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Grits suffer self-inflicted gunshot wounds

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Although a lack of snow makes woods travel easy while rabbit hunting, with Christmas less than a week away shopping for gifts often takes precedent. For those with snowmobiles, rest assured that almost always, either just a day or two before Christmas or, at least, between Christmas and the New Year, we usually have a heavy snowstorm, often of blizzard proportions.

Yet, other matters need attention. It appears that the federal Liberal party has the knack of shooting itself in the foot, said foot having just being removed from its mouth.

Keep in mind that as imposed by the federal Liberal government, one of the most controversial, divisive and expensive pieces of legislation is in regard to firearms in the form of Bill C-68. It was and still is a major bone of contention with voters.

Then, just prior to the last federal election that saw the Liberal party defeated, the then Prime Minister Paul Martin proclaimed that the private ownership of handguns should be eliminated.

Of course, everyone with any knowledge of such matters realized that this would only serve to remove handguns from the law abiding target shooter or collector and would not have any significant effect on gang members and other criminals.

More recently, at the Liberal leadership and biennial convention a series of resolutions were passed, including Resolution 42, which reads as follows:

"Automatic and semi-automatic weapons - Whereas automatic and semi-automatic weapons are illegal for hunting purposes; and whereas automatic and semi- automatic weapons do not support the hunting culture found in all parts of Canada; be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the Government of Canada to support legislation to eliminate the personal use of automatic and semi-automatic weapons - National Women's Liberal Commission Liberal Party of Nova Scotia."

For anyone familiar with firearms and hunting, this resolution shows an abysmal lack of knowledge. One must then also wonder, based on this, as to just how common sensed the Liberal party platform actually is in regard to other concerns and just how far out of touch they are.

For those less familiar with firearms, please be aware that fully automatic firearms are of the type that when the trigger is pressed, the firearm will fire and continue to fire until the trigger is released or the magazine is empty.

These are commonly called machine guns or sub-machine guns and are in regular use with the Canadian army. Very few are in the possession of private citizens, as such are classified as prohibited, have never been legal for hunting and as April 10, 2005 can no longer be transported to a shooting range for target practice.

Semi-automatic firearms are of the type that requires the trigger to be pressed and released for each shot fired.

Semi-auto firearms of the sporting type are perfectly legal for hunting in Canada and are listed as unrestricted. These includes semi-auto centre-fire rifles used for hunting big game such as deer, varmints such as coyotes, plus target shooting, semi-auto shotguns as used for shooting clay birds, hunting waterfowl and upland game such as grouse, plus semi-auto .22 rimfire rifles that are used for target practice and the hunting of small game such as rabbits.

Semi-auto hunting rifles and shotguns have been commonly owned and used by Canadian hunters for almost 100 years. Recognition of this is in Bill C-68, where part of the legislation says in effect that firearms commonly owned and used for hunting purposes are to be classified as unrestricted and that includes semi-autos.

Yet, Resolution 42 stated that in addition to automatic firearms, that semi- auto firearms are illegal for hunting purposes and do not support the hunting culture, which is totally false.

This shows such a lack of knowledge that one can only shake ones head in amazement.

Lumping both automatic and semi-automatic together and then voting for and accepting this resolution speaks volumes about those present and the mind-set of the Liberal party.

Being the current owner of two semi-auto shotguns, plus a semi-auto .22 rimfire rifle, all three of which are used for hunting and for clay bird shooting or target practice as well and that the majority of the hunters that I know also have one or more semi-auto rifles or shotguns and that this applies to hunters all across Canada, we can therefore only look at Resolution 42 as being in the out-to-lunch category.

Several years ago Australia imposed a law that required all privately owned semi-auto and pump action firearms to be turned in to the government.

The government then paid fair market price for those firearms, a major expense for the government of the time. Yet since then, from all reports, the criminal use of firearms in Australia has actually risen.

In England, when the government tried a similar tactic, the outcry by semi- auto shotgun owners was so great that this effort fell by the wayside.

Incidentally, at present in England, when a shotgun is used for criminal purposes, it's usually a double-barrelled shotgun, with the barrels cut off to a short length so as to be easily concealable.

Alan Rock once stated that only the police and the military should have firearms. It appears that this is still the long-term goal of the Liberal party.

-Everett Mosher is a Sackville-based writer and avid outdoorsman. His column appears every Tuesday.