Reply #137: I simply have no clue what you want

[iverglas]

I can't think of anything to say that I haven't already said, multiple times.

I really really don't think it is my responsibility to reiterate everything I have ever said on this subject, in technicolour detail, every time anyone asks me an open-ended question. I've reproduced what I have previously said, so that there can be no occasion for confusion or misunderstanding or misconstruction. I believe that in this thread already I have pretty clearly stated that I am:

(a) not totally happy with existing regulations for storage of non-restricted non-prohibited firearms, since they do not require that the firearm be at least some degree of inaccessible itself;

(b) not at all happy with the very fact of "collectors" and sports shooters being permitted to store handguns and other restricted/prohibited weapons in private premises (i.e. premises other than a dedicated and appropriately secured firearms storage facility not in their own home or business), regardless of the security arrangements.

I said this yesterday in post 124:

"collectors" should not be permitted to maintain their collections in residential premises or in premises that are not subject to effective 24-hour active security (not merely passive security, i.e. locks etc.).

-- a statement that was itself reproduced from a post written in January 2006.

"Collectors" and sports shooters are the only people who may legally possess handguns in Canada (other than those who require them for purposes of employment). Firearms stolen from collectors have been used in a number of homicides and other incidents of violence in the last couple of years -- including killings of people who were not in any way connected to or involved in any criminal activity.

I have said that I also think that sports shooters should be required to store their restricted firearms / handguns at the facility where they practise and compete, that being the only place where they are entitled to use the firearm at present in any event.

The individual who shot several people, killing one (and leaving many, many people's lives changed forever for the worse), at Dawson College this fall had acquired his two fancy firearms by joining an approved gun club. He then spent several months playing with them in mummy and daddy's basement rec room, taking many pics of himself with them and talking about them obsessively on the internet ... and finally taking them to town and opening fire. Who knows; maybe if he'd been prohibited from taking them away from the club where he practised, he would have just shot up a bunch of people there. I'm doubting it -- both that absent the months of obsession he would have moved on to action, and that even he would have been moron enough to start shooting people with guns in their hands.


Nobody's hobby is worth a single life, or even a single injury. People who legally possess handguns in Canada are hobbyists of one of two sorts. Not their convenience, not their choice of playtime activity, not their pride of ownership, comes ahead of anyone else's interest in staying alive and unharmed.