For 35 Years This Mantra Remains Constant

From 1989 until today, the mantra hasn’t changed.

“Ban civilian ownership of guns.”

Heidi Rathjen proudly stated it before a House of Commons committee in 1995.[i]

“We have an agenda and our task will be completed when all firearms have been prohibited, but as you can see, our position has been consistent over these five years and will not change.”

Dr. Najma Ahmed, one of the trauma surgeons who treated victims of the Danforth shootings by a Muslim terrorist in 2018, has repeated the mantra ever since.

“Honestly – it’s the guns, it’s the guns. Ban civilian ownership of guns.”[ii]

“So heartbreaking. Ban the guns.  Its the guns.”[iii]

“Just ban the guns.”[iv]

“I have a more sane solution.  Ban the guns.  Stop selling them.”[v]

“Ban semiautomatic weapons”[vi]

If it was “the guns” or any other object human beings use to kill each other, prisons would be the safest places on the planet. They’re not.

MacLean’s noted “the homicide rate in our prisons is 20 times higher than Toronto.”[vii]

 

Misguided Focus

Without exception, the perpetrators who shot the people Dr. Ahmed and other trauma surgeons treat are:

• gang members
• drug dealers
• other criminals, or
• angry young men desperate to vent their rage on their perceived victimizers (like the 2018 Danforth killer)

Most of those treated for gunshot wounds are from those same categories.

Without exception, the guns used by these criminals to wield terror in our streets are illegal – primarily smuggled in from the United States and to a much lesser degree, stolen from lawful owners.

 

“All gun owners are law-abiding until they aren’t.”

This is the moral equivalent of saying all doctors are not killers until they are.

• Mohammed Shamji, a neurosurgeon, pleaded guilty to attacking and killing his wife, Dr. Elana Fric Shamji, while their three children slept in the other room. He then took his wife’s mangled body, stuffed it into a suitcase and dumped it in the Humber River.[viii]
• Ellen Wiebe, a doctor who works with Dying With Dignity Canada, boasted in a seminar for physicians working in assisted suicide about the time she treated a patient who did not qualify for the end of life service.[ix]
• Josephakis Charalambous hired a hit man to kill one of his patients.[x]
• Brian Nadler is awaiting trial on four counts of first degree murder, dating back to offences allegedly committed in late March 2021.

Are these murderers and alleged murderers representative of the medical profession as a whole?

Of course not. Only a fool would believe otherwise.

Yet Heidi Rathjen, Dr. Najma Ahmed, and a host of other highly educated people believe the acts of a few deranged individuals are representative of every hunter and sports shooter in Canada.

How can supposedly brilliant individuals with master’s degrees and doctorates think so shallowly?

Do they see the results of the absolute worst in human behaviour and delude themselves into believing that if the gun (or knife or baseball bat or toothbrush shiv) wasn’t present, human beings would live in peaceful utopia?

This is the height of delusional thinking.

Medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in Canada, causing the death of between 24,000[xi] and 40,000[xii] Canadians each year. The Canadian Medical Association Journal states, “Medical error affects nearly 25% of Canadians.”[xiii]

Do these numbers mean we should ban all doctors?

No, of course not.

That response is just as ridiculous as claiming all gun owners are law-abiding until they are not.

Doctors, just like the rest of us, are ordinary mortal human beings, some of whom are capable of great and glorious triumphs, while a few others are capable of the darkest depths of depravity.

 

So what’s the solution?

First, we must hold the perpetrators accountable for their heinous acts WITHOUT painting an entire segment of society or an entire profession with that same brush.

Second, we must find a way to teach people to be responsible and accountable, instead of treating them like babies from cradle to grave.

Third, we must focus on solutions to our frail humanity instead of blaming inanimate objects and pretending if we could just ban them from the planet that mankind will love one another.

 

Handguns are Strictly Regulated

We must face the fact that the lawful use of handguns is strictly regulated in Canada, while the criminal misuse of guns is not.

You cannot legally buy or own a handgun without a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL), and you can’t get your PAL until you take two courses, pass two written and practical tests, and pass an RCMP background check.

You cannot legally transport a handgun unless you are issued an Authorization to Transport (ATT) and you will never be issued an ATT to go down to Jane and Finch and shoot your drug dealing rivals.

A gun didn’t put those people on Dr. Ahmed’s operating table.

A human being with evil in their heart did that. And the human with evil in their heart will always find a way to commit violence upon those they feel slighted them.

Should doctors and licensed firearm owners ever choose to focus on our similarities (both licensed firearm owners and doctors want the criminal misuse of guns eradicated) instead of blaming “the gun” or “the scalpel” for the actions of evil people, only then will we make the great strides required for true public safety.

 

 

 

Sources:

[i] https://www.ourcommons.ca/content/archives/committee/351/jula/evidence/134_95-05-16/jula134_blk-e.html

[ii] https://twitter.com/najmadoc/status/1280279424936656896

[iii] https://twitter.com/najmadoc/status/1283070928168136707

[iv] https://twitter.com/najmadoc/status/1194662029593923585

[v] https://twitter.com/najmadoc/status/1148397046736384000

[vi] https://twitter.com/najmadoc/status/1257334577066016769

[vii] https://macleans.ca/news/canada/houses-of-hate-how-canadas-prison-system-is-broken/

[viii] https://www.foxnews.com/world/canadian-doctor-mohammed-shamji-murder-wife-life-prison

[ix] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11611095/Canadian-doctor-whos-euthanized-400-says-helped-kill-man-deemed-incapable-choosing-suicide.html

[x] https://www.tricitynews.com/local-news/former-coquitlam-doctor-karate-instructor-denied-parole-for-murder-for-hire-3122457

[xi] https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/medical-errors-killing-up-to-24-000-canadians-a-year-1.514758

[xii] https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/no-other-options

[xiii] https://www.cmaj.ca/content/171/2/123.2