Why Is Research so Biased Over at Astral Media Talk Radio? Why Gun Registry Must Remain: This Time, With Feeling

Yes, Tommy Schnurmacher in his usual style of bullying on someone who can’t debate him; someone weaker, more vulnerable.  Today, he interviews over the phone, Suzanne Laplante Edward, the mother of  Anne-Marie  Edward, one of the victims of the Polytechnique massacre.  A grieving mother who like so many other family members of the victims of  the massacre and  the survivors. Right now, she is part of a campaign to pressure Jack Layton to whip his MPs into voting against Mullet head’s Bill c-391. Unfortunately, Mme Laplante – Edward is a lousy debater and one can tell, still quite vulnerable. As this is not the first time she does interviews witht the media,  Tommy, knowing this could have eased a tad. Nope, I guess, much like his idol, Brother Steve,  he must bully on especially those more vulnerable. Stay classy Tommy!

Furthermore,  Tommy’s information for his adamant arguments against the gun registry was woefully inadequate. This begs the question: Tommy, whatever happened to at least some balanced research?  Suzanne Laplante-Edward doesn’t strike me as resourceful and she should ask for help with things like research or debating in the media, but, then again, she’s not a pro. Low-wa Casella, the low-hanging fruit; the junior right-wingnut in a training bra, on the other hand is paid supposedly to research this sort of thing.  Betcha she didn’t find the website dispelling myths about the long gun registry.

Tommy doesn’t see how the long gun registry helps gun statistics? Well, Low-wa couldn’t find any?  Below are some!

Now, I would like to share a story of some old aquaintances of mine.  Pull up a chair and listen, this is probably one of those stories of how the gun registry could be helpful.

A couple breaks up after 25 years and two children.  The man beat the woman on a constant basis. He did not work and it is believed that a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder as well as a cocaine addiction kept him from the work force during the entire time of their marriage. Finally, he ends up meeting someone else and decides to leave the relationship moving in with his elderly mother.  Their then 13 year old son decides to follow his dad to his grandmother’s home. Due to the Grandmother’s stable influence,  there was no objection to that custody arrangement, in fact, the father didn’t have custody, but the grandmother did, simply because the man is not mentally stable and has a propensity for violence. So off to Grandma’s they go.

The grandmother is an upstanding 80-something widow who holds a part time job to keep her busy. She owned old hunting rifles that belonged to her late husband, who was an avid hunter. They were collecting dust in the garage of her home since her husband’s death more than 10 years before.

Anyway, the mother of the boy would show up to their home regularly and she, herself had a hot temper and was also known to physically beat her unstable ex-husband.  If grandmother wasn’t home to moderate, and if he had  some kind of psychotic episode due to a meeting with the ex.   Since police were called over to that poor old woman’s house; she ended up losing her guns. Yes, they were registered.  That’s how the police knew there were guns and how many before arriving at the house.  They would still have been collecting dust in the garage had it not been for her taking in her mentally unstable and violent son.  She chose family over guns as she should. I would worry more about those who would choose the firearms over their unstable family members/friends in their home in their homes to stay.

Honestly, if you knew your neighbour had guns and you learned there were less than savoury and/or mentally stable people who visited regularly or even stayed over, would you feel at ease? Would you allow your children to play in such close proximity to such people?

Sadly, law abiding citizens don’t always remain law abiding.  Also, just because they’re law abiding doesn’t mean their entourage necessarily  is.  Living situations change.  Besides, since it costs nothing and apparently, you can even register your guns on line, according to this web site. If Iggy’s proposed modifications to the long gun registry flies, it should get even easier to register  fire arms. I have always been of the opinion of these law abiding farmers and hunters; if they have nothing to hide, what is the problem with registering firearms?

Another good example was that man who shot up an Edmonton worker’s compensation office.

Oh, and to those rural and westerners who just loves their guns? It might be interesting to know that deaths related to guns are higher in those areas.

Here are more examples of how the registry helps keep the community and police officers safe.

Cost? Well, yes, it costed a bundle to set the damned thing up.  That, in itself is a dumb reason to scrap the registry. It’s like spending a shitload of money to build a house, do you burn the newly built house because of what it cost?  Of course not, that would be stupid now, wouldn’t it? Once it’s built, one only has to maintain it. It costs only  3 – 4 million dollars/yr: depending on what you read or hear, to maintain the  gun registry. Far less than the cost of taking care of victims of firearms; 1.4 billion dollars annually.

That 3 – 4 million dollar annual cost of keeping the registry would certainly cost far less than maintaining a super prison and locking up as many as they can for silly things like marijuana posession.

Oh, as for those  Harpercons and their cheerleaders chiding Iggy for whipping his members’ vote, it would seem that there is a case of the pot calling the kettle black here.   We all know Harpercons whip their MPs on a regular basis. Big City Lib’s posting reminds of this here, where MP Glen Pearson overhears two urban Harpercons complaining about being whipped into voting with Master Steve to scrap the registry. Thanks BCL, seems we can’t remind Canadians enough about that, now can we?

Also, who knew that there were Harpercons with some semblence of a social conscience?  I was starting to think they no longer existed.

As for the NDP,  nothing up to date on whether or not Jack Layton will whip his MPs into voting along his party lines. Something tells me he won’t, as these days, the NDP seem to feel more of a need to go contrary to Liberals than with the Harpercons much of the time.  Yes, Steve must be oh so proud on how he has kept those two parties wedged.

Thanks to Hullabaloos for the web sites via Scott’s Diatribes