There has been a lot of talk on whether the long gun registry staying would be good for the Conservatives or not. Mostly, the media was saying that it would be good for the Tories and bad for the opposition as they would be able to target the rural seats of the MPs who changed their vote and would be able to fundraise more money from their base. I agree with one of these. The Conservatives would be able to fundraise more money. But support would not be easy to gain. They would lose votes in many urban ridings especially in Quebec. The Conservative support was low in the first place. Could it go even lower in Quebec? So, in short, the Tories get more money, lose support.
Within seconds of the long-gun registry vote in the Commons, this being the era of the blog, a conventional wisdom began to congeal that the Conservatives had lost the parliamentary battle but would win the electoral war.
By the next morning, the conventional political wisdom was all over the newspapers and the Web: The Conservatives would turn their narrow Commons defeat into a political victory by targeting those New Democrat and Liberal MPs in rural or semi-rural ridings who had voted to keep the controversial registry. They would be as vulnerable as ducks flying over registry-hating hunters in the fall.
Read more at the
Globe and Mail.
I agree that the Cons will capitalize on the vote vis-a-vis fundraising. However, I don't think that opinion in so-called rural ridings is as homogeneous as the pols and pundits would have us believe. My rural riding is comprised of both small towns and farmland. More people live in town than live in the country. Townsfolk are not as adamant about the registry as farmers and even among farmers, the opinion varies. The gun lobby is vociferous and has money. It does not have the numbers needed at the ballot box, though.
ReplyDeleteWhat about those of us in opposition, who will be targeting urban CPC MP"s who voted to scrap the registry?
ReplyDeletePeople like Gary Goodyear who ignored the wishes of the majority of Cambridge voters, and voted to scrap the registry. These people will be punished come election time, and no amount of money will help them.
Gun control in many contries equals no rights of the majority and complete control by a minority. I personaly know an individual that escaped from a communist country under gun fire. Why is it that the only contries you had to escape from if you wanted to leave had strict gun control laws and countries with no or little control you were free to come or go as you pleased???
ReplyDeletenot sure what the last Anon. was driving at (we're totalitarians cuz you have to fill out a piece of paper describing how many firearms you own? WTF?), but if he doesn't like the rules here, perhaps the irony of the situation has escaped him: if he doesn't like the gun control laws, he _is_ free to leave.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, what exactly is your point? Are you trying to say that you are only oppressive societies control guns? Are you saying you should be free to own whatever you want and shoot whomever you want? Your attempt at making a profound point whilst asking a question just muddles your attempt. Do you really think life is all that free in the United States? Do you think there's a difference in being shot by a government employee and a private citizen? Are the bullets different?
ReplyDeleteYou are completely unable to draw the points together and the gaps are obvious. What about the unreported criminals? What about the high levels of incarceration in the United States and Canada (which are the highest in the world). How is that free?
So who is this individual you know and what country did they flee from? What year did this happen as well. There are plenty of dangerous right wing governments out there that espouse values you may agree with but also do terrible things to their citizens to limit their freedom (Columbia off the top is one).
So how free are you anonymous? Not very...
All Conservative MPs and the party were very clear that they wanted the registry gone. Saying they don't represent their constituents is unlikely considering that's one of the fundamental things they were elected on.
ReplyDeleteThe coalition can campaign that they put new lipstick on that pig but it's still a failure.
Doesn't it get tiring, all this spin about every issue? It would be so good if we were once again governed by a party that did what was good for Canada and Canadians instead of manipulating every issue depending on how many votes it will bring in the next election. The gun registry is a good thing. It allows all law-abiding gun owners to register their guns and the rest of us, including the police, to know where the guns are. It makes it easier for the police to confiscate weapons from the criminals whose guns are not registered. The program has had problems but they have been mostly addressed and now it works well, except for those who, for some reason, are sure that the government is intent on taking their weapons away. (Paranoia!!!) Tough decisions have to be made and strong governments make them, in spite of losing support. This one will never make the right decision unless it can count on gaining electoral support. It is, in my opinion, the weakest government we have ev ever had.
ReplyDeleteHa, Bumble Bill: It was eye'Candi's lipstick on that old Garry BreitzBoar's 3rd kick at the can on this.
ReplyDeleteReformaTories keep meeting the def. of insanity: keep trying and failing at the same thing, over and over again.... and call it victory.
"It makes it easier for the police to confiscate weapons from the criminals whose guns are not registered."
ReplyDeleteDo you mean real criminals or law abiding Canadians who's registration was simply held up in the mail?
The Toronto "safe city program" clearly shows how the registry is nessesary for confescation.
Why are you so worried about Torontonians losing their guns, Bavarian Motormouth Works Rider, when you should be more concerned about _wanting_ to confiscate the guns of those just a little up the road from you in New West: Abbotsford-Mission, which has the highest murder rate in Canada?
ReplyDeleteOh, cuz you care more about the "rights" of gun owners to be free from paperwork than the people they kill. Nice.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Abbotsford+Mission+highest+capita+homicide+rate+Calgary+sixth/1812294/story.html
http://www.bclocalnews.com/fraser_valley/abbynews/news/98872749.html
Here's a great little piece with a few hard numbers on their idiotic let's go soft on gun crime control stance:
ReplyDeleteHarper’s (long-gun registry) index
http://thechronicleherald.ca/TheNovaScotian/1203876.html
Since your just being stupid..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCTnRlUE1SM&feature=player_embedded
Seriously? You wanna advocate open carry, now? On the basis of one random killing.... in Texas! ... even though you also maintain that the Polytechnique was an isolated incident which shouldn't have been used for new laws?
ReplyDeleteWell, there's selective anecdotes like that (or, for the opposite, here's a famous US person, who was killed by his own Dad -- and his own guun! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_gaye#Comeback_and_sudden_death:_1982.E2.80.9384 )
and then there's systematic evidence:
a peer-reviewed study of 677 shootings over two-and-a-half years in Philly found, "eople who carried guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens. When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2008.143099v1
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteand then there's systematic evidence:
a peer-reviewed study of 677 shootings over two-and-a-half years in Philly found, "eople who carried guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens. When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher."
By 'evidence', you mean 'propaganda', right?
Because that's what your so-called 'evidence' is. Like all anti-gun groups, they simply twist their findings to support their preconceived conclusion, and post a few half-truths like this one. It didn't take more than a cursory reading on this article to figure out the obvious, glaring flaw in it: it didn't examine CCW permit holders, it just examined "shootings". Meaning "shootings" primarily by people carrying guns ILLEGALLY (otherwise they would have proudly proclaimed otherwise). Should we be surprised by the fact that drug dealers and gang-bangers get shot more often than normal people? Nice try, though. Good reason to post anonymously, too...
Propaganda? The study's title was, "Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault," not "Open Carry Backfires" - you're the one who's trying to misrep. it as saying that. And "Fred from BC" isn't exactly much higher up the transparency scale than "Anon." THere are other studies on the rel'n b/w gun possession & getting shot, which was all I was addressing; I just grabbed the first one. But, hey, if you pine for that: move.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeletePropaganda? The study's title was, "Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault," not "Open Carry Backfires" - you're the one who's trying to misrep. it as saying that.
Except that it was *you* who presented this as
"systematic evidence". "Evidence", you say? Of what, exactly? Of the supposed usefulness of the long-gun registry? Sorry...it's a transparent attempt to equate legal, government sanctioned concealed carry by honest citizens with the illegal carry by drug dealers, gang members and armed robbers. It's PROPAGANDA of the lowest form, and exactly the type of sophistry and misrepresentation I've come to expect from you and your kind.
(but coming from someone who apparently can't even spell 'misrepresent', I'm not at all surprised)
And "Fred from BC" isn't exactly much higher up the transparency scale than "Anon."
It's completely different. I'm known as Fred from BC on all the blogs I post on. My opinions and political beliefs are well known, and anyone looking for me knows where to find me. I can't post inane crap and conveniently run away when it blows up in my face, and if I were to post libelous comments or racist diatribes I can't just claim "that wasn't me". People can hold me accountable for my actions and my words, unlike you...they can follow me around, harass me, repost the offending comments, threaten censure or legal action, etc, etc. What can they do to you, Anonymous? Which particular 'Anonymous' are you, anyway?
(see how stupid that argument was?)
THere are other studies on the rel'n b/w gun possession & getting shot, which was all I was addressing; I just grabbed the first one.
Of course you did. Without checking out the validity of such studies, you just parroted the same tired old (and throughly refuted) crap that every other anti-gun hysteric uses.
(and that's 'relationship', right?)
But, hey, if you pine for that: move.
You move. You're the one living in fear, not me. You're surrounded by people who own guns, (you just don't know which ones) and it obviously terrifies you. So do yourself a favor and move to a nice, safe country where only the police and the military (and the wealthy) are allowed to own guns. They're called POLICE STATES, and you clearly deserve to live in one...