five years ago.

Sadly, when I take stock of the people I know in Toronto, I do not see Torontonians becoming more moderate or open to new ideas. Instead, I see them getting more aggresive and militant in their views.

Stephen Harper is right to have written off The Big Smoke in the next election. As I've said before, if Karla Homolka could run as a Liberal in the next election Torontonians would gladly vote for her. 'Well at least she is not in the party of Stockwell Day', they would rationalize.

I feel sorry for the people in Toronto who have to live and deal with the effects of violence in their everyday lives. But my sympathy is wearing thin for people who do not want to even acknowledge personal responsibility and the truth that some behaviour is not justified.

posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 8:11 AM