SSANZ Newsletter May/June 2012

IS GUN CONTROL TOO DANGEROUS TO CONTINUE WITH?

The recent shooting that left seven dead at Oikos Christian University in East Oakland, California demonstrates yet again that such crimes are overwhelmingly a mental health issue. Decades of well intentioned but irrational attempts to control the tiny minority of criminally disturbed, sociopathic individuals through tougher gun laws aimed at the law-abiding majority are proving ultimately futile.

As California already has the toughest gun laws of any US state, anti-gun activists there are finding it harder to further "toughen up" gun laws. Since 1989 California has passed 45 seperate gun control laws at the bidding of groups like the Braby campaign to prevent gun violence . It was the first state to ban military style assault weapons following the 1989 Stockton schoolyard killing of 5 children and the wounding of another 29 by a mentally disturbed man.

The public statement by Amanda Wilcox, the California representative of the Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, that the Oikos rampage by Korean immigrant One L.Goh was "not a failure of laws" therefore represents a major reality shift for the anti-gun lobby-at least in California.

SSANZ believes the admission by the anti-gun camp that California's tough gun laws cannot prevent incidents like these is long overdue. The acknowledgement that passing more laws is not the answer to such incidents is also a tacit admission that the opinions and activities of the anti-gun lobby over the past decades have been ill-focussed, overwhelmingly irrelevant and worst of all have actively hindered the finding of a solution to such crimes.

If more laws are not the answer (something NZ police and politicians still appear not to have fully grasped) what precisely is it that gun laws achieve? In our considered opinion (and based on hard evidence not wishful thinking), gun laws only ever provide an illusion of control and of safety while achieving the exact opposite.

Meet the Man Responsible for the Death of Canada's Gun Registry

Looking north across the border, American gun owners may well see the fall of Canada’s long-gun registry with relief. This, after all, lessens the odds that the anti-gun movement will be successful in its attempt to install a gun-owners database in the U.S. However, before American gun owners forget about Canada all over again, there’s an incredible story here not being told outside Ottawa political circles that needs to be heard by every American who cherishes their freedom.

The way the press is telling it, the Conservatives finally gained control of the House of Commons and the Senate and then used, as they said they would, their majorities to begin the repeal of Canada’s long-gun registry. Their first big step, taken on February 15, was the House of Commons vote to kill the long-gun registry. They accomplished this by 159-130. Next up is Canada’s Senate, where repeal is inevitable because Conservatives also have a majority there. Finally, it’ll make its way to the Governor General of Canada where it will receive Royal Assent and be passed into law. So sometime this spring law-abiding Canadians will no longer have to fill out forms and pay fees in order to keep authorities aware of what’s in their gun cabinets.

All that seems to say that the political winds simply shifted and blew over the registry. The problem with that assumption is it isn’t quite true.

The true story is actually much more interesting; in fact, it needs to be heard by every American, as the arguments used by the anti-gun groups in Canada are the same ones being promoted in the U.S.