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Dean's avatar

Under the current laws, a legal gun owner cannot use a firearm for self defence. You would be charged. As a rural dweller I find that insane. Police response time to my property is 45 minutes minimum. If we simply allowed that change it would be a deterrent to would be criminals. They're far less likely to walk up the long secluded laneway of a rural property if they know the owner (who almost certainly owns at least one rifle or shotgun) has a right to use it for self defence. Which doesn't necessarily mean firing it. Just having it at hand. Most crime is crime of opportunity.

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Ken Schultz's avatar

Sir:

Your final paragraph starts with the idea that, "... I feel that this [changes to gun ownership laws] is an important conversation to have." I absolutely do feel a resentment to the federal Liberal party for it's stupid concentration on gun laws and changes thereto. I am neither a gun owner nor do I intend to be one. The reason for my resentment is that the LPC government has been concentrating on making outlaws of law abiding gun owners and trying to implicate those law abiding citizens in all sorts of crime while that same LPC government does nothing of any use with respect to the flow, nay, the flood, of illegal weapons from the south. In "addressing" gun violence, the LPC government is more worried about people who have not committed crime than they are about the people who actually HAVE committed that crime. That makes the LPC government at best stupid and idiotic and, more likely, simply not interested in dealing in any effective way with the issue: performance as compared to effectiveness.

About half way through your essay you ask, "Do governments have the moral right to expect us not to act in defense of our lives and property?" Given the comments which I offer above, I emphatically answer that the governments do not have that moral right.

I must say, Sir, that you are tilting at considerable Canadian windmills recently: last week asking what if we cannot fix medicare and this week asking a) what if Canadian police cannot keep us safe and b) do governments have a moral right to prevent us from protecting our lives and property.

If you are not careful, someone will start asking if you are the "right" sort to be allowed to continue to make commentary - online harms and all that, you know. Keep up the good work and ask many, many more uncomfortable questions and keep tilting at any windmill you can find, Sr. Quixote!

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