COMMENTARY — GUNS HAVE TWO ENEMIES: RUST AND POLITICIANS
You need to become involved. Here’s what can you do to help!
We know you have heard this before, and you will continue hearing it from us. Unless we are part of the political process, we will be the victims of it. This election will be a pivotal one for Canada’s firearm owners. As we have amply illustrated over the last several weeks, with the exception of the Conservative Party of Canada, every one of the political parties running in this election intends harm to our community.
Those of you who remember the bad old days of Bill C-68 know how quickly our world can change. While we have most certainly come a long way since then, firearm ownership in Canada is far from safe.
How do we confront the threat? Simple. Make sure our enemies do not get in power on October 19. Our best asset to accomplish this is you, our membership.
The polls show the election is still anyone’s guess. But truly, a CPC minority government is not good enough. The opposition parties, united in their disdain for our way of life and our rights, will certainly force a coalition government to satisfy their lustful obsession for power. They will ram through legislation to confiscate our property. To ensure our protection, we need a stable, majority Conservative government.
That said – first and foremost – volunteer your time to your local Conservative candidate. In many cases, it is not the candidate with the most money who wins, but the one with the most volunteers. To find your candidate, go to www.conservative.ca.
Donate. You’ll get 75% back when you file your income tax return.
Encourage your fellow firearm owners to put lawn signs in front of their houses. They DO make a difference.
Talk to other firearm owners. Talk to your relatives. Talk to your friends. Talk to anyone who stands still long enough to listen!
Most important of all: Get Conservative voters to the polling stations by offering to drive people you know who will vote Conservative. This is likely going to be the election with the lowest voter turnout so the party that gets the most supporters to the polls will win.
And finally, VOTE!!!
Your greatest responsibility in a democracy is to exercise your right to vote. Like all rights, this is a “use it or lose it” proposition. Higher voter turnout is the one huge asset we hold against our enemies. We have a higher percentage of voter turn out than they do. Let’s use that to our advantage.
We are down to the wire. The next few weeks will bring flurries of political promises as all sides jockey to form the next government. The CSSA does not shy away from advising our members on firearm rights issues. We never have.
So let’s make a political promise of our own: a vote for anyone other than the Conservative Party is a vote to have our firearms stolen from us.
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WE’RE LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD MEN AND WOMEN!
Do you want to tell your children and your grandchildren that you were “on the front line” protecting their rights?
Team CSSA is working to re-energize and re-focus our corps of volunteer regional directors. Would you like to be part of our exciting new RD Program and help represent Canada’s greatest firearm organization across the nation?
It will require some definite, but modest, time commitments. Time well spent with friendly firearm owners representing the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. If you’re interested, please send an email to Christine Scott at christine.scott@cssa-cila.org
Thank you!
Team CSSA
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BARBECUE | POWASSAN, ONTARIO | ROCK CUT GUN CLUB | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2015 – The club is located between the communities of Trout Creek and Powassan, ON, adjacent to the east side of Highway #11. The barbecue takes place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Special guests, Minister Candice Bergen and MP Jay Aspin, will be attending. Refreshments will be provided. For more information, please contact Mark Johnson at 705-478-9990.
REMEMBER LIBERAL MARK HOLLAND? The Crown Prince of gun owner hate is back and vying against Chris Alexander for the seat of Ajax-Pickering. Chris is asking for any able bodied gunnies to step up to the plate and lend a hand to his campaign. He needs your support. To help out contact Dean at dean.da2270@yahoo.ca
A DURHAM REGION GATHERING OF GUNNIES: Conservative Party of Canada candidate Erin O’Toole, invites you to join him at the Oshawa Skeet and Gun Club on Tuesday, October 6th at 7pm for an informal campaign event with CSSA’s Executive Director Tony Bernardo and former MPP and Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette.
Erin would like the chance to hear from Durham’s sport shooters and hunters about challenges facing gun owners, and to discuss the concrete actions the Conservative Party has taken to assert and protect the rights of gun owners across Canada.
When: 7pm, Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Place: Oshawa Skeet and Gun Club 5245 Wilson Road North, Port Perry
Who: All sport shooters, hunters and Durham residents concerned about gun ownership in Canada
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“Allan Rock said he came to Ottawa with the belief that only the police and military should have firearms. I believe that firearms ownership is a right, but a right that comes with responsibilities.” – The Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Public Safety
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HELP SUPPORT THE GREAT WORK THE CSSA DOES TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS. DONATE HERE
CSSA DOUBLE TAP! YOU CAN WIN!
You can win this incredible combo: a Tikka T3 Camo rifle in your choice of available calibres AND a Scorpion Optics Venom Hi Grade 4-16×44 AE SF with rings, donated to the CSSA by the good folks at Scorpion Optics.
For the serious shooter wanting a super-accurate, camo rifle with a non-reflective stainless steel barrel, a camo-patterned fibreglass-reinforced copolymer stock (Realtree Hardwoods® HDTM) and a superb optical sight on top, this combination can’t be beat.
All you have to do is make a $10 donation to the CSSA, and we will give you a free chance to win this great gun/scope hunting rig. Better yet, we will give you THREE chances with a $20 donation, TEN for $50 and a $100 donation can get you TWENTY chances and a free one-year membership to the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
This beautiful hunting combo will find a new home November 1, 2015.
Please send your payment to:
Double Tap c/o CSSA, 116 Galaxy Blvd, Etobicoke ON M9W 4Y6
or call 1-888-873-4339.
Donate online at www.cssa-cila.org
Please note: the winner must have a valid Canadian firearms license.
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DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE ON THE VOTERS’ LIST FOR THE 2015 FEDERAL ELECTION?
Ask yourself what a Liberal or NDP government (or coalition government!!) would mean for firearm freedoms in Canada. With a three-way race shaping up, we need more than ever to get out and vote – and to make that vote count.
Don’t end up at a polling station without being registered or with out-of-date information attached to your name. If you aren’t registered or need to update your information, it is really easy to do so on the Elections Canada website. Here’s the link to check your status: http://www.elections.ca/home.aspx
DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN VOTE EARLY?
As this vote is so critical to the survival of firearm ownership in Canada, we strongly encourage you to cast your ballot as soon as possible. You can vote at any Elections Canada office across the country.
Offices are open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bring proof of your identity and address to vote – a driver’s licence, for example, or any other government identification that includes your photo, name and current address. You can find the nearest Elections Canada office at: http://www.elections.ca/scripts/vis/FindED?L=e&PAGEID=20.
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CANADIANS IN FAVOUR OF LEGALIZED POT, ASSISTED SUICIDE, BUT NOT LONG-GUN REGISTRY: POLL (Poll Watch | The Lobby Monitor | September 28, 2015)
Canadians are largely supportive of the progressive option in several hot-button social debates, such as marijuana legalization and assisted suicide, but remain opposed to the reinstatement of the long gun registry, says a new Forum Research poll.
The public opinion survey of 1,557 Canadian voters found that 67 per cent of respondents believe assisted suicide should be legal, while sizeable majorities were in favour of rolling back the eligibility age for the Old Age Supplement to 65 and the legalization of marijuana (65 and 54 per cent, respectively).
The telephone poll was conducted between Sept. 21 and 23. It’s considered accurate plus or minus three per cent, or 19 times out of 20.
Three years ago, the Conservative federal government announced its intention to hike the age of eligibility for OAS to 67, starting in 2023.
Support for the OAS rollback was high among the less affluent, as 71 per cent of respondents reporting personal incomes of less than $40,000 supported returning to the original eligibility timeframe. Surprisingly, 71 per cent of wealthier respondents, with personal incomes of $80,000 to $100,000, also supported reverting to the established age benchmark.
Meanwhile, support for assisted suicide was largely drawn from younger groups, with 73 per cent of respondents between the ages of 35 to 44 supporting the measure. Those making between $80,000 to $100,000 (76 per cent) and respondents from Quebec (75 per cent) were also overwhelmingly in favour of legalizing it.
A robust plurality of respondents — 49 per cent — supported legalized prostitution, though opinion on this issue is sharply divided by gender. Nearly 60 per cent of men supported the measure, while only 40 per cent women did.
The only issue that failed to win at least a plurality of support was reviving the axed long gun registry. Only 39 per cent of respondents supported its return, compared to 44 per cent that preferred to keep the contentious registry dead and buried.
Opinion on this issue is divided along gender, political and geographic lines, though support for the registry remains relatively muted.
Forty-five per cent of those in the mid-age and oldest age groups supported reinstating the registry, as did 42 per cent of women. Those making less than $40,000 (44 per cent) and respondents from Quebec (51 per cent) were also largely supportive.
Only 26 per cent of respondents in Alberta want it back, and slightly more than the 17 per cent of national Conservative party backers would like to see the registry revived.
Despite reservation about the long-gun registry, 45 per cent of respondents said they would vote for a candidate that supported each of the five social issues polled. Only 30 per cent said they would not cast a ballot for this hypothetical candidate, while 26 per cent said they did not know.
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REMINDER: NCRRA FALL SHOOT AT THE CONNAUGHT RANGES IS THIS COMING WEEKEND, OCTOBER 3 AND 4. If you haven’t yet registered, please do so!
You can register online at http://www.targetscores.com.
Despite the recent Common Sense changes to the Firearms Act, you do still require a short-term ATT to attend DND ranges (they really need to add federal ranges to Section 29!).
Good news on the air pistol. The indoor air pistol range called Air 4 is supposed to be available at last! This is the white sprung shelter that we have used in past years.
Payments, souvenirs, scorecards and such will be in the usual place on Shirley Boulevard, past the pistol ranges in the lobby of the RCMP IFR building.
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RETROACTIVE CHANGE OF LAW PROMPTS OPP TO DROP PROBE OF RCMP GUN DATA DESTRUCTION (By Bruce Cheadle | The Canadian Press | September 30, 2015)
OTTAWA – The Ontario Provincial Police have dropped an investigation into the RCMP’s destruction of gun registry data, saying the alleged offences no longer exist under a back-dated, retroactive Conservative law passed last spring.
Documents filed in court by the federal information commissioner’s office include a letter from the OPP that lays out four potential offences by the RCMP when the national police force destroyed long gun registry records in 2012.
The OPP letter, dated Sept. 22, details at length how Conservative changes buried in a highly controversial omnibus budget bill last spring close off every avenue for investigation of the alleged RCMP offences.
“After giving the provisions described above detailed consideration, I am of the view that the retrospective aspect of the Bill C-59 amendments completely remove any criminal liability in relation to deletion of long-gun registry data by the RCMP,” writes OPP Det. Supt. Dave Truax.
The bill was passed just prior to the House of Commons rising for the summer.
Parliament was subsequently dissolved in early August when Prime Minister Stephen Harper triggered the current election campaign.
Information commissioner Suzanne Legault has launched a constitutional challenge of the government’s retroactive changes to the legislation, called the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, or ELRA.
Legault issued a special report to Parliament last spring laying out how the RCMP knowingly destroyed registry files, even though it knew those records were part of an active investigation under the Access to Information Act, and even though the federal public safety minister had assured Legault’s office that the Mounties would abide by the access law and preserve the data.
Legault recommended charges be laid and Justice Minister Peter MacKay referred the matter to the public prosecutors’ office on May 6, but the following day the government tabled an omnibus bill that retroactively wiped the offences from the legal code.
The government also back-dated the changes to when the original bill to kill the gun registry was tabled in Parliament, months before it actually passed into law, wiping out “any request, complaint, investigation, application, judicial review appeal or other proceeding” related to the final six months of the registry’s legal existence.
The OPP letter states that it was looking into three possible offences under the Access to Information Act and one criminal offence, mischief to computer data.
Word of the dropped police investigation came Tuesday as a large group of Canadian academics published an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying the retroactive legal change “will be judged in the court of public opinion: citizens will be justifiably alarmed that their government has taken actions that have profound, negative implications for the practice of Canadian democracy.”
The letter, signed by some 80 academics, states that “a government should not decriminalize its own actions if they were illegal at the time they were committed. This requirement precludes laws that are retroactive as they would re-write history.”
Legault has said the back-dated legal changes — coming in the face of an active investigation and a finding of wrongdoing by her office — set a “perilous precedent” that could allow future governments to retroactively rewrite laws on everything from spending scandals to electoral fraud.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair at the time called the changes “banana-republic behaviour” but parliamentary procedure experts said the retroactive law, while unorthodox, could not be stopped, and it received royal assent on June 23.
Expert affidavits filed in Ontario Superior Court by Legault’s office question Parliament’s power to enact laws that retrospectively infringe on Canadians’ quasi-constitutional right to government information.
“Virtually all formulations of the rule of law principle — in Canada and elsewhere in peer common law jurisdictions — include the idea that laws should be prospective rather than retrospective or retroactive,” says the 87-page affidavit by law professor Lorne Sossin of York University’s Osgoode Hall.
“The reasons for this are obvious. Imagine if a government that had acted corruptly could simply have legislation passed retrospectively altering the consequences of rules by which it operated so as to make illegitimate actions legitimate.”
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that criminal punishments cannot be changed retroactively, but hasn’t looked at the notion of retroactively absolving an act that was criminal at the time of the offence.
Law professor Jamie Cameron of the University of Toronto notes in his affidavit that the Supreme Court made access to government information a quasi-constitutional right in 2010.
“In doing so, the Court stated its commitment to ‘open government,’ declaring that ‘access to information in the hands of public institutions can increase transparency in government, contribute to an informed public, and enhance an open and democratic society.'”
Follow @BCheadle on Twitter
See the story: http://www.cfra.com/NationalCP/Article.aspx?id=481206
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CANADA IN THE ROUGH – TURKEY TIME!
It’s opening day of the Ontario Turkey Season and Kevin Beasley is joined by Rob Dykeman, the President of Excalibur Crossbows. Having roosted the birds the night before, opening morning is sure to be a success! Later, Kevin and Paul Beasley have a group of toms trashing their decoys, but the cameraman gets in the way!
See the teaser: http://www.canadaintherough.com/turkey-time/
Canada in the Rough can be found on OLN, WILD TV, and CHEX. For a full schedule, visit: http://www.canadaintherough.com/schedules/
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LOOKING FOR UPCOMING GUN SHOWS AND MATCHES? Visit our website at:
https://cssa-cila.org/upcoming-events-matches/
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NEW JERSEY GUN LAWS SCREW OVER ANOTHER INNOCENT MOM – FACING 10 YEARS IN PRISON (Ammoland Gun News | September 28, 2015)
New Jersey – Mia Higginbotham was charged with unlawful possession of her own, lawfully owned unloaded handgun, which was packed in its original box and locked in her hard-sided luggage.
She was moving from her residence in New Jersey to her residence in Florida. She declared the firearm at check-in, but was subsequently arrested at Liberty International Airport in Elizabeth / Newark.
She had no ammunition in her possession whatsoever, and was plainly trying to follow the law.
Mia is married and has a young daughter. She is currently facing 10 years in State Prison with a minimum mandatory of 3.5 to 5 years with no chance of parole for her attempt to lawfully transport her handgun between residences.
Watch the video below to be shocked by her story. Then post the link to this tragedy all over. Let’s shame New Jersey for this un-American behavior.
Outraged yet? You can help. Send money to Mia’s legal defense fund, don’t let her go to prison just because she lives in New Jersey. Visit: http://gogetfunding.com/mia-higginbotham-legal-defense-fund/
See the story and video: http://www.ammoland.com/2015/09/new-jersey-gun-laws-screw-over-another-innocent-mom/#axzz3nGuYpkiX
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Looking back …
TARGETING THE MEDIA’S ANTI-GUN BIAS – ONE JOURNALIST TEACHES HIS COLLEAGUES ABOUT GUNS BY TAKING THEM TO THE SHOOTING RANGE. (Michael Bane | ajr.org | July/August 2001)
SO I’M DOING WHAT magazine writers are always doing–pitching articles–this time to one of my regular clients, a top men’s magazine. I’d finished pitching and was winding up the conversation when the editor interrupted.
“There’s one thing I’d like for you to explain to me,” the editor said. “We send you to cool places and pay you a lot of money. You’re one of our guys, one of us…”
I warily agreed.
“Can you explain to me about the guns?” he said.
Ah, I thought, the guns. Since this was one of the largest outdoor sports magazines in the country, I’d suggested a story on sport shooters. I’d also mentioned that I’d been a competitive pistol shooter for 15 years. “I’m a competitor,” I told my editor. “I race bicycles, do triathlons, climb mountains. I’m also a shooter. I shoot because it’s fun.”
“Bull****,” he replied.
Which is how I came to have what is laughingly referred to as “the most nightmarish job in the gun culture.”
I’m the guy who deals with the national media. I teach reporters, editors and correspondents to shoot. And in the year-and-a-half since, with the backing of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), I’ve been running media seminars. I’ve come to some very unsettling conclusions about the relationship between reporters and guns. In fact, I believe the media–print and electronic–may be the single biggest casualty in the three decades of this “shooting war.”
First, the seminars. NSSF brings together journalists and shooting sports champions for one-on-one instruction. The seminars are not specifically political, but, as I make clear to potential participants, no subjects are off-limits. In our first five seminars, we’ve had reporters from the Wall Street Journal and other national dailies, top writers for such publications as Newsweek, Outside, Men’s Fitness and other magazines and electronic journalists of various stripe.
For people who are part of the gun culture, the results have been amazing. At the beginning of the seminars, almost all the journalists are anti-gun, to one degree or another, some virulently so. By the end there’s a huge turnaround. How huge? Several of our participants have actually purchased guns and started competitive shooting.
“You’re not the Michigan Militia,” said one reporter for a national daily. “You’re the kind of people I’d hang out with. Heck, you’re the kind of people I’d date.”
You’re thinking, “That’s great–they’re breaking down stereotypes on both sides of the fence.” But a-year-and-a-half of seminars has confirmed a simple truth–there is an overwhelming anti-gun bias among journalists, a bias that has spread from opinion to factual coverage of the issue.
Let me throw some numbers out.
A study by the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, found that during a two-year period (July 1, 1997, to June 30, 1999), ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN ran 357 stories in favor of gun control, compared with 36 against, a ratio of almost 10 to one. The biggest “offender” was ABC’s “Good Morning America,” which ran 92 anti-gun stories and one pro-gun story.
A study by University of Michigan doctoral candidate Brian A. Patrick, released in June 1999, found that the National Rifle Association was portrayed negatively in editorial and op-ed pieces 87 percent of the time (as opposed to 52 percent negative collectively for four other citizens’ lobbying groups, including the NAACP and ACLU). More ominously, Patrick’s study documented a clear anti-gun bias in the news coverage of the NRA by comparing things such as use of descriptive language, use of quotes and use of photos.
Most telling to me are the journalists who are not allowed to attend the NSSF seminars. In one case, a journalist had agreed to come. He said he had argued with his producers that there was a need to balance their coverage of firearms. Later in the week, he called to cancel, and after extracting a promise to never reveal his name or media outlet, said that his producers had nixed his visit on the grounds that they were “unwilling to present any positive firearms stories,” and the best way to do that was just not assign any journalists to stories that could turn out to have a pro-gun spin. We talked for a long time, because he clearly felt he had walked into an ethical dilemma–which, of course, he had. Substitute “Hispanic” or “Democrat” for “firearms” in the above quote and try to imagine the political firestorm that would result.
In the end, he didn’t attend: “They made it clear to me that my job was on the line,” he said. A newbie reporter at a metropolitan daily? Nope–a veteran national political correspondent, whose name you would recognize, working for one of the most prestigious national news outlets in the country. And his is not an isolated case.
What is going on here? Do the time-honored rules of journalistic objectivity apply in every case except firearms? Have we, as journalists, reached such an overwhelming consensus that “guns are bad” that we’re willing to look the other way while a journalistic tradition that’s taken more than a hundred years to build is methodically disassembled?
After one of the seminars, a writer for a national newsweekly asked for a few minutes of my time. He had, coincidentally, covered the Columbine tragedy and had approached the seminar with open skepticism.
“I now understand why you guys hate us so much,” he told me. “We get everything wrong, don’t we?”
See the story: http://ajrarchive.org/Article.asp?id=35
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On a lighter note …
SO YOU THINK CHANGE IS GOOD? HERE’S SOMETHING WE ALL SHOULD REMEMBER WHEN VOTING ON OCTOBER 19.
There’s an old sea story about a ship’s captain who inspected his sailors, and afterward told the first mate that his men smelled bad. The captain suggested perhaps it would help if the sailors would change their underwear occasionally.
The first mate responded, “Aye, aye sir, I’ll see to it immediately!” The first mate went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced, “The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear.” He continued, “Pittman, you change with Jones, McCarthy, you change with Witkowski, and Brown, you change with Schultz.”
THE MORAL OF THE STORY:
Someone may come along and promise “change”, but don’t count on things smelling any better.
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THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
The CSSA is the voice of the sport shooter and firearms enthusiast in Canada. Our national membership supports and promotes Canada’s firearms heritage, traditional target shooting competitions, modern action shooting sports, hunting, and archery. We support and sponsor youth programs and competitions that promote these Canadian heritage activities.
To join or donate to the CSSA, visit: http://www.cssa-cila.org
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CANADIAN SHOOTING SPORTS ASSOCIATION | CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION
116 Galaxy Boulevard, Etobicoke ON M9W 4Y6
Phone: 416-679-9959 | Fax: 416-679-9910
Toll Free: 1-888-873-4339
E-Mail: info@cssa-cila.org
