Showing posts with label Gary Mauser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gary Mauser. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Like Father, Like Son -- The Disingenuous Justin Trudeau
Considering the depths the Liberal Party sunk to in order to divide Canadians over the long-gun registry -- invoking support for the registry in urban regions over opposition in rural regions -- one should find it utterly comical to hear Liberal MP Justin Trudeau lecturing protesters about the Liberal Party's desires to "bring Canada together instead of allowing us to be driven apart".
The extent to which Trudeau -- like so many proponents of the long-gun registry -- chooses to argue in absence of fact is truly remarkable. When his "uniting Canadians" rhetoric falls flat and Trudeau is called upon to name a single Canadian saved by the long-gun registry, Trudeau insists that the registry has saved "many" Canadians, and refers to suicide statistics.
Trudeau is clearly ignorant of the statistics regarding suicide in Canada, and perhaps wilfully so.
As Dr Gary Mauser points out, the reduction in suicide with firearms -- actually the result of licensing and screening processes, rather than the registry -- has been accompanied by increasing rates of suicide by other means.
"Suicide rates have slowly declined over two decades. Firearm suicides have declined as well, but suicides by hanging have soared," Dr Mauser notes. "Some call this a success. In 1991, 3,500 people took their own life; in 2005, 3,700. The long-gun registry has not saved any lives."
Not only can Trudeau not present one single fact supporting maintaining the long-gun registry, but he refuses to acknowledge any fact that challenges his views.
For example, Trudeau mentions the support of the long-gun registry by the Canadian Association of Chiefss of Police. When asked about the CACP accepting a $115,000 donation from the CGI Group, the company that produces the software for the long-gun registry.
Trudeau suggests that "you're giving me facts that may or may not be true".
Not only is this fact true, but one of CACP's chief ethicists, Dr John Jones, resigned from the group's ethics committee over this and other matters.
With his brief attempt to divert into arguing based on facts falling flat, Trudeau instead reverts back to his disingenuous "dividing Canadians" tripe. What he didn't account for was that he was speaking to a group of urban long-gun registry opponents.
Oops.
Upon being confronted with this fact, Trudeau then attempts to fall back on arguments related to domestic violence. When asked why resources used to fund the long-gun registry aren't used to fund women's shelters instead, Trudeau simply retreats altogether.
Fortunately, the issue of the long-gun registry isn't going to go away, no matter how badly Trudeau and his fellow Liberals would like it to. Justin Trudeau will have plenty of opportunities to use this issue to demonstrate that he is every bit as disingenuous as his father was.
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Utter Cluelessness of Jack Layton & the NDP
Conservatives can't work with NDP on long-gun registry
When it appeared that Candice Hoeppner's private members bill would find enough support from the NDP to pass, NDP leader Jack Layton went to work to find enough votes to keep the registry alive.
He didn't whip the vote, as many advocates of the long-gun regsitry insisted he should, but he seems to have found the votes.
Yet, as it turns out, Layton's fantasies don't end with the alleged necessity of maintaining the registry. Layton continues to fantasize that the Conservative Party would be able to work with him to "fix" the registry.
"I said to the Prime Minister today as well as in a conversation last week, ‘Why don't we work together here? You haven't got the numbers now to simply eliminate it,'" Layton said. "'So let's work to try to fix it and address some of those legitimate issues that are being raised by people who are law-abiding gun owners and hunters and farmers.'"
What Layton clearly doesn't understand is that, as pertains to gun control and the long-gun registry, there's nothing to talk about. There is simply no way that the Conservative Party -- who acknowledge reality as it relates to the long-gun registry -- could work wirh the NDP on the matter, who do not.
It's as simple as that.
Particularly, the Conservatives cannot be expected to work with people who won't debate the matter in good faith.
Layton and the other supporters of the long-gun registry have long realized that there are no facts that support maintaining the registry: not a single, solitary, one.
They can't afford to publicly admit that the long-gun registry has never prevented a single crime, and has never saved a single life. Not one.
Instead, proponents of the long-gun registry have relied on fear mongering, emotional blackmail, and smear tactics in order to make their case.
Consider the following exchanges from the very same meeting of the Public Safety Committee in which Dr Gary Mauser utterly demolished defenses of the long-gun registry.
The first is between Dr Mauser and Marlene Jennings:
Unfortunately for Jennings, what she uncovered was a donation scarcely sufficient to keep the lights on for a major research project, and a former Reform Party donor who had also given to her own party.
In the midst of a debate that is supposed to be contested based on facts, this is far from a significant bombshell.
But Jennings' buffoonery nothing compared to that of Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Mourani:
And evidently sensitive enough to stoop to ad hominem attacks on an expert at whose assessment of the facts she seems to despair.
Which reminds one what this is allegedly supposed to be about: it's supposed to be about the facts. Mark Holland insists that the Conservatives simply don't care about them.
Yet when a doctor of criminology shows up to the Public Safety Committee and lays out facts that are extremely inconvenient for proponents of the long-gun registry, the facts seem to be the last thing Holland, Jennings, Mourani et al are concerned with:
Their language becomes not that of a factual debate, but that of vindictive personal attack, vicious character assasination, and shameless melodrama.
There is a reason for this: the facts simply do not favour their cause. It doesn't prevent gun crime. It doesn't save lives. It's a cosmetic gun control measure that demonstrably doesn't protect Canadians.
Truthfully speaking, the long gun registry has become the cause celibre of far-left demagogues who can't bring themselves to get tough on crime, so instead opt to get tough on the law-abiding.
Jack Layton has, unsurprisingly, decided to throw in with that lot. The Conservatives couldn't work with him on this issue, even if they wanted to.
When it appeared that Candice Hoeppner's private members bill would find enough support from the NDP to pass, NDP leader Jack Layton went to work to find enough votes to keep the registry alive.
He didn't whip the vote, as many advocates of the long-gun regsitry insisted he should, but he seems to have found the votes.
Yet, as it turns out, Layton's fantasies don't end with the alleged necessity of maintaining the registry. Layton continues to fantasize that the Conservative Party would be able to work with him to "fix" the registry.
"I said to the Prime Minister today as well as in a conversation last week, ‘Why don't we work together here? You haven't got the numbers now to simply eliminate it,'" Layton said. "'So let's work to try to fix it and address some of those legitimate issues that are being raised by people who are law-abiding gun owners and hunters and farmers.'"
What Layton clearly doesn't understand is that, as pertains to gun control and the long-gun registry, there's nothing to talk about. There is simply no way that the Conservative Party -- who acknowledge reality as it relates to the long-gun registry -- could work wirh the NDP on the matter, who do not.
It's as simple as that.
Particularly, the Conservatives cannot be expected to work with people who won't debate the matter in good faith.
Layton and the other supporters of the long-gun registry have long realized that there are no facts that support maintaining the registry: not a single, solitary, one.
They can't afford to publicly admit that the long-gun registry has never prevented a single crime, and has never saved a single life. Not one.
Instead, proponents of the long-gun registry have relied on fear mongering, emotional blackmail, and smear tactics in order to make their case.
Consider the following exchanges from the very same meeting of the Public Safety Committee in which Dr Gary Mauser utterly demolished defenses of the long-gun registry.
The first is between Dr Mauser and Marlene Jennings:
"Jennings - ...Have you received funding from the NRA for any of your studies or research work?Jennings attempts a rather blatant guilt-by-association argument. She knows her base well, and must imagine that a donation to the Reform Party, and the receipt of a donation from the NRA would be rather damning for Dr Mauser.
Dr Mauser - Yes, I have. When I first began researching--
Jennings - Thank you.
Dr Mauser - I got $400.
Jennings - Have you contributed to the Conservative Party of Canada, or its predecessor the Canadian Alliance, or its predecessor the Reform Party of Canada?
Dr Mauser - I have contributed to the Conservative Party, the Reform Party, the NDP, and the Liberals."
Unfortunately for Jennings, what she uncovered was a donation scarcely sufficient to keep the lights on for a major research project, and a former Reform Party donor who had also given to her own party.
In the midst of a debate that is supposed to be contested based on facts, this is far from a significant bombshell.
But Jennings' buffoonery nothing compared to that of Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Mourani:
"Mourani - Mr Mauser, I would like short answers please. Is this in fact you in this photograph, with a handgun?In all fairness, Maria Mourani does seem like the sensitive type: sensitive enough to be frightened by a 20-year-old photograph. That, seeing as how she introduced it into committee, one could presume she herself dug up for that purpose.
Dr Mauser - That's me and that's my handgun.
Mourani - What kind of gun is it?
Dr Mauser - It is a Smith & Wesson revolver.
Mourani - Is it registered?
Dr Mauser - Well, of course.
Mourani - How many weapons do you own?
Dr Mauser - I'm not sure. It varies.
Mourani - You do not remember how many guns you own? How many long guns do you own?
Dr Mauser - I don't remember. It varies.
Mourani - All right, you own firearms, but you do not remember how many you have?
Dr Mauser - I'm getting old.
Mourani - You are not, however, too old to carry such a gun.
Dr Mauser - That would be a few more years from now.
Mourani - Where was this photograph taken?
Dr Mauser - About 20 years ago.
Mourani - But where?
Dr Mauser - You can see that I'm a lot younger there.
Mourani - Yes, but where? Was it at home? It looks like it was at home, not at a firing range or at a shooting school. Am I right? It is at your house.
Dr Mauser - That's my house.
Mourani - Excellent. And what were you shooting at? What were you having fun shooting at? Who were you putting on this show for?
The Chair - Mrs Mourani, you have to relate this to the long-gun registry.
Mourani - I apologize, Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, I will explain why.
Dr Mauser - You will notice, first of all, that I'm not firing. Secondly, the finger is not in the trigger guard. Thirdly, the photographer asked me to pose like this and I resisted, but obviously I should have resisted harder.
Mourani - You did put up a struggle, my dear sir. But, you are the expert advisor as far as firearms are concerned. I must admit to you that I am scared."
And evidently sensitive enough to stoop to ad hominem attacks on an expert at whose assessment of the facts she seems to despair.
Which reminds one what this is allegedly supposed to be about: it's supposed to be about the facts. Mark Holland insists that the Conservatives simply don't care about them.
Yet when a doctor of criminology shows up to the Public Safety Committee and lays out facts that are extremely inconvenient for proponents of the long-gun registry, the facts seem to be the last thing Holland, Jennings, Mourani et al are concerned with:
Their language becomes not that of a factual debate, but that of vindictive personal attack, vicious character assasination, and shameless melodrama.
There is a reason for this: the facts simply do not favour their cause. It doesn't prevent gun crime. It doesn't save lives. It's a cosmetic gun control measure that demonstrably doesn't protect Canadians.
Truthfully speaking, the long gun registry has become the cause celibre of far-left demagogues who can't bring themselves to get tough on crime, so instead opt to get tough on the law-abiding.
Jack Layton has, unsurprisingly, decided to throw in with that lot. The Conservatives couldn't work with him on this issue, even if they wanted to.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Mark Holland, the RCMP, and "Penultimate Reports"
Long-gun registry advocates have yet to produce one
Ajax-Pickering MP -- and Ottawa's resident village idiot -- Mark Holland recently pretended to be rather vindicated with the RCMP produced a report claiming that the long-gun registry was efficient and cost-effective.
Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Hoeppner is far less than convinced.
"My position remains steadfast as does our party's position," she said. "We believe the long-gun registry needs to end. As legislators, that's our job, to look at policy, to decide what's in the best interests of Canadians and make those decisions. So, nothing has changed."
Hoeppner went on to explain that stronger pre-licensing screening protocols are needed in order to actually keep guns out of the hands of people likely to use them to do harm.
In the bizarre world of Mark Holland, a preference for actual, real gun control rather than cosmetic legislation is "ideological".
"The Conservatives have wanted to scrap this for ideology," Holand declared. "Facts will not move them."
"They don't care about facts," he continued. "You could present the penultimate report, and they would ignore it."
The problem for Holland is that neither he nor any of the other proponents of the long-gun registry have produced anything even remotely resembling a "penultimate report". The recent report released by the RCMP doesn't even come close.
The RCMP has different motivations for wanting to declare the long-gun registry to be successful. After all, the gun registry is currently administered by the RCMP itself.
Currently, the RCMP is a troubled institution. Questions regarding the conduct of its officers abound. The institution continues to face questions about irregularities in its pension fund.
The RCMP is an institution desperately in need of some good news. An internal audit of a program they themselves administer is the perfect opportunity to produce precisely that.
Holland must certainly understand the folly of citing this report as if it were the final word on the long-gun registry. (The detail that it was the Conservative party who placed the registry under RCMP administration after the bureaucrats the Liberal Party hired to administer the program ran it deep into the depths of wastefulness is really just the icing on the cake.)
Even Holland's favourite talking point -- the support for the program by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police -- has absorbed a black eye recently, as it was revealed that the organization accepted a donation of $115,000 from the CGI group of companies.
The CGI group produces the software for the gun registry.
That makes for a massive conflict of interest, and raises questions of whether or not any conditions were placed on the donation.
Moreover, if there ever were a penultimate report on the long-gun registry, it absolutely would not support maintaining it.
“It is difficult to understand why the chiefs of police support the long-gun registry,” Simon Fraser University Criminologist Dr Gary Mauser once remarked. “[It] has so many errors that relying upon it puts the lives of rank-and-file police members at risk. This is a classic database problem: garbage in, gospel out. The police should know better."
"Millions of entries are incorrect or missing," he continued. “Most striking, less than half of all long guns in Canada are in the registry."
"The long-gun registry does worse – it misdirects the police," he said. "People who have registered their firearms are less likely to be violent than Canadians who don’t even own firearms. They should be. Gun owners have been screened by the police since 1979."
"We are told that 15 percent of the guns used in homicides are long guns," he briefly conceded. "What is not said is that virtually none were registered. How does the gun registry help? When I spoke at the Ontario Police College, one of the instructors told me privately that trusting the registry was a way to get good police officers killed."
Those are some very sobering facts -- they should be doubly so for proponents of the long-gun registry.
Where did Dr Mauser make these remarks?
Before the Public Safety Committee, of which Mark Holland is not only a member, but Vice-Chair.
Was he simply absent the day that Dr Mauser gave these remarks? Or did he disregard them because they weren't ideologically soothing enough for his tastes?
It seems that the answer is almost certainly the latter. Holland doesn't care about the facts, and he doesn't seem afraid to lie about them.
This is not a terribly new act for Holland, or for any other proponents of the long-gun registry. When they aren't attempting to justify the long-gun registry by waging a campaign of ideological emotional blackmail (centred around the L'Ecole Polytechnique shootings), they're deceiving Canadians by using pictures of assault rifles in media stories promoting their agenda.
(Under Canadian law, assault rifles aren't long guns, they're restricted or prohibited weapons -- different category, one that will remain unaffected by Hoeppner's bill.)
Reality is not kind to Mark Holland, nor to the long-gun registry. When real life finally releases its "penultimate report" on the long-gun registry, it will almost certainly favour its abolition.
Ajax-Pickering MP -- and Ottawa's resident village idiot -- Mark Holland recently pretended to be rather vindicated with the RCMP produced a report claiming that the long-gun registry was efficient and cost-effective.
Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Hoeppner is far less than convinced.
"My position remains steadfast as does our party's position," she said. "We believe the long-gun registry needs to end. As legislators, that's our job, to look at policy, to decide what's in the best interests of Canadians and make those decisions. So, nothing has changed."
Hoeppner went on to explain that stronger pre-licensing screening protocols are needed in order to actually keep guns out of the hands of people likely to use them to do harm.
In the bizarre world of Mark Holland, a preference for actual, real gun control rather than cosmetic legislation is "ideological".
"The Conservatives have wanted to scrap this for ideology," Holand declared. "Facts will not move them."
"They don't care about facts," he continued. "You could present the penultimate report, and they would ignore it."
The problem for Holland is that neither he nor any of the other proponents of the long-gun registry have produced anything even remotely resembling a "penultimate report". The recent report released by the RCMP doesn't even come close.
The RCMP has different motivations for wanting to declare the long-gun registry to be successful. After all, the gun registry is currently administered by the RCMP itself.
Currently, the RCMP is a troubled institution. Questions regarding the conduct of its officers abound. The institution continues to face questions about irregularities in its pension fund.
The RCMP is an institution desperately in need of some good news. An internal audit of a program they themselves administer is the perfect opportunity to produce precisely that.
Holland must certainly understand the folly of citing this report as if it were the final word on the long-gun registry. (The detail that it was the Conservative party who placed the registry under RCMP administration after the bureaucrats the Liberal Party hired to administer the program ran it deep into the depths of wastefulness is really just the icing on the cake.)
Even Holland's favourite talking point -- the support for the program by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police -- has absorbed a black eye recently, as it was revealed that the organization accepted a donation of $115,000 from the CGI group of companies.
The CGI group produces the software for the gun registry.
That makes for a massive conflict of interest, and raises questions of whether or not any conditions were placed on the donation.
Moreover, if there ever were a penultimate report on the long-gun registry, it absolutely would not support maintaining it.
“It is difficult to understand why the chiefs of police support the long-gun registry,” Simon Fraser University Criminologist Dr Gary Mauser once remarked. “[It] has so many errors that relying upon it puts the lives of rank-and-file police members at risk. This is a classic database problem: garbage in, gospel out. The police should know better."
"Millions of entries are incorrect or missing," he continued. “Most striking, less than half of all long guns in Canada are in the registry."
"The long-gun registry does worse – it misdirects the police," he said. "People who have registered their firearms are less likely to be violent than Canadians who don’t even own firearms. They should be. Gun owners have been screened by the police since 1979."
"We are told that 15 percent of the guns used in homicides are long guns," he briefly conceded. "What is not said is that virtually none were registered. How does the gun registry help? When I spoke at the Ontario Police College, one of the instructors told me privately that trusting the registry was a way to get good police officers killed."
Those are some very sobering facts -- they should be doubly so for proponents of the long-gun registry.
Where did Dr Mauser make these remarks?
Before the Public Safety Committee, of which Mark Holland is not only a member, but Vice-Chair.
Was he simply absent the day that Dr Mauser gave these remarks? Or did he disregard them because they weren't ideologically soothing enough for his tastes?
It seems that the answer is almost certainly the latter. Holland doesn't care about the facts, and he doesn't seem afraid to lie about them.
This is not a terribly new act for Holland, or for any other proponents of the long-gun registry. When they aren't attempting to justify the long-gun registry by waging a campaign of ideological emotional blackmail (centred around the L'Ecole Polytechnique shootings), they're deceiving Canadians by using pictures of assault rifles in media stories promoting their agenda.
(Under Canadian law, assault rifles aren't long guns, they're restricted or prohibited weapons -- different category, one that will remain unaffected by Hoeppner's bill.)
Reality is not kind to Mark Holland, nor to the long-gun registry. When real life finally releases its "penultimate report" on the long-gun registry, it will almost certainly favour its abolition.
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