Police now on record as backing our 'billion dollar plus' gun registry.
Jan. 21, 2004. 10:40 AM
Police chiefs defend embattled gun registry
Dismantling system 'a step backward,' Nova Scotia chief claims
CANADIAN PRESS
HALIFAX - The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police wants the federal
government to resist attacks
on Canada's gun control system, which the
chiefs call a vital tool in combating crime.
In a release today, association president Edgar MacLeod
called proposals to
scrap the gun control regime "wasteful and irresponsible" and a
serious
threat to the public safety.
"We cannot combat the misuse of guns without strong controls," said MacLeod,
chief of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service.
"We just recently had a case where an individual made threats to staff at
children's aid. Because of the system, we knew he had firearms and were able
to obtain a warrant to seize them."
Who confiscates the guns misused by the police (who are no longer "peace officers" but wardens) or government officials?
From The National Post (2003)
"Early this year, when Toronto was suffering a similar spate
of murders, Julian Fantino, the city's police chief, admitted his officers
had never encountered an incident in which the registry "enabled us to
either prevent or solve any of these crimes."
Beloved family pet shot in head by Vancouver Police Department.
[First they shot the dog, then they tried to hide evidence they knew dog was on property]
Police officer shoots family dog. 'Poor dog got killed for nothing,' owner insists.Stuart Hunter
The Province
Friday, January 23, 2004
Dave Bains (left) and his son, Sandeep Bains, check out the area near their home's front door where their chained-up, eight-year-old family dog, Tommy, was fatally shot by a Vancouver police officer Wednesday evening.
A snapshot [right] shows an unidentified
family member playing with an always affectionate Tommy.
source credit Ric Ernst, The Province
It was a fitful night's sleep at the Bains family's east Vancouver home
Wednesday.
Moans of grief were mingled with cries of anguish from teens Sandeep and
Amandeep as the Bainses spent the first night in nearly eight years without the
trusting brown eyes of their beloved family dog Tommy looking up at them.
Tommy, a German shepherd/huskie cross, was shot in the neck and killed by a
Vancouver police officer on Wednesday night, even though the animal was chained
and inside the fenced yard of the Bains home in the 7800-block Windsor Street.
"The boys and my wife [Harbans] had a really bad night -- they can't sleep and
are crying thinking about our Tommy," a tearful Dave Bains said yesterday.
"That poor dog got killed for nothing. Why would they come in and kill our dog
when he was protecting us?"
Vancouver police say the officer who shot Tommy "was acting in self-defence"
and because the yard was dark, failed to notice the dog was on a
seven-metre chain. An "investigation" into the shooting is under way, despite
repeated claims [as stated on Global TV] by VPD spokespersons that the "officer
acted appropriately" according to "all information obtained".
Picture taken at Bains's home clearly refutes both claims made by Vancouver Police Officers, and their spokesperson, that the area "was too dark to see dog's chain" and "didn't know a dog was on the property till it lunged at them".
Sandeep, 16, 13-year-old Amandeep and Harbans were
watching the Canucks-Tampa Bay NHL game Wednesday when they heard Tommy, who was
chained so he could run from the front of the property to the rear, bark --
and then a loud bang.
"We heard the dog bark two or three times and
then at the same time a 'Bang,'" Harbans said.
"We went to the side window and the dog was on the ground. We started screaming:
'Someone killed our dog!' We didn't know he was a police officer until he showed
us his badge."
Picture shows Tommy chained near side of house.
Tommy had to be chained at all times when outside, as the Bains yard is open at
the rear onto an open lot and roadway.
Dog was shot by "peace officer" at front area of home, which was the limit of the chain, clearly visible in this photo.
Tommy was rushed to a veterinary hospital where he died from a single gunshot
wound to the neck area.
Const. Sarah Bloor said the VPD "regretted the accidental shooting" but the
officer [with three years' experience] was following his training, and therefore
would do it again.
The officer was visiting the Bains home without a warrant to speak to the
basement-suite tenant who is a witness. The officer claims he tried to retreat
and ordered the dog to stop but opened fire when Tommy didn't back down, and
"growled at him".
A picture of Tommy, with his noisy thick and highly visible chain. This is the
dog the Vancouver Police Officer claims barked and scared the man so badly, he
had no choice but to try to blow the dogs head off.
The Bains maintain the shot was fired within mere seconds of Tommy's first bark at a stranger.
"With no signs posted and with no lights to be able to see that, in fact the dog was on the chain, the officer backed up and tried to retreat and the dog still came at him," Bloor said.
Pictures show "Beware of Dog" sign ripped off the same night of the shooting....
"Every officer is trained to assess the situation and
to see the best option for what that situation presents and in this
situation the officer chose to take action."
Bloor added the officer, who since the shooting is on "paid temporary leave",
has no known history of discharging his firearm in the line of duty.
Police claim the shooting is being "investigated by a member of the major crimes
section"; however, when interviewed [by Global TV] the day after the shooting, a
spokesman for the VPD said the matter "was closed" and all indications "supported
the officers actions".
Bloor also tried to claim the officer is "very distraught" over the incident,
but refused to comment further.
Bains said he is considering hiring a lawyer and wants the VPD to take measures
to ensure more family pets don't die unnecessarily. Something not likely to
happen, as the VPD said they would not even be issuing an apology, since they
believe the officer acted appropriately and "according to their training".
Bains said he had posted a Beware of Dog sign on the front gate [See
Photos above] but it disappeared Wednesday,
although the sign on the rear gate was still in place. It seems clear that they
[the VPD] have a conscience of guilt over the incident, and decided to take the
sign down as a means of covering their fallacious allegation that the dogs'
presence was "unexpected".
Added Harbans: "We got him when he was nine months and I loved him more than my
kids. We cannot forget him."
Two Abbotsford police officers were cleared of any wrongdoing after a family dog
was shot in front of children, during a child's birthday party in January 1999.
Const. David Schmirler and Const. Matthew Sekela were found guilty of breaching
conduct under the Police Act but successfully appealed the rulings on "unknown
grounds".
Contribution from Robert Polton..
In case anyone needs another similar case of their brutality, and itchy trigger fingers.......[as already referred to above]
(Another) Family pet shot by cops
By Tricia Leslie December 09, 2003
Michael Jones scratches his dog's left ear,
gently, and speaks in hushed tones to him through the cage at the Glenn Mountain
Animal Hospital in Abbotsford.
The 16-year-old Yale Secondary School student has barely left Chance's side
since Friday night, when the Rottweiler was shot by an Abbotsford police
officer.
He and his friends had just come back from the skate park, Jones said, likely
between 9 and 10 p.m. Friday, to make some phone calls. On their way out, Chance
came out onto the driveway of Jones' Glenn Mountain Drive home, and according to
Jones, was standing still in the driveway.
"I was with the dog, this close [putting his hands less than 30 centimetres
apart] when two cops came around the corner of the fence," Jones said. He and
his friends had no idea the police were even in the neighbourhood, Jones said,
and the dog was "in the driveway, standing and looking at me," when the male
officer shot it.
"I was screaming, I was swearing, I was yelling 'Why did you shoot my dog?' "
"If [the police officer] had missed by that much [centimetres], he would've shot
my friend, who was standing behind the dog."
The bullet, fired from a .40-calibre Glock, travelled through Chance's right
ear, through his upper right foreleg [shoulder], through the chest cavity,
diaphragm, and liver, before exiting through his abdomen.
Chance ran away after being shot and the two officers helped catch him, Jones
said, even calling for help from other officers, and took Jones and the dog to
emergency surgery at a Langley veterinary clinic in a patrol car.
Chance is now in critical condition at Glenn Mountain Animal Hospital in
Abbotsford, recovering from his wounds.
Abbotsford police spokesman Const. Shinder Kirk said the two officers were
responding to a call about several youth drinking alcohol and abusing illegal
substances.
"At this point, the information I have is as the officers walked up, the dog
charged at him," Kirk said. "The officer felt there was some concern for his
personal safety and discharged his firearm."
Although police have access to weapons such as pepper spray, batons and Tasers,
Kirk said each officer must assess the situation and each threat as it comes.
Though Kirk would not name the officer, he confirmed he has had several years of
experience with the Abbotsford police department.
"This is probably one of the most corrupt department in Canada" - Berg-Wyman [LINK]
Psychotic Police turning your neighbourhoods into their personal shooting galleries.
Bernard Bastien was killed in his front yard by a SWAT team with the wrong address.
Supreme Court of Canada still recognizes our unalienable right to Self Defence.
Gun control myths just won't die
Lorne Gunter
National Post - Monday, May 09, 2005
I have never owned a firearm. Heck, I've never even held a real gun, much less fired one. Still, there are few federal programs that irk me more than Ottawa's gun registry.
It's not just the waste, although that's atrocious -- nearly $2-billion for a dysfunctional pile of uselessness.
And it's not just the uselessness. The registry is also one of those truisms for liberals, one of their articles of blind faith. To a liberal, universal registration of guns is something all intelligent people must support or, well, they're not intelligent. They use gun control as a litmus test for who is and isn't sophisticated and subtle of mind. So that even if you can prove the registry will have no practical effect -- it won't prevent armed robberies or murders, or keep enraged spouses from killing one another -- a liberal still has to cling to it for fear of being seen as NOKD (not our kind, dear).
But what troubles me most is what it says about its supporters' attitude toward the people and government. Backing most gun laws amounts to
proclaiming trust in government over trust in one's fellow citizens.
This is especially true of Canada's gun registry. You really, really have to have faith in government, and be really, really suspicious of the gun owner down the block to continue to think our national registry will ever do any good.
Frankly, I'll take my law-abiding neighbours over politicians, bureaucrats,
experts and advocates any day.
Believers in our registry like to say that since its inception in 1998 it has helped keep gun licences out of the hands of 13,000 people deemed unstable or too violent to possess guns. What they never boast about is that the registry doesn't even try to track the 131,000 convicted criminals in Canada who have been prohibited by the courts from owning guns.
Gee, who do you think is the greater risk?
Still, the fact that 13,000 Canadians -- about one-half of one per cent of applicants -- have been refused a licence in the past seven years might be meaningful if gun-controllers could then point to lowered murder rates, or show that firearms suicides have declined faster than suicides by other methods, or demonstrate a significant reduction in spousal homicides (most of the 13,000 denials have stemmed from complaints by one partner against another).
But despite these thousands of licence refusals, government ministers and
special interest groups who favour the registry can't even point to a reduction in armed robberies.
The registry is not keeping the unfit from getting guns, just licences. And licences don't kill people, guns do. Keeping licences out of the hands of
people who shouldn't have guns is meaningless.
James Roszko, the slayer of four Mounties in Alberta, had been banned from
owning guns for the past five years. But paper gun controls were useless at
keeping him from acquiring the weapons he used in his murders.
The only meaningful gun control is taking firearms away from criminals. And
since crooks, drug dealers and murderers don't register their weapons, the
registry is useless in this task.
Consider, too, (from the latest Statistics Canada homicide report), that 68%
of firearms murders in Canada in 2003 were committed with handguns, and
handguns have been subject to mandatory federal registration since 1934.
Indeed, in the past 15 years, the percentage of total murders committed with
handguns has doubled, despite their being tightly controlled.
That should tell you all you need to know about the worth of firearms registries.
Now the Library of Parliament has released a comparison of violent crime rates in the Northern Plains states versus Canada's Prairie provinces. The simple conclusion: Rates of gun ownership among law-abiding private citizens have no effect on crime.
Despite having nearly twice as many households with guns as their Canadian
counterparts -- and similar economic, cultural and social demographics --
Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Idaho have lower crime rates than
Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Researchers determined "both violent and property crime rates were two-thirds higher in the Canadian Prairie
provinces than in the four border states."
Murder was 1.1 times higher; violent assaults and attempted murder, 1.5 times; robbery, 2.1 times; breaking and entering, 2.3; and vehicle theft, 3.2.
Harassing duck hunters, target shooters and gun collectors to register their firearms will have no effect on crime. But don't tell liberals. They take great comfort in their myths.
© National Post 2005
Kevin Libin: Edmonton bans knives. Also, sense. - National Post, August 16 2011
Another victim dies in high-speed police chase.....
.