Four year old daughter's drawing of father with gun leads to arrest. ...

The authorities could have easily investigated without arresting the guy.

“From a public safety point of view, any child drawing a picture of guns and saying there’s guns in a home would warrant some further conversation with the parents and child,” said Alison Scott

This MIGHT be true, in a country that had, long ago, successfully and completely banned both guns and international news. I don't think Canada qualifies.

One of my middle-school classes sent us all skeet shooting with a high school teacher one day. I don't imagine Ms. Scott would be happy with kids writing about that.

I wonder how Ms. Scott would react to seeing a 14 year-old buying his or her own ammo? I take it she does not make it out to the more rural areas much.
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-fd/minor-mineur-eng.htm

If she happened to be in a licensed gun store, she probably wouldn't react at all. The minor would have had to present their licence in order to make the purchase. You knew that, right? That a firearms licence is required in order to buy ammunition in Canada?

Ever since four minors broke into a house in the nation's capital, stole a rifle, drove to Canadian Tire to pick up some ammunition, sailed down the main shopping street at noon shooting out the car window, and killed somebody.


Why would she need to? There are gun dealers in Kitchener-Waterloo. It's a whole lot bigger city than when I went to school there - somewhat over 200,000, in a regional municipality of over 500,000 - and I can guarantee you there are hunters living there and in the surrounding area.

Perhaps you are seeing no difference between a 14-year-old having a licence to borrow a long gun for hunting or sports shooting and buy ammunition for those purposes, subject to all the usual requirements, and a 4-year-old having access to a handgun in her home.

I suspect that Ms. Scott would grasp the difference quite readily.

in WW2. And is still used today to train fighter pilots the practice of lead.

You will want to start with the fact that this gun was a HANDGUN.

Then you will want to consider the regulations governing safe/secure storage.



But I expect that Ms. Scott is quite used to misrepresentations of things she says.

and a child ended up shooting themselves or a friend or sibling with a gun that was not properly secured, we'd all be screaming that such clear danger signs should not be callously ignored by school authorities.

1. Have your cake.
2, Eat it.

Take your choice, but you can't have both. You can either be outraged when precautions are taken that were not necessary, or outraged when precautions are not taken that were necessary. If you are a mind-reader who can tell the difference ahead of time, well, problem solved. Otherwise, that's the risk we take when we try to do the right thing by way of protecting our children from dangers.

You can do the right thing without doing the wrong thing.

a strip search and a night in jail.

Of course, this incident occurred in Canada where views on firearm ownership are far different from views in the United States.

On the other hand, a recent post here on DU discussed the ethics of teaching kindergarten children how to spell the word "gun".



In my personal opinion, the response to this drawing by a four year old child was an overreaction even in Canada. I will agree that some effort should have been expended by the authorities in order to avert a tragedy. Considering that the person in question was a certified personal support worker and a life issues counselor and that the principal of the school had offered this individual a job and obviously was somewhat familiar with him a simple interview, possibly by the police, might have sufficed.

Is it right for authorities to automatically assume that simply because parents MIGHT own firearms that they are a dangerous threat to society or that they are failing to secure their weapons in an appropriate manner to prevent access by their children? Some nations do make it extremely difficult to own such weapons but firearm ownership while far more restricted in Canada than in American is still legal for many citizens.

The guy is an ex-druggie with no life skills of his own, who took a one-year community college course taught by ex-druggies to a bunch of other ex-druggies who then go out and join the drug counselling subculture operated by ex-druggies to whom the rest of society sends problem druggies so they don't have to deal with them or spend money on them.

I have known a lot of them. Some of them were busy swindling funds from the organizations they set up, others were just collecting the social services cheques for the addicts under their "care" as a result of court orders, while said addicts went merrily about their druggie business.

The guy is an ex-con who was not "offered a job" by the school; he has a job, and it involves speaking to groups of students, which is what he would have done at that school.

Aha.


I have to wonder why it was there in the first place. I don't have one in my home, and I don't know anybody who does.



His employer:

http://www.thesobrietycenter.com/

(odd how they can't spell - "center" is not a word in Canada) It's a private business, not a charity or non-profit, btw. And the fact that it's a 12-stepping outfit and provides links to no resources but the standard AA stuff comes as absolutely no surprise.

Lots of fine words then about how ones personal travails should not affect rights under the law, and how what's past is past once your debt to society is paid:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/117220353#post6

Now Sansone

Not me.

I hold the entire ex-addict "counselling" subculture in complete contempt, because *I* have extensive experience in dealing with it.

Nothing to do with rights. But hey, nice try.

I don't know how she moves Jello goal posts... but she does it.

perhaps a a SWAT team should have been deployed to his house to take him into custody.



It might also be a great idea to ban toy handguns in Canada. Look at all the problems this one caused.

Damn it's fun though, eh???



http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2009/the_trouble_with_fake_guns/main.html

(You'll enjoy the reader comments. The right wing gets absolutely apoplectic about the CBC. But it's the video of the program itself that's fun -- see whether you can beat the cops at guessing which gun is real and which isn't.)

To show that you are familar with the mean streets of Waterloo? Or a gratuitous swipe at Sansone?

That poster did.

I thought it rather important that people actually know what all that guff means.

It's spelled "counsellor" in his case, and his case is the only place that google finds that phrase in Canada. It's a made-up occupation that seems to be unique to that Sobriety Center.

You see, if I hadn't explained it all, people might have thought what someone said at a site I won't link to:




A personal support worker, generally, is someone who provides home care services of the kind I could use at the moment. When my mum broke her leg a year ago, living alone and being 80+, she had someone who came in to help her bathe, for instance. They are generally employed by community agencies.

Would I have wanted someone with a criminal record for assault and known involvement with drugs providing that service to my 80-year-old mother while she was that vulnerable? Nope. Bad enough that some guy the housing authority hired to fix her baseboards last fall while she was out of town made off with her Oxycontin. I have to wonder whether our man actually gets work in that field, and if so whether he is being honest with his employers. A conviction for assault a mere five years ago isn't generally part of the qualifications.

Hey, I'm sure he's working hard to keep his life on track, eh? Seriously. But would I fault police or other authorities for taking precautions in the situation? No. No matter who he was.

when you say:



From your description I gained the impression that he might well have been a street thug who was covertly aiding the drug culture and possibly was involved in swindling funds.

And in a later reply you post your credentials for your opinion of such counselors:



If your experience is accurate, this individual could have been extremely dangerous especially if he had a real handgun. It would be foolish to take any chances with such a person. One can never be too careful. You may have far more expertize with such people than I do. Perhaps this might be an appropriate response.



But still, in my opinion, a four year old daughter's drawing of her father with a handgun didn't warrant such an overreaction by the police, even if the father had a prior record for abusing drugs. Some form of an investigation was appropriate but could have conducted without an arrest, a strip search and a night in jail. If my approach would have been followed, we would probably not be discussing this incident.

The video in your post was interesting and makes a valid point. It's a bad idea to point a toy gun at a cop in Canada and may well be a bad idea to point a fake handgun at a citizen in the United States. Many of us legally carry real guns.

I didn't beat the cops at guessing which firearms were real. Airsoft weapons do look just like real weapons. In many cases this is a positive as such these weapons weigh and handle the same as the firearms they resemble and can be used for practice inside a home.


While I don't own any airsoft replicas, I do own two very accurate pellet pistols which I use for indoor target practice and they do help improve my skills. If I was foolish enough to point them at a cop or an armed citizen, I wouldn't be surprised if my target shot me.

I remember one time while at a gun store a married couple was discussing buying a realistic replica of a handgun with the clerk. They really didn't want to shoot an intruder who entered their home and they thought the toy gun might prove adequate. The clerk was interested in making a sale and agreed with them that this might just work.

I am still pissed at myself that I didn't intervene and point out that if the intruder were armed this would be a terrible idea.

I have learned through years of hanging our at gun stores that gun store salesmen are good at detecting what a customer is interested in buying and will vary their advice on the individual customer. The bottom line is to make a sale. They will tell a woman that she really doesn't need a handgun that will have enough power to be an adequate and reliable weapon for self defense and that her choice of a pretty cheap small caliber pistol in .25 acp will be adequate. The next customer might be a man inexperienced with shooting and they will tell him that the bigger the bullet is, the better. They will sell such an individual a large, heavy and extremely powerful handgun for concealed carry. This customer will walk out of the store ready to take on anything up to a grizzly bear, but after attempting to carry and conceal his enormous handgun a few times, he will leave it behind when he leaves the house.

Should toy and replica weapons be banned or tightly regulated? Possibly. It might be far easier to pass such legislation in Canada than the United States. I do feel that it would be wise for parents to require that the only time a child was allowed to shoot such weapons was under adult supervision. However some people who post here have used real firearms for hunting at a fairly young age without such supervision and never caused any problem.

While I don't feel that I misrepresented what you said, I will admit that I had fun posting the picture of the Chinese SWAT team. I'll post another for kicks and grins.



I guess I find them somewhat humorous as they remind me of the Keystone Kops. In reality they are probably effective and quite brutal.

If the man had a handgun, he had it ILLEGALLY. You remember that firearms registry thing? What is the first thing the police did when they got a report about a child saying her father had a handgun? Do you think they might have queried the registry?

He had no licence to possess any kind of firearm, from what I can tell.

So if he had a handgun, he was in criminal possession of it.

And that is something we actually do take quite seriously up here.

He had a record for assault and attempted burglary -- exactly the kind of record one would expect to see on the part of a small-time druggie. Without further investigation, they had no way of knowing whether he was involved in drug dealing at this time, and was in possession of a handgun in that connection.

Given the children's statements (to which we are not privy, but which appeared to the police to indicate that there might well have been a real handgun in the home), there was a concern for their safety and a need to determine exactly what the man had in his possession. Given his background, it was not unreasonable to take their statements at face value and suspect that he was in possession of a handgun.

Your opinion really doesn't matter. In Canada, if the man had a handgun he was committing a serious offence and was rightly regarded as dangerous. And if the children had access to it they were in danger.

The damned thing is that if it had turned out that he DID have a handgun, the story would not likely have even made the papers. Certainly not PostMedia, anyhow. Unless one of the kids had shot somebody, of course.

The laws in Canada are far different. In my opinion that is entirely the right of your citizens in your nation to determine what your laws are.

However you often comment on the laws in my nation which you obviously disagree with. I have no problem with this as I find your posts often insightful and interesting as well as challenging.

Of course, the reaction to the incident of a four year old girl drawing a picture of her father holding a handgun would have, in most areas of my nation, caused a far different and possibly more rational response.

While you consider the actions appropriate, I consider it to be an overreaction. However considering the differences in our background and culture this is not in the least surprising.

I give up. How would it be rational not to take seriously an apparent situation involving the illegal possession of a handgun?

There are a lot of differences indeed, but the operative one here is that if the individual had had a handgun, he would have had it illegally. No doubt there. If he had a handgun, he was committing a serious criminal offence. And then there's how we do take that seriously. Which is a major factor in the fact that we have such a minuscule rate of handgun crime ...

So the fact that an individual might own such a weapon would not have raised this level of concern. Firearms and handguns are very common where I live. Your nation has far more restrictive laws on owning handguns.

I have a license to carry a concealed weapon including a handgun. Few citizens in your nation have such a license.

We do have a much higher rate of crime caused by handguns than you do in Canada, however statistics show that honest licensed citizens with such weapons rarely commit crime with their firearms.

The fact is that handguns are common in my society and when honest citizens are prevented from owning these weapons or carrying them, the criminal element which ignores such laws will misuse their handguns to commit crime. Often honest citizens use their weapons effectively to stop crime and assaults.

Many argue that handgun ownership should be limited as it is in Canada. Unfortunately there are plenty of handguns in our nation and such laws would not disarm criminals. Disarming honest citizens would not disarm the criminal element who would be able to use their illegal firearms with impunity and no fear of encountering an armed honest victim.

Passing the necessary laws to make handguns difficult and s politically impossible except in certain limited areas of the United States as we have a STRONG gun culture. If the Democratic Party seriously tried to implement gun control policies similar to those in Canada, it would lose many elections and the control of Congress would end up in Republican hands. This would be a total disaster in my opinion and would only serve to benefit the rich and the big corporations.

The bottom line is our two cultures differ significantly. What works in Canada does not work in the states.

Sorry.

If this individual had had a handgun, he would have been committing a serious criminal offence, and the police knew that if he had a handgun he was committing a serious criminal offence, because they would have found out in seconds that he had no licence to possess a handgun.

Are there any television shows in Canada which show handguns? Mysteries and such?

when Flashpoint comes on.

Ever read the comments at imdb? All the people south of the border who just love how it isn't all about evil people getting shot ...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059475/reviews

top user review:



Y'all liked Night Heat, too.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088582/reviews

it is one of the few cop shows that doesn't suck. Most US cop shows have shoot outs and dead bodies after every arrest, then the cop walks off without mental trauma or investigation. They also perpetuate some of the myths about guns, every fender bender causes a gas leak and explosion. Truth is, most US cops go through their entire carriers without ever having to use their pistol outside of the range (in the old days, not even then in some departments).

What everybody at imdb seemed to miss was the political content. It was back when there was tremendous grassroots political stuff going on in Toronto, and the show reflected some of it. I particularly remember a show about the blockbusting that was happening -- a developer had bought up a block of rooming houses, and coerced one of the residents (a vulnerable immigrant) into terrorizing the other renters who refused to move out. I don't remember any guns being involved.

One where there was a gun ... I forget the storyline, but the climax came when the member of the public involved was being held by a guy with a gun to her head. The cops had their guns aimed at him but of course it was too dangerous to shoot. So she stomped on his foot and elbowed him in the gut and got away. Okay, maybe not the wisest choice, but it was a woman looking out for herself and not waiting to get rescued, somewhat unusual 30 years ago.

But my favourite was when one of the detectives was standing on Yonge Street with a victim of a purse-snatching, I think it was, and the purse-snatcher sped by on his bike. The woman said "That's the one, the vicious little turd!" and the cop grabbed a bystander's bicycle and said "police business!" and took off after the perp.

One night years later when the show was in perpetual midnight rerun on some US network, I was staying in the Algonquin Hotel near the train station in Toronto (a sort of landmark shabby hostelry that seems to be gone now). I'd been at a meeting of a committee I'd been appointed to having to do with police oversight. I was indulging in my hotel ritual: a bottle of wine and a big old submarine sandwich. Suddenly there was a knock at the door -- my door. Except the knock happened on television, not in the moment. They had obviously used the Algonquin for location shooting -- the door on TV was actually my room door, no doubt about it, turquoise paint, brass number and red carpet, but it opened to an apartment set, not my room. I was very confused for a minute there.

&feature=related

Complete with 80s hair. If you liked Homicide, you'll recognize Meldrick (Clarke Johnson).

Because the kids might reach inside that television box and grab the guns and take them to school and shoot somebody.

I just never know whether points really do sail completely over your head, or you are just pretending!

Flashpoint was popular in the US. Who said anything about kids reaching inside TVs.


I just wonder if you are actually making the points you think you are, or if your ability to read closely is been compromised.

One person asking me the ludicrous question of whether guns may be shown on television in Canada, and you saying children are sent out of the room when it happens.

The issue here has NOTHING TO DO with children seeing guns.

It has to do with children knowing a handgun is present in their home, because children tend to want to lay hands on things like that, as we see in this forum with depressing regularity.

Edited because one just never knows when something has to be spelled right out.

I forgot the

Can you buy butter tarts where you live?

I've had a hankering for them, and the co-vivant was going to get some at the grocery store yesterday but he had too much stuff to carry already.

All I was curious about is IF IF IF this little girl actually saw a show with a gun (is that legal in Canada?), just maybe she was drawing something she saw on tv.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The child told the school, children's services and the police what she had seen, and it had nothing to do with television.

All I was curious about is IF IF IF this little girl actually saw a show with a gun (is that legal in Canada?)

And that would be a snooty condescending question, which is why you don't get an answer.

since you obviously take issues way too seriously.

Handcuffs and a strip-search? They go groping his asshole, too? Might have had a grenade up there, y'know...

I don't care if it was Canada or the UK or wherever, it was an over-reaction.

It'd be about like a cop drawing his weapon and ordering me to fling myself onto the pavement because he ran my plate and it was flagged with my CCW permit.

Oh, wait, that *DOES* happen here, don't it?

Ever on guard for the Conservative Party and its extreme right-wing agenda and nasty right-wing supporters! (The Daily Mail and the Toronto Sun, also paragons of right-wing virtue, had made a meal of it too, I see. )

Myself, I'm glad to see that the appropriate authorities are on guard for children's safety.

Since permits to possess handguns are only available in Canada to sports shooters (who may only use their firearms at approved facilities) and collectors, and both are required to meet stringent safe/secure storage regulations -- and police would have readily determined both that this individual had no such permit and that he had a history of involvement in criminal activity and drugs -- there were obvious grounds for concern.

Replica and toy are not the same thing, btw.

http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/676744--gun-leading-to-dad-s-arrest-was-a-toy


I guess the school and police should have just ignored the whole thing. And if it had been a real firearm, and the children did have access to it ...

That is the only thing I give a shit about. If the story is wrong, then what do expect from a right wing rag. If the story is correct, then who cares about the source? I'm just saying the strip search was way over the top. Could they not just get a warrant and check out the house, and ask the guy about it without the arrest, strip search, and interrogating the kids?

My understanding would be that a strip search is standard operating procedure in that situation. Are things different down there? People are placed in cells at police stations without verifying that they are not concealing substances, weapons or items for committing suicide on their persons? You read the article? --


As for why he was arrested, I wouldn't really know. I suspect because the circumstances suggested genuine cause for concern -- reasonable grounds to believe -- that he was in illegal possession of a handgun. That actually is a big deal in Canada. Most Canadians like that.

I note that Family and Children's Services says: “We’re still investigating this one”.

Interesting you would say "interrogating" the kids. Strange choice of words. The children were not suspects. They were questioned about the potential presence of a firearm in their home and their access to it, out of concern for their welfare.

strip searches are only standard procedure if you are arrested and being "booked", not being in for questioning. You are arrested only if you are charged with a crime. He was not charged with a crime, was not being processed in the system, that would likely be unconstitutional here.

For officers' safety, you may be patted down and searched at the scene before they put the cuffs on, but that would mean he was being charged with a crime.

The way the article described it (and maybe the kid's point of view, maybe it was.) Part of it is simply reading enough about how unprofessional Florida (privatetized years before anyone ever heard of Rick Scott) DCF is infamous for (like forgetting who the foster parents are of young murder victims, for example). I'm sure Ontario's is more on the ball.

Guns aren't magic, and can't be hidden such that they pass a pat-down. (Other than a small derringer and a rectum, I suppose, but that's not the gun described here.)

What is there about a child seeing their father hold a gun that goes against 'stringent safe/secure storage regulations'? That seems to have been one of your 'grounds for concern', regardless of the father's legal/illegal possession of a gun.

What section of law would have been broken regarding safe storage?

If a child sees a legally possessed gun, it's what, not securely stored? Sport shooters and collectors must never allow their guns to be seen by their children? They must never clean them where a child might see them?

*snort*

The news articles very obviously do not report what the child who drew the picture, and the other children, said.


Cleaning, and transferring into a secure transportation container, are the only situations in which anyone in a household should see a legally possessed handgun. I have no idea why a parent would want their child to see the handgun in either situation.

The picture the child drew was of the father holding and pointing the firearm. I guess that's an essential part of one of those processes.



The part that requires the firearm to be safely/securely stored, I guess maybe.

Perhaps because firearms really don't emit G-rays that cause criminal use and/or right-wing thought?

Yes, the last step in cleaning a gun is to verify that the action still works, and that the safeties still engage. To do otherwise would be irresponsible. While cleaning, one might cause dirt or a cleaning patch to interfere with the mechanism.

[div class='excerpt'] I have no idea why a parent would want their child to see the handgun in either situation.

"Cleaning, and transferring into a secure transportation container, are the only situations in which anyone in a household should see a legally possessed handgun. I have no idea why a parent would want their child to see the handgun in either situation."

If you get any closer to uttering the words "moral harm" without actually saying them, everyone will guess your secret code.

I mean, of course I do. You're pretending that I was saying something I wasn't saying.

There is no need for a child to know there is a firearm in a household, in particular a handgun, which is what we are discussing here. There is no guarantee that any child who knows there is a firearm in a household will not attempt to access it -- and succeed, even assuming proper storage. An unsupervised child with a handgun ... well, perhaps you think that's an okay thing.

But you go ahead and pretend to believe I was not referring to the safety issues.

http://www.slve.ca/gun-market-news/a-list-of-some-school-shootings-and-where-authorities-believe-the-students-obtained-guns/
(the original article appears not to be available now, e.g. at Washington Post and ABC News)

If I'd said that, you wouldn't look so silly rolling around down there on the floor.

There is no need for a 4-year-old child to know there is a handgun in the household -- that being what we are talking about here.

Obviously, in a household where firearms are used for hunting, e.g., and a child is old enough to be involved in that activity, the child will know there are firearms in the household. Duh.


edited for clarity

*snort*

I take it we were to disregard those posters (like myself) who did NOT advocate ignoring it, but found the arrest, strip search and jailing to be
overreaction on the part of the police?

A Gun Was Involved.

Even though it... errr... actually... errr... wasn't.

Firearms offences are taken seriously in Canada.

Someone suspected of illegal possession of a handgun in Canada is treated as dangerous.

Which is what a person in illegal possession of a handgun is.



edited to avoid opportunities for pretended misunderstanding

The gun laws kinda change at the border so frankly, I could care less how it's done in Canada.

nobody asked you to.