Poiliticians..Lies Vs. Truth On Firearm Issues.

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A.W
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Poiliticians..Lies Vs. Truth On Firearm Issues.

Post by A.W »

The following is a bit lengthy but worth the read.

Mark BonokoskiWed, January 25, 2006

How all those crime guns got onto streets

By MARK BONOKOSKI


Having invoked the fear factor that half the guns used to bathe Toronto in blood last year were stolen from law-abiding collectors and shooters, Prime Minister Paul Martin went to the polls Monday vowing to ban all handguns in Canada -- if constitutionally viable, that is, a caveat he later had to add when he misfired on the facts.

Toronto Mayor David Miller sang the same statistical tune, despite contrary evidence in a report tabled last month by his own police service -- a report obtained through access to information that shows, if not twisted, that no more than 16% of "crime guns" in Toronto were obtained through the robbery of legitimate owners.

And that is a far, far cry from the loud headlines Mayor Miller recently created when he claimed "almost half" the blood guns came from the break-ins of homes where guns were legally registered and stored.

But politics is politics. And Mayor Miller, without question, wanted the Liberals back in power.

Back on Jan. 10, Saskatchewan Tory MP Garry Breitkreuz, the most vocal critic of $2 billion-plus poured into a dysfunctional national gun registry, issued a press released based on an academic analysis of Toronto gun-crime statistics prepared by Dr. Gary Mauser, a professor at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University.

And it got virtually no media attention.

The office of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, however, must have seen the inevitable coming when it received an access for information request from Dr. Mauser regarding a Toronto Police Service report to the police board dated Dec. 1, 2005.

For this was what appeared in the preamble.

"The information that Chief Blair received was not based on a scientific analysis of raw date, but rather the estimate of an experienced police officer," the writer stated, his name and position blacked out.

The writer was also quick to note that Chief Blair received this information "verbally."

It was this document, however, which Mayor Miller obviously used to raise the pre-election tension levels.

The file Dr. Mauser analyzed -- and Mayor Miller used to invoke the fear factor -- consisted of a review of the 214 handguns which fell into the hands of the Toronto Police guns and gangs task force during 2004.

Of those guns in police possession, 82 were confirmed as traceable to the United States, 26 were not registered (meaning they had not come from legal gun owners), six were deemed "too old to trace," and 65 were categorized as "unknown status, serial (number) removed."

That's 179 of the 214 guns seized.

The remaining 35 -- or 16% -- had been reported stolen, as required by law, by law-abiding citizens who had legally purchased and registered their weapons.

So how did Mayor Miller, through this report, come up with "almost half" the crime guns in this city as coming from domestic break-ins?

Well, the six guns supposedly "too old to trace" were given Canadian origins, as were the 26 "not registered," as were 36 of the 65 guns supposedly deemed to have an "unknown status" because they had their serial numbers filed off.

Add to that the 35 legally-registered handguns that responsible and law-abiding collectors or target shooters had reported stolen, and its adds up to 103 guns.

That's how Mayor Miller got his "almost half" -- by using the Toronto Police Services Board's report and giving Canadian citizenship to 68 weapons of dubious or uncertain origins when, in fact, only 35 of the 214 handguns seized in total can be honestly traced to being stolen from a legitimate handgun collector or target shooter.

Without those 68 weapons, however, there is no fear factor to trigger, and therefore no self-serving politics to put into play as part of an election platform.

And so the stats found themselves getting skewed.

According to Dr. Mauser, what rarely -- if ever -- gets reported is the number of weapons with military or police origins which fall into criminal hands.

But, through Access to Information, this is what Mauser discovered, and published in his study.

On July 4, 2002, an RCMP report listed 409 firearms that had been either lost or stolen from the Canadian military, a list that included 218 Lee Enfield rifles and a number of machine guns.

But there were also 17 sidearms reported stolen or missing -- all Browning 9mm pistols, a preferred street piece.

None of this ever made the news.

A year earlier, according to the most-recent information obtained by Mauser, the RCMP itself had to confess to 16 handguns being stolen, and two handguns being lost.

As it stands today, the police -- regardless of jurisdiction -- are not required to register their guns and the Department of National Defence is totally exempt from all registration requirements.

Nor is the RCMP or the Canadian Firearms Centre required to collect information on the number of firearms either stolen or missing from any police force in Canada -- from Victoria, B.C., to St. John's, Nfld.

In his report, Mauser said it was unfortunate that the Toronto Police Service report provided no information regarding how many "crime guns" had their origins either at some military armoury or at a Canadian police service.

"This is especially disturbing in the light of international reports that a large percentage of 'crime guns' have been diverted from police and military supplies," wrote Mauser. "The Canadian government reports are incomplete, but partial figures show that the Canadian police or military have reported that they have lost or had stolen over 500 guns."

In the meantime, legitimate gun owners who have been victimized by gangs and bandits continue to make the headlines as if they are the criminals, with the main men wanting to bring them down with pre-election rhetoric being the prime minister of this country and the mayor of this city.

The election, however, is now over. Wait to hear if silence will now follow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mon, January 23, 2006

Even the most well-intentioned of laws can go off the tracks, as one man shows when he makes a not-quite-legal ammo purchase

By Mark Bonokoski


When it comes to gangs and guns, where there's a way there's a will -- whether it's casing, stalking or buying information that leads to legitimate gun owners.

The law abiding then become the targets.

A 1993 investigative report by Peel regional police called Project Gun Runner, written some 12 years before Toronto's infamous Year of the Gun, saw 52 men being shot to death in what was largely black-on-black warfare, the summary told of one tale that was then deemed worth mentioning because it went beyond the break-and-enters of gun shops and the homes of private firearms owners.

It told of young offenders staking out the ammunition section of a Canadian Tire store in Hamilton, and then following home any person who bought handgun ammunition.

"Their reasoning," said the report, "was that if someone was buying ammunition, he must have at least one gun at home and, as a result, they were able to steal a number of handguns that were subsequently sold on the streets."

Baylis Bill

This, of course, pre-dated the national gun registry.

It also pre-dated -- by a year -- the Baylis Bill, a piece of legislation that was quickly passed following the shooting death of 25-year-old Metro Toronto Police Const. Todd Baylis.

And both, in their own way, and despite the best intentions, aided and abetted the gangs of today in their quest for both guns and ammunition.

The registry is computer driven, and computers can be hacked.

Ask any multi-national company that has had its hi-tech and supposedly secure system breached.

And the Baylis Bill -- legislated in 1994 by the NDP government of Ontario Premier Bob Rae -- requires every ammunition purchase to be put in a record book at point-of-sale, complete with the purchaser's name and address.

"It's become a shopping list," said Larry Whitmore, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

"Those books, in the wrong hands, provide a lot of information as to who has guns, where they live, as well as what calibre of ammunition they are buying.

"They can be photocopied by a clerk running with a bad crowd. They can be sold for a price. Those books, quite often, are simply left on the counter," he says.

"If the police are looking for where gangs are getting their information on gun owners, this is definitely one place to look -- thanks to the Rae government."

Gun owner

Peter Etmanskie, 52, is treasurer of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, and holds the required permits which allow him to legally own and purchase firearms.

"I don't know how many times I have bought ammunition when the (record log) was simply left lying on the counter," said the retired General Motors supervisor. "Probably too many times to count."

Today, Etmanskie personally makes the majority of his target-shooting ammunition, rather than purchase it at a retail outlet.

And for two reasons.

One, it costs about 25% less.

"And, secondly, my name is not in any book," he said. "You have to be truly security conscious. You'd almost think the legitimate gun owner is at fault (for all the shootings in Toronto) by the way it is being played in the press lately.

"But one break-in is too many. You have to be wary."

With this writer not being a gun owner, and therefore not in possession of either a gun or gun acquisition licence, Etmanskie agreed to visit two retail outlets -- a Wal-Mart and a Canadian Tire -- to help document how store staff handled his purchase of .22-calibre ammunition, the only handgun ammunition sold at the outlets visited.

Both were in Whitby.

At the Wal-Mart, a clerk in his late-twenties or early-thirties, handled Etmanskie's purchase as required under the province's Baylis Bill.

He asked for Etmanskie's permits, obtained the ammunition from a locked display case, retrieved the record book from a locked cabinet below the counter, entered all the information demanded by law .

And then he locked the book back in its cabinet.

At a nearby Canadian Tire, however, every rule was broken.

A young sales clerk, in her early 20s, opened the display case and handed Etmanskie exactly what he asked for -- a box of 25 Remington .22-calibre Thunderbolt longs.

"Oops, can't do that," she then said, taking the shells back. "Rules say I have to walk them to the cashier myself."

What she didn't ask for, of course, was the identification Etmanskie needed to buy the ammunition and therefore nor was the purchase recorded in the book -- wherever it was located -- as has been required by law for 16 years.

"If I wasn't with you, I would have advised her she was breaking the law," Etmanskie said. "But, what can I say, she sold me ammunition without asking for a thing."

At the cashier, the customer in front of Etmanskie was a cop, obvious by the flash of a gold badge when he opened his wallet. Yet he said nothing when he saw the clerk place Etmanskie's ammunition on the counter -- his likely assumption being that all protocol had been followed.

But none had.

Patrick Malabre is the general manager of that Canadian Tire outlet. Stating that this was a "serious concern," he wanted details e-mailed to him, and they were -- including the date, time, name, transaction number, even the cash register where the purchase was finalized.

E-mail

"This does not follow the proper procedure put in place with all staff that work with, and are trained to sell, ammunition in our store, which makes this situation all the more out of the ordinary," he wrote back. "I want to review the video to determine who was involved, and get to the bottom of this, and you can rest assured that this will become the priority of the day."

He then asked for the "courtesy of some time" to gather the necessary information.

"Upon having it all in front of me, I will contact you ASAP," he wrote.

And then a week passed, and nothing.

When finally reached at his store, Malabre said he was "too busy" with store renovations to comment further, and suggested a call be placed to Lisa Gibson, Canadian Tire's manager of public and media relations.

"This is a serious matter," Gibson said. "And we see it as an opportunity to reinforce (proper procedure) with our employees across the county.

"As well, there will be signage put in staff rooms."

[email protected] or 416-947-2445

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, January 22, 2006

Ammunition records listing legitimate gun owners may provide a handy 'shopping list' for criminals out to steal guns -- and bullets



In the pre-election panic of seeing his Liberal party plummeting in the polls, Prime Minister Paul Martin jumped on the tragedy of Toronto's Year of the Gun and vowed to ban all handguns in this country -- his crosshairs obviously focused on legal collectors and sport shooters.

Illegal handguns, after all, are already banned.

His target, therefore, became the law-abiding citizen.

The prime minister was aided and abetted by Toronto Mayor David Miller, who, despite proof to the contrary, took to the podium to nonetheless state that "about half" the handguns bringing blood and crime to the streets of this city were stolen from legal gun owners.

If that were the case, then "about half" of those guns would have had to have been already seized. Otherwise there is no way of knowing whether they had once been legally registered.

But this has not happened.

What made the political bullets truly fly, however, was the high-profile story of a well-known Toronto gun collector and firearms instructor named Mike Hargreaves whose North Toronto apartment broken into while he was away visiting his son in Florida. Thirty-five high-powered weapons were stolen -- from Glock handguns to machineguns.

The true hook on which the story hung, however, was the fact that one of those stolen guns was used last September in a triple homicide involving suspected gangbangers.

Hargreaves, in a phone call from Florida, remembers getting a call from a senior officer at 41 Division.

"Where's your Glock?" he was asked.

"Why?" Hargreaves replied.

"Because it's sitting here on my desk," said the officer.

Hargreaves admits to being "devastated by the news" that the gun had been involved in a homicide and almost as devastated by the fact there is now a warrant out for his arrest for unsafe storage of those weapons -- despite the fact they were stored in a 771-kilo concrete-and-steel safe and that it took the industrious thieves two days using blowtorches and sledge hammers to gain access to it.

"I went far and beyond what was legally required," said Hargreaves, indicating the vault was so heavy "that the elevator dropped 15 cm when the safe was loaded on."

"It was hardly unsafe storage," he said.

The fact that one of Hargreaves' guns ended up in the hands of a gang member, however, seemingly came as no surprise to Insp. Dave McLeod, head of the Toronto Police's newly minted urban organized crime squad.

"We know (gangs) are gathering intelligence on gun owners," McLeod is quoted as saying. "But we don't know how they are doing it."

Flashback to 1994, and a quick and emotionally driven response by Premier Bob Rae's NDP government over the shooting death of a young Toronto police officer.

On July 23 of that year, one month after the on-duty murder of 25-year-old Const. Todd Baylis, Ontario became the toughest place in North America to buy ammunition as Bill 181 went into effect, requiring all ammunition retailers to keep records of all transactions -- the name and age of the purchaser, his or her address, the date and time, the type of identification used, plus any serial number and the type and quantity of ammunition purchased.

It was called the Baylis Bill and, according to those representing legal gun owners, the book in which all those transactions are kept has evolved into a treasure chest of information for gangbangers looking for targets to case and then rob.

"It's become a shopping list," says Larry Whitmore, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

"Those books, in the wrong hands, provide a lot of information as to who has guns, where they live, as well as what calibre of ammunition they are buying.

"They can be photocopied by a clerk running with a bad crowd. They can be sold for a price. Those books, quite often, are simply left on the counter," he says.

"If the police are looking for where gangs are getting their information on gun owners, this is definitely one place to look -- thanks to the Rae government."

William Hargreaves agrees.

"Is it possible (ammunition) records at retail outlets are being used by gangs? Absolutely," he says. "Considering what happened to me, these are obviously not stupid people.

"And what about the gun registry itself? If hackers can get into the Pentagon's computer, then who is to say they have not been able to hack into the federal gun registry?

"It's a government-created mess."

For years, Hargreaves purchased a great deal of ammunition at Ontario Sporting Supplies on Hwy. 7 in Vaughan.

In September 2002, however, as many as six masked bandits stormed the gun shop, smashing display cases, stealing between 75 and 85 handguns, and then shooting employee John Fullerton without provocation.

Fullerton, 40, died 24 hours later at Sunnybrook Hospital. Mike Hargreaves, a friend of 20 years, was at Fullerton's bedside -- along with Fullerton's mother, father and brother -- when the heart monitor flat-lined.

Could the ammunition record book have been stolen as well on that day in September when Ontario Sporting Supplies was hit and John Fullerton shot?

"You can't discount anything," says Hargreaves. "It doesn't take Einstein to figure that (ammunition) records could be a prime source of information."

According to Det.-Sgt. Doug Quan, head of the Toronto Police guns and gangs task force, the favoured handguns of today are either 9-mm or .45-calibre.

A black-market .22-calibre pistol costs $300 to $500, a .45-calibre handgun $800 to $1,000, a Tech 9 "point-and-spray" rapid-fire pistol $3,000.

Since Ontario requires ammunition buyers to have an ownership licence and then have their information recorded at point of purchase, Quan has indicated that gangbangers now pay up to $10 a round -- with the ammo "usually" coming from "domestic break-ins" -- and that his squad last year seized about 18,000 illegal bullets.

Guns, after all, cannot kill unless loaded. Every time a bullet is legally purchased, it leaves a paper trail -- a trail that has the potential of leading to a law-abiding citizen and a prime target for the gangs who abide by no law at all.

[email protected] or 416-947-2445

http://torontosun.canoe.ca/News/Columni ... oski_Mark/
Last edited by A.W on Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Hi5
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Post by Hi5 »

This thread deserves to stay at the top for a loooong time. Good Post, AW.
"Gun Control Laws"--trying to nag criminals into submission.
DavidT
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Post by DavidT »

"I am a man. I can change. If I have to. I guess."

Not to try to hijack the thread, but Red Green is a real hoot, eh!

"If the women don't find ya hansdsome, they should at least find ya handy."

:lol:
Thwackem!
mblaney
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Post by mblaney »

Another older thread on the issue of banning handguns linked below. On the topic of "how many legal handguns end up on the street" i did a little mathematics in the thread... nice to see that the real picture is closer to my numbers:
(from my other post...)
"Here are some numbers to think about:
Lets say that 1% of homes have a handgun. Lets assume that 1% of homes get broken into every year and, if a handgun was to be found and stolen, it was. That means that every handgun owner has a 0.01% chance that his gun will be stolen every year. I don't think registered handguns are a very good source for your average criminal.

I don't know what the B&E rate really is and I am sure that most handgun owners don't hide there guns on top of their DVD player so the chances if it being found are very slim."

I should have known that the military and police forces are probably the largest domestic source of illegal weapons.

I had not considered that the government had designed an up-to-date shopping list that is available to criminals (gun registry and especially that list at Canadian Tire). I do my best to be quiet about my hardware and meanwhile the "system" is advertising it.

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mblaney
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Post by mblaney »

And I don't know what the hell Red Green has to do with this issue... :?:
Hi5
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Post by Hi5 »

mblaney wrote:And I don't know what the hell Red Green has to do with this issue... :?:
Nothing at all, actually. DavidT simply was noting my signature line. He and I both obviously are fans of Red Green.

Thanks, though for your input on the thread and helping to keep the thread at the top.

AW's and your observations do merit being noticed.
"Gun Control Laws"--trying to nag criminals into submission.
mblaney
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Post by mblaney »

Now I get it; after reading A.W.'s post I guess I was to mad to understand...

Suggestion, this is a really good article; might get a lot more attention (and comments) if the title was changed!

The post is back at the top!
A.W
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Post by A.W »

My initial idea for a heading would have caused Excal Dude to erase it. I'm being gentle.
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Hi5
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Post by Hi5 »

A suggestion--how about a title such as "Liberals, Truth, and Gun Issues"?
:D :D :D
"Gun Control Laws"--trying to nag criminals into submission.
A.W
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Post by A.W »

How's that??
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Hi5
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Post by Hi5 »

Works for me!!!
"Gun Control Laws"--trying to nag criminals into submission.
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Post by Vince »

If the law is going to prosecute law abidding citizens because their guns get stolen, from gun safes and then used in blood crimes, then the law should prosecute those law abidding vehicle owners who's vehicles get stolen, from locked garages etc and used to commit crimes eg. drunk driving accidents, bank robberies etc.
A.W
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Post by A.W »

McGuinty pushes for handgun ban
Feb. 7, 2006. 01:00 AM
RICHARD BRENNAN AND STAN JOSEY
STAFF REPORTERS

Ontario should have the right to ban handguns even if other provinces don't, Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday.

"I think in an ideal world we'd have a national gun culture which was opposed to handguns everywhere, but failing that, then let us run with it here in the province of Ontario," he told reporters.

While the province can urge its crown attorneys to press for tougher sentences in cases involving guns, it does not have the authority to impose a ban and will need to ask for such powers from the new Conservative government in Ottawa.

"Give us the opportunities and levers we need to ensure that we are doing everything that we think we need to do to make our streets safe," McGuinty said.

The premier was responding to comments made on the weekend by Attorney General Michael Bryant in the wake of the theft of 40 registered handguns from an Oshawa collector.

Durham Region police said yesterday that none of the guns belonging to 67-year-old Ken Foster have been found, though they have leads.

"We hope we get to the guns before they get to be used," said Sgt. Paul McCurbin.

Bryant said he wants to take every legal avenue available to outlaw these "weapons of human misery," adding that handgun ownership should be limited to police, the military and Olympic sharpshooters.

The proposed ban is in the crosshairs of those who claim use of handguns for sport, gun collectors, and northerners who say they need a variety of weapons for self-protection.

Meanwhile, human rights lawyer Clayton Ruby, who was named to the Order of Canada yesterday, said there is "no social value" in personal gun collections and they should be banned outright.

"Private gun collections are for the owner's personal enjoyment only and the social cost of this is just too high," he said.

He said the province could tighten present laws to make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands. If sport shooters can make an argument for wanting to go to the Olympics one day with their weapons, then their guns should be taken out of their private homes and placed in safe containment at gun clubs or shooting ranges, Ruby said.

The call for a ban on any type of handguns or rifles will be opposed in remote communities, said Jim McKernan, a professor of lifelong learning at Lakehead University who lives in the bush north of Thunder Bay.

"No new law is going to take guns out of remote communities," he said. "I would love to take them (McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller) on a trip by snowmachine to our local dump, where 12 to 15 hungry wolves can be found at any time," he said. "I would relish the experience of watching their reactions as 12 to 15 very hungry wolves approach and they don't have any firearms."

The wolves are only interested in what people have in their green bags, but a weapon gives a sense of safety, he said.

McKernan said thousands of people in remote aboriginal communities rely on guns during daily activities such as cutting firewood in the wilderness.

Richard Holmes, vice president of the Aurora Gun Club, said the province is looking for a quick fix, "without doing its homework." He makes the argument that Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996 and the violent crime rate went up 50 per cent.

"I am a Canadian citizen and I enjoy the sport shooting community," he said. "Until I do something wrong, don't take a right away from me."

with files from isabel teotonio

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten ... 8342212737
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