Stigmatizing lawful firearm owners (Canada -and some here want us to be more like them)

[shadowrider]

Those of us who have called for an end to the long-gun registry have often focussed on its cost -at least $2-billion -and its uselessness in stopping crime. But the greatest damage done by Bill C-68 has been the wedge it has driven between police and law-abiding Canadians who own guns for hunting, sport shooting or vermin control on farms.

Consider the case of Henry Barnes.

To say the least, Mr. Barnes is a colourful character. The 76-year-old also goes by the name of Johnny Sombrero. He is a former motorcycle-gang member. Indeed, he is a founder and former leader of Toronto's Black Diamond Riders. The North York resident also owns more than 100 guns, or at least he did until January of 2010, when Toronto police burst into his apartment and seized them all, despite the fact all of them were properly registered and locked in gun safes.

--snip--

When they did phone, it was to tell him -erroneously -that his car was being broken into. When he opened his apartment door to go check, he claims a big police officer lunged towards him, grabbed him by the neck and pushed him to the floor where a civilian member of the force fell on him, breaking some of his ribs. He then lay on the floor at gunpoint for five hours while officers "tore apart" his apartment looking for guns.

Mr. Barnes is currently on trial for unsafe storage. Despite all of his guns being locked away, police and Crown prosecutors claim some of the safes in which his guns were stored, as well as some of the locks used to secure them, were inadequate. That has now become a crime in Canada for which guilty-until-proven-innocent police tactics are the norm.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Stigmatizing+lawful+firearm+owners/4761267/story.html

[Euromutt]

1. I get the impression "unsafe storage" is turning into the catch-all charge in Canada

There's don't seem to be objective criteria in the statute as to what constitutes "safe" so the cops can just make it up as they go along. The current standard seems to be that if you yourself can access your guns, they're unsafely stored.

[Katya Mullethov]

2. I got one word to say

Plastics !

It's the future of safe storage .

[Euromutt]

3. "Just how do you mean that, sir?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061722/quotes

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[applegrove]

5. National Post is a neocon rag that never makes a profit. It is propaganda. They want

Canada to be more like you what with your "there are too many guns on the street to ever make them go away, your only recourse is to get everyone else in the USA to buy a gun so they will have a fighting chance" country.

[gejohnston]

6. Canada kind of never was even when their gun laws were not as strict

I have never seen any evidence that the current law has done anything constructive other than give Honeywell shareholders better dividends. One thing I wondered is why Canada required pistols and revolvers to be registered since the 1930s, but did not register machine guns until the 1950s and had easier ownership until 1977. Rather unusual.

[onehandle]

7. A 'neocon rag' linked to in the gungeon?

Never.

[applegrove]

8. LOL!

[gejohnston]

9. You know what they say about broken clocks, same applies here

[Euromutt]

11. I find the majority of people who use the word "neocon" as a pejorative...

...have no clue what the term means.

[iverglas]

13. I find that people who talk about things they know nothing about

generally have nothing to say worth saying.

But then I am sure you are an EXPERT on the National Post.

[TheWraith]

17. I defer to your expert opinion...

...in the field of talking about things you don't understand.

[Euromutt]

10. Do you have contrary information concerning the case of Mr. Barnes

That is, do you have evidence that contradicts the claims made by Mr. Gunter concerning the legality and storage status of Mr. Barnes' firearms, that the Toronto Police Service conducted a warrantless search of his apartment after first luring him out of his apartment under false pretenses and then physically overpowering him before he'd even tried to resist?

If not, you're just wielding a genetic fallacy (http://fallacyfiles.org/genefall.html).

[iverglas]

14. did you have any information at all?

Easy enough to find.

I agree with the prosecution. The judge didn't. I certainly do agree wtih the judge's comments about our storage regulations: they are way too easy to prove "compliance" with.

Forgive the equally icky source, but nobody else seems to have given a flip about this:

Just a git of background info first.
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/06/aging-biker-on-trial-for-careless-storage-of-more-than-100-weapons

Sombrero, whose real name is Henry Barnes, founded the BDR in 1951.
He recalled in detail how he formed the motorcycle club with 13 other bikers, all of whom are gone now.

“We were young, tough men,” Sombrero recalled. “The war had just ended” and “in those days there were lots of gang fights.”

BDR members are now in their retirement years, but they were once among the city’s most notorious bike gangs.

The Hells Angels refer to themselves as a motorcycle club, I believe.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/17/biker-76-must-prove-hes-competent-to-keep-rare-weapons-at-home

Costa argues his client's firearms were all locked, or double-locked, in steel cabinets similar to what many gun owners use, with the added security of steel bars in the front.

The cabinets are stored in a locked bedroom in Sombrero's 10th-floor apartment, he pointed out in his final submission.

And he insists bolts can be kept in a machine gun if it is in such a locker.

... But the Crown maintains the lockers do not meet the criteria of Canada's gun laws, which state such weapons must be locked in a vault, safe, or secure room.

The size of Sombrero's locks, thickness of the lockers and security of the bedroom have been questioned by the Crown, who has also pointed out window washers could access the locked room on the 10th floor.

I know I'd like to live in an apartment building with the founder of a criminal biker gang who has machine guns on his premises. Safe and secure from all alarm, they are.

If it was that easy for the police to get into the place, why criminals would just never be able to do it.




formatting fixed

[iverglas]

15. lest anyone wonder

how this old thread turned up ... I ran across it quite accidentally while searching for something else, and found the most fascinating comments about moi, and just had to reply. I mean, the rumours of my burial really were quite premature. And false.

All gone now! Funny how it was all still here though, months later ...

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

12. Tacitus:

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." (2nd century)

[iverglas]

16. Tacitus spins in grave

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."

What you're really saying is:

"The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."

Right? Let me know if I'm wrong. It's just an hypothesis. I mean, otherwise, I don't know what you are saying.

Hmm.

The longer it had rained, the wetter I was = The wetter I was, the longer it had rained.

Hmmmmm. I guess you have never heard of the modern contraption called "showers". Tacitus may not have, but I think he still wouldn't have said that.

Numerous laws might be a symptom of a corrupt state. (To say they are, we'd have to accept that Tacitus was omnicient, and I tend to doubt that.)

But to say that numerous laws are a symptom of a corrupt state and only a corrupt state ... well, I don't know whether Tacitus would have said it, and what with Tacitus not being omniscient and all, I wouldn't care if he would have.

Numerous laws are also a symptom of a complex state. I mean, you have a fair number of them down there yourselves, I do think.

But then, if one were a loonytarian, one would think that laws are all evil, I mean, the laws that don't benefit one's self, so ... well, so, there we are.