Date:
Tuesday, February 21, 2006 As a Canadian woman, this is my plea going out to our government--I fear Paul Martin's proposed banning of handguns would only have increased our already soaring violent crime levels!
The current gun control laws were passed by Parliament as Bill C-68 in 1995. Our then-Liberal government told us that Bill was enacted in order to reduce the amount of violent crime in our country.
We need another solution, because that isn't working. Violent crime has soared and is obviously continuing to get worse. One only has to read the daily newspaper and listen to the media--being terrorized by violent criminals is no longer just a big-city problem, it has reached the smaller communities and the rural areas as well. There have been more than a few women murdered in the small community where I live in recent months, and we're not used to that! We don't like it!
The firearm laws Martin proposed would only disarm law-abiding people, men and women alike. That plan would not take any guns away from any violent criminals! It would only take legally-owned handguns away from people who could use them to protect human life from criminal violence. How does it make sense to disarm the victims, and leave the criminals armed and dangerous? Where would Martin's priorities have taken us?
Law-abiding people who own firearms deplore violent crime. They are the same Canadian citizens, the same normal and decent people who are in ever-increasing danger of becoming victims of violent crime in today's society. So why were the Liberals attacking them, and not the criminals? Why?
Rising crime rates are the products of the actions of violent criminals. Violent criminals are often armed with illegal guns--the same guns that other criminals smuggle into Canada every day. Those smuggled guns are now readily available to any violent criminal. They are using their guns to terrorize, threaten, injure, and even murder. They do not respect anyone's right to life, and they do not fear our revolving-door justice system. We had had a Liberal government for 12 years, so the situation was their fault!
Innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire. Women are already too vulnerable, too often victims of violent crime. Law officers cannot keep up to the amount of crime. Our justice system refuses to take violent criminals seriously, and lets them out of prison much too soon. There is no way to predict when the crime is going to happen. Our government was losing it, and failing to protect Canadians--especially women. It was time for the Liberals to go, because they were blind to the reality of what was happening.
As I have said before, the police do not come to a woman before or during a violent crime. They come after the crime has been completed and the violent criminal has left the scene. It is extremely rare for a police officer to arrive in time to prevent or even interrupt a violent crime when a woman is the victim. How could he? She could not call the police before her attacker left.
It is the pattern of how the Liberal government handled the justice system that dismayed me. It was identical to what happened in Britain, where their crime rates used to be very low. Now, as a direct result of using strict gun control "to reduce violent crime," their violent crime rates have climbed to the point where they exceed those of the U.S--in every category of violent crime!
As a Canadian woman, this is my plea going out to our new government: Severe gun control laws are not working. They had the reverse effect to what was intended. I think I understand it; guns have gotten into the wrong hands, the hands of violent criminals, who are attacking Canadians, particularly women. Especially women. We women are all targets, and we are all coming to realize that. The Liberal idea of imposing ever more severe gun control has not reduced violent crime rates; it has increased them. I believe that happened because they gave the violent criminals a guarantee that law-abiding victims would not have firearms to protect human life from criminal violence, so it was safe to attack us. That's insane!
The government has no way to know who has the illegal guns, or where they are--so the government can do nothing about them. So what were the Liberals proposing? They wanted to disarm every Canadian woman who legally owns a firearm, so that she could not protect herself or her children. Why did they want to take a woman's legally owned handgun away, when they had no way to take her attacker's handgun away?
The idea of severe gun control laws has failed us. There was no hope of reduced violent crime rates down that path, and proposing "more of the same" was just refusing to look at the facts.
And we can't just ignore the fact that violent criminals who use knives, clubs, and other weapons threaten, injure, and murder law-abiding victims more often than criminals who use guns. The media reports concentrate on "gun crime," but that is unrealistic. We are actually seeing a huge increase in every form of violent crime, just as the British did. Wake up and smell the coffee!
Were we failing to deal with a serious increasing violent crime problem that couldn't be simplified to "gun crime"? Yes. A weapon is anything that can be used to kill, injure or threaten. Does it make sense to target one type of weapon? Shouldn't our government be focusing more on the person using the weapon--the person who is capable of violent behavior--and possibly even murder? Shouldn't our government be making sure he is not out in the street, where he can threaten, injure, and kill--again?
I want violent criminals in prison--not out on the street where they can get at me!!