Now we have a delegated day, today, to remind the world of the number of people who have lost their lives or livelihoods to this ever-mutating virus. Worldwide, about 1 in 1,000 have died so far, and almost 1 in 100 are living with long Covid. That’s not 1% of
Continue readingTag: gun control
Alberta Politics: ‘All options on table’ to block federal gun buy-back, vows Tyler Shandro … as clock runs out on Kenney Government
The Kenney Government will do whatever it can to block Ottawa’s plan to implement stricter firearms regulations that include buying back AR-15 military-style rifles and similar weapons that were banned two years ago, Justice Minister Tyler Shandro sternly vowed yesterday. Alberta Chief Firearms Officer Teri Bryant (Photo: Screenshot of Alberta
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Sounds Reasonable, But…
… it is said that even the devil can quote scripture. In more down-to-earth terms, the Governor of Kentucky does in a much more polished form what ardent gun-rights advocates often say with spittle. My own analysis follows the video. Typically, this man does the same thing all defenders of
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Guns are Alright.
The gun culture in the United States is certainly a artifact to behold. Schools and communities are scenes of violent murderous shootings. The requisite furor about gun violence rises and falls with each new bloody occurrence. The theatre of caring about children and their safety played out in the
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Gun Control – A Not So Modest Proposal
This post will no doubt annoy firearms aficionados – I don’t much care. In the last 2 weeks, the United States has experienced 2 mass shooting events that resulted in multiple deaths each – one approaching 10, and another over 20 dead. Uvalde, TX – a community of 13,000
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government’s persistent habit of advocating U.S.-style gun laws bears repeating, and remembering
On May 17, just three days after the racial-hate-motivated massacre at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, N.Y., the Kenney Government was publicly complaining about new federal regulations intended to ensure that the increasingly frequent mass shootings in the United States stay south of the world’s longest undefended border. Alberta Premier
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: The Hits Keep Coming
Yesterday, a man picked up a gun and killed 18 students in an elementary school in Texas. This morning a candidate for the leadership of the CPC promised to burn Canada’s gun control laws. Wow – talk about not reading the room – at all. Possibly the worst hot take
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guns & Money: LAGOs get a right-wing virtue-signal; car insurers get $385 million more in premiums
The Criminal Code may come under federal jurisdiction, but the Kenney Government wants the substantial number of “law-abiding gun owners” in its base to know every now and then that it still cares about them. Federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino (Photo: Parliament of Canada). Now would be one of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In Alberta this week, COVID’s surging and there’s no sign of the premier – but, fear not, we have a chief firearms officer!
Alberta’s premier hasn’t been seen in public since Aug. 9. But he’s just on holiday, Jason Kenney’s spokesperson says. “He is of course still able to fully communicate with his Cabinet and senior officials as required,” Jerrica Goodwin said in a statement yesterday that, seemingly, was intended to reassure us
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Can America Be Saved
I am writing this as a citizen of a world that no matter where we live are strongly impacted by whatever America does and whatever happens in America America is celebrating but it will take a lot more than the end of the Trump presidency to save America. Trump promoted
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If you want to know how an Alberta Provincial Police force would behave, read between the lines of yesterday’s announcement
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police may be no paragon of liberalism and progressive enforcement, but they’re apparently too liberal and progressive for the members of the so-called Fair Deal Panel that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney appointed to trot out his quasi-separatist hobbyhorses. Mr. Kenney’s supposedly cash-poor government announced yesterday it
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No need to lose much sleep over yesterday’s firearms ownership announcement by the UCP
If you’re worried by the announcement Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is seeking ways of “respecting law-abiding Albertans’ long history of responsible firearms ownership,” there’s no need to lose much sleep just yet. The premier’s press conference and news release about how he’s setting up a panel of firearms enthusiasts to
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Gun Control
I’ve been observing many gun control arguments online and in the classroom (also online) recently. I’ve written about this before, once after Sandy Hook and then after a Stoneman Douglas shooting surviver put the onus on school staff to keep kids safe. This one’s closer to home, so I finally
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Gun Control And the Women Who Made It A Canadian Value
Growing up in Montreal I was haunted by the picture of these murdered women. Murdered at the École Polytechnique more than 30-years-ago.Savagely slaughtered just for being women, by a man who hated feminists.Read more »
Continue readingAlberta Politics: 30 years after the tragedy at l’École Polytechnique, politicians and media are making things worse
Today is the 30th anniversary of the terrible massacre of 14 young women students at l’École Polytechnique de Montréal, apparently shot down for the imagined crime of daring study to be engineers. One would have thought three decades ago as the raw horror of that story unfolded through the evening
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Winding up the gun nuts: Liberals respond to Trudeau’s self-inflicted brownface crisis with a classic counterattack
Years ago, I worked with a union organizer who deployed an effective tactic when one of his unionization drives met resistance from an employer: Launch a diversionary attack from an unexpected quarter. This was the poor-man’s version of the doctrine of both the Prussian officer corps and the United States
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Andrew Scheer’s Disastrous Long Weekend
As I'm sure you know by now, Andrew Scheer has been trying to soften his image.By among other things promising to give the medicare system he wants to privatize, a shot in the arm. Or more likely one in the heart.But sadly for Scheer his PR offensive went horribly wrong over the course
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Guns – What Are They Good For
War The Wikipedia section on the history of guns makes it clear that the history of guns and war are clearly intertwined, guns being developed primarily as a means to kill people in warfare. Indeed even with the advent of weapons of mass destruction, the infamous WMDs, guns are still
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The best solution to gun violence actually possible in Canada in 2019 is an outright ban on handguns
Scream as they might about the idea of a ban on handgun ownership by Canadians, it is interesting to note that the tactics used by advocates of wide-open ownership of firearms against the so-called long-gun registry combined with the legislative strategy pursued by their allies in the Conservative federal government
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Derek Fildebrandt and that rule of law thing: it’s for pipeline protesters, not law-abiding gun owners …
It shouldn’t surprise us, I suppose, that Derek Fildebrandt has publicly gone all Charlton Heston on us. I speak, of course, of the recently rebranded Freedom Conservative Party leader’s Hestonesque Twitter outburst yesterday in response to talk the federal Liberal government might actually make an election issue out of banning
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