gregpopik.com

Elizabeth Mandelman of IANSA

*Update. 

Elizabeth took the time to post in her reply below.

I take this time to correct my initial post, because when you are in the wrong, it should be admitted, addressed and made restitution for. Full stop.

I even made snide comments about Elizabeth not posting my article out of band from either site.  Let me be clear. Elizabeth is not the bad guy in this. I am. Anger does not justify these things. It clouds them.

Elizabeth appears to be a nice girl with strong opinions. Her exception to my retort as kept below is devoid of malice. We could all learn something from that.

On the other hand, as an ex-paratrooper I can often tend to follow the modified OODA loop of Observe, Overreact, Destroy, Apologize.

And every now and then I get reminders from my other peers that a first amendment is just as important as a second amendment.

In short, making my comments about her instead of the central issue has created a grand mess of things. I hope she and my other readers accept my full apology.

Right thinking dictates that I've got to track down those people and set them square about this post too.

This does not change the original questions.  Elizabeth has been moderating replies to the page. We will be watching for replies to commentary there as well as taking them here.

-----------------------------------------------------

Apparently working for Project Plowshares here in Canada, Elizabeth has been writing articles on the viability of gun control and its effectiveness here in Canada.

I found that an interesting theory for an American to posit.

I wrote the response included below in this post to confront her on her own ground. She chose to use her power of censorship there rather than openly meet me in public forum to debate my opinion on her position on gun control.

Far from typical, I have found this is the default expected behavior from people in her camp when faced with tough questions. Not to be deterred or deny the internet public from a proper debate, I have saved the post and replicated it here.

Perhaps she'll be good enough to show up here to debate it?  Then again, perhaps not.

Good luck to you Elizabeth to censor responses to this article.

Just remember, you cannot suppress truth.

Original Advocacy article and discussion here

I encourage everyone to leave comments here, as well as to take it to her over there.

Point One: Partisan results are not objective

The various entities conducting such sociological studies produce reports that are invariably uninteresting to the general public, because they are invariably the product of political bureaucratically

A layman can usually tell which ideology's report it is by glimpsing at the same old, tired out conclusions drawn in it. If generated by conservative dominated segment, they will produce conservative conclusions. If generated by a Liberal dominated segment, they will produce Liberal conclusions. Lets be honest here. If this principal were not true, Liberals would be lauding the outstanding Auditor General's report the waste generated by the long gun registry, and there would be nothing to rally against.

And they must thank God each day for having that, as they have had little else as a party to run on as a wedge issue these four years gone by.

This is the simple reality of the bureaucracy.

To survive, the bureaucrats in management must surround themselves with underlings most likely to take all measures to achieve the political objectives they have been commanded to produce.

The very continuation of their career is at stake. It has the effect of producing individuals most often notable only for their singular ability to act out of an instinct for self preservation.

This practice is so common that it might as well be filed under "business continuity".

Your claim to validation of your point of view through sociological reports is about as comical as the court royals in the film Braveheart loudly proclaiming the rightful claim to land titles. About as probable too.

As stated by others, for every report you raise we can counter with five. And we'd all look more the fool for it.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to pooh-pooh this notion. And that will be a lot of casual Sunday fun to address too. But in the meantime I'll reflect on gun control outside of the realm of statistical interference; which is so obviously poisoned as to border on ludicrous.

Point Two: Gun control in the world is failing

The stress cracks in the facade of what once appeared to be absolute 'impenetrable wall ' of common sense for gun-control and community safety as presented by various globally orchestrated gun-control groups are beginning to show

Badly.

And you are a long way out of touch with the common citizen if you don't understand how clearly they see this.

Just read today's news from countries like England. Countries that foolishly abolished gun ownership a decade before sinking into a proverbial toilet of crime and civil unrest. Again, I'll reference no statistics about how many gun crimes are committed daily on this relatively easy to secure Island nation. Its a fools errand to chase these.

But please explain just how is it that that violent crime occurs in such unprecedented numbers there? After examining the effects of gun control in post ban Britain, it is baffling to understand how anyone could believe gun control works. The only guns there now are in criminal hands.

Bravo Ms. Peters.

We don't need to dwell on England though because, quite frankly, English crime reporters are doing enough of that for us already, and they're growing sick to death of the official party line. Their bosses don't mind, and are letting more and more of these contrary articles through, because they can smell the epic fail. And nothing sells newspapers like scandal.

Point Three: Gun control in the US is failing

Never mind that over 20 States in the Union to our South officially confirmed in State Legislature the legal right of the individual to one form of carry or another. Those same States have also repealed duty to retreat legislation as well.

These two actions spawned numerous Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) campaigns against those States. And those FUD statements sold a lot of news print, as scary tales always do. But I need to stop and take a minute to thank those behind that FUD plan, because it actually did more to help our case than any amount of full page news print.

Think about it. People paid attention to those articles because they WERE worried. But a great amount of time passed by and yet there was no emergency. Where was the blood in the streets we were warned about?

In the end, there was no case to be made against gun ownership. Even better, nothing needed to be sold to the public to prove it because it was already bought, paid for and well advertised in the media.

Their was no crisis. In State after State, the crime rates nose dived.

It has now become apparent after more than a decade of operation of these laws in places like Florida that these States have a far better track record of reducing crime than any state mandating gun-control.

Once again, I'm not going to play the stats game. But are you aware that the higher a State scores on the Brady scale, the more likely it is to have the worst violent crime rates in the nation? As someone advocating the protection of women against victimization, doesn't that give you any pause for thought regarding your current hypothesis?

Maybe not.

But here's a small strategy tip for you guys. FUD campaigns have a very nasty tendency to backfire, because the worst case never happens without forcing it. And like all things forced, you don't want to get caught in that kind of lying or you'll never make good with your word again.

Don't get offended, because some in my camp screaming about Obama taking our guns need to learn this lesson quite desperately too.

For the time being, it is sufficient to state as fact that the second amendment was re-confirmed in the SCOTUS in DC vs Heller much to the dismay of radical groups such as the Brady campaign.

For the future, gun ownership rights remains in the hands of the patriots who have not and will never rest on this all-important issue.

Point Four: Gun control in Canada is failing

Lets talk a bit closer to home now.

If you familiarize yourself with the growing number of cases such as Pogson v. Alberta, you'd be far more aware that judicial decisions are now being made here in Canada in recognition of the alarming institutional tendency to overly-ambitious political bias against gun ownership.

Thanks to the uncensored nature of the Internet, Canadians are learning more about their individual rights and entitlements than at any other time in history.

Here' s the source article:
http://www.canlii.org/ab/cas/abpc/2004/2004abpc41.html

According to Honourable Judge D.E. Demetrick:
"one prominent if not fundamental characteristic of a free and democratic society ...is that the citizens of such society generally are "at liberty"or "free" to possess and acquire property without first having to obtain permission from a governmental bureaucrat or the judiciary.

In a free and democratic society any exception or deviation from the general rule deserves close scrutiny even though mandated by law.

Casual or ambitious administration of the law's exceptions to the general rule could endanger substantially that prominent, socially important, and historically ingrained characteristic of Canadian society."

This contemporary ruling is directly on net with the majority views of Canadians.

I could spend the better part of my day here responding with similar if not identical precedents. But that would be non-productive. The more salient point to be made regarding official statistics and political bias is that the majority of common Canadians KNOW that violent crime is worse now than it ever has been despite the well-funded presence of the long gun registry.

We are incensed that such a great sum of money was wasted chasing the ideas of a failed ideology. Instead of fighting real crime, this ideology targeted duck hunters. Instead of helping women, this ideology stole the funding to underwrite a socialist agenda.

I'm here along with two million other Canadian gun owners to stand up and tell this agenda "no more". Not on my dime.

As gun-control advocates, you have had your say for over a decade.

Now you have the opportunity to hear our voices. You will be hearing them in vastly growing numbers over the coming decade. In the words of Ingrid Newkirk, we are a movement. And movements NEVER disappear. They only ever grow stringer and stronger.

In my personal, regular observations of online media 'polls' discussing abolition of the long-gun registry, I have noted a disturbing trend with certain vendors. These polls tend to always split the yay vote, and yet they tend to lose so catastrophically as to magically disappear every time the results come up over the last year?

I can help you tackle that one. It is because they rarely display any less than 80% popular support for dismantling that particular white elephant. Wouldn't it be sort of fun to track a few here. You and me? Just as an experiment?

Maybe while you're explaining why THOSE statistics tend to disappear you could take a run at explaining why the opposition in Canada need to force a whipped vote to beat the minority conservative government on the issue of abolishing the long gun registry? It is fairly clear to me that many opposition MPs represent ridings where the idea of a long gun registry is not very appealing.

Or perhaps you could explain why the opposition feverishly tried to kill C-301's successor while moving the hearing committee in camera?

I guess I'd just be satisfied if you could answer the main question for me Elizabeth. If gun control is such a great idea, why does it require such sweeping lies?

Comments are most welcome here.