Weekly Politics Thread

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[u/throwa37 → u/[deleted]]

It is impossible to argue against regulation on the basis of sporting. “People are dying” is very very hard to challenge with “guns are fun and a neat hobby.”

This. Bingo. Exactly. There is no way around it.

[u/[deleted] → u/throwa37]

Which is why we need to loudly come down against firearms-related violence, even if to us it seems unecessary. The audience that matters needs to see us doing it.

You might say "of course we oppose that"....but to the casual observer, it's not obvious.

For example, the news feed on the CCFR site. The Uvalde shooting happened between these two stories. It warrants its' own strongly-worded press release. And displayed in bold across the top of the website.

The message should convey: This tragedy is bigger than politics. We're all in this together. We stand with everyone in condemning these violent acts.

[u/99spider → u/[deleted]]

Those are the only legal reasons in Canada to permit the ownership of firearms

That only applies to restricted. You can own a non restricted for whatever reason you want - you think it looks cool, you want to use it as a dildo, whatever.

Additionally, possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm for self defence is recognized in our laws (Authorization to Carry), but that of course is likely restricted to political elites.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

All we need is a CPC government to make ATCs shall issue, pretty sure it could be done by OIC even. Once the cats out of the bag things would certainly get interesting

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That's kind of where we were at, come to think of it, with the ATT's attached to our licenses.

No end of the world when that happened, was there...?

[u/99spider → u/[deleted]]

Couldn't a CFO if inclined treat them as shall issue?

[u/[deleted] → u/99spider]

Honestly I don't know

[u/TechnologyReady → u/[deleted]]

Great post. I agree that promoting shooting sports as a fun, family oriented activity, is a futile effort. There is zero chance you will get them to see it that way. And even if you could, as you say, that argument is easily shot down by "but fun hobbies cannot justify the possession of firearms that can cause such harm".

But I disagree that you have a successful argument for "but we have a right to defend ourselves". You'll never win that argument either. I have seen woke-libs actually argue that we do NOT have the right to defend ourselves, that our duty is to turn the other cheek, sacrifice ourselves on the alter of non-violence. More moderate libs will argue that your duty is to call the police and wait. Or, that it's just a fantasy to think you could successfully use a gun to defend yourself when the chips are down in any case. Or that it's a false concern in the first place because the odds that you are a victim of violent crime is incredibly low anyway.

I agree with /u/CalibreMag that the focus needs to be squarely on the fact that these gun bans are a wasteful use of resources, and a distraction from the real problem. This is the dispassionate argument, that is not easily defeatable by moralistic arguments. I've used this argument myself, which is often responded to by "Yes, well, the government can do more than one thing at once!" However, as time passes, and other problems build up, this argument becomes harder and harder to make. This government continues to ignore real problems it should be solving, and focusing only on these partisan political issues.

I would also make the argument that we should have the right to defend ourselves. The right of self-defence is a human right that is fundamentally rooted in core concepts of humanity. It isn't explicitly enshrined in our laws, but it doesn't need to be, because it's a fundamental human right above that of any state's ability to legislate. It cannot be restricted. I think we can achieve the acceptance of this among moderates, because it's imminently reasonable. Once we have achieved that bridgehead of logic, then we can press for the legal ability to plan for our own self-defence. First, in our own homes. Maybe long after that, we could talk about the ability to plan for our self-defence in public. But that's a long way off. I don't see us succeeding there unless the public viewed it as true, that widespread random public violence is rampant and the police are not capable of defending us. We may get there, with the way things are going.

Because elsewhere you stated something that's not true, about legally being allowed to use weapons to protect yourself. It's not clear cut, at all.

We are legally allowed to possess weapons. But we are not allowed to possess weapons for reasons contrary to the public peace. And a series of court rulings have defined that contrary to the public peace means in preparation to defend yourself in public. Strangely, only criminals are allowed to carry weapons for self defence, because they can't rely on the police. The rest of us are expected to rely on the police (or negotiate with our attackers, or run away).

So, you're not allowed to prepare for your self defence by possessing weapons. But you are allowed to use them, if you should be so lucky to find yourself in possession of them when you are attacked. It's a subtle but very important distinction.

It seems unlikely that we would win the hearts and minds of the general population, about the legal right to prepare for self defence, until and unless the general population feels that things have really gone to hell. And clearly, they are not in that mindframe.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Fuckin finally someone gets it

[u/drain-angel → u/[deleted]]

It's just the temporary gun owners shitting up threads here like they always do because they won't listen to the data and needs to repeat their political convictions ad nauseum contrary to evidence and have the same 5 people circlejerk their opinions.

The person who posted on top of this thread I literally told them yesterday about the electability to the CPC and I got no response. Whatever, RES is useful to keep tags on who people here are worth discussing with.

[u/DarseZ → u/[deleted]]

And finally, and most importantly: We need to open ourselves up to a wider community. Regular people. The progressive left (gasp). The urbanites.

Someone else spoke on that yesterday ITT and agree there definitely needs to be more outreach in that regard. As they suggested, the urban/progressive community can come in and make it their own, which will change it, but it will at least exist. If it stays in the (perceived) realm of the mostly angry conservative, it will die.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If we have any hope of maintaining any sort of firearms rights in Canada...

We have no "firearms rights" in Canada. Not currently, and I dare say we never will. Even if a conservative government formed a majority, anything they did would simply be undone after the next political swing. It would require ensconcement in the Charter, and there's just no reality in which that happens.

[u/99spider → u/[deleted]]

RCMP policy is to not accept licence applications with self defence as a stated purpose.

The license application form doesn't have a box for purpose anywhere on it?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If you get hit in the femoral artery, a TQ isn't fast enough considering most people don't exactly keep them on their bedside table. From what I've read it takes about 30 seconds to pass out from blood loss and minutes to die. It's really not much different from getting shot in the carotid artery. Not to mention the inherent danger of shooting someone in the leg to your person and others because it's a very difficult shot to pull off especially under stress and if the other person is moving meaning you'll probably miss and get shot or stabbed. If someone breaks in the best bet is to aim at their chest and keep shooting until they're on the ground. Gambling on a leg shot isn't something that makes sense from either a humanitarian or self defense perspective

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Shooting anyone in the leg is a challenge in and of itself. A home intruder won't stand still, someone's leg silhouette is small enough as is, and not to mention that if you nick the femoral artery they're probably gonna die.

The PAL course already tells you to be aware of where you're pointing your muzzle, the environment, who / what is your target and who's around them.

If anyone draws a gun at you or you draw a gun at them the intent is to kill. I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

E: self defence firearms courses would be great but again, won't happen until we normalize self defence as an inherent part of gun culture in Canada.

[u/GinnAdvent → u/[deleted]]

From a target shooting perspective, if you want to stop someone that's coming at your or pointing a firearm at you, it's always number 1 rule to shoot center mass. This has been demonstrated multiple times in many scenarios, this is one of the misconceptions that people always tell the police why shoot to kill? Because it's a lot harder to shoot to disable, when they charge you. Go check out videos on how fast people can move from 5, 10, 15 ft before someone can draw and or react.

Even if you don't hit center mass, but extremities instead, you might nick a artery or vein, which will cause bleed out, but again, really hard to do so.

From a self defense perspective, Runkle has covered this multiple times, so say if someone break into your house, you have to have a list of questions checked before you can actually open fire on the guy. Which under stressful situations, is quite hard.

If the perp is looking for stuff to steal, you can't go look for him, and confront him with your firearm to scare him. You can sound the alarm, yell, and go hide or run to safety.

If the perp is coming at your with a stick, hitting things around, you should have similiar thing to go against him, not a firearm, and assume same size. Unless there are multiple perp.

You always have to go to a safe place, and get your love ones to a safe place to call the police. The only time you can fight back, is they caught you and trap you in a corner, or someone on the vicinity is trapped and being attacked by them. Against refer to what tool they use.

If they come with you with deadly weapon, in large force, and won't care to steal anything, and you can't run away or to protect someone about to be harmed, then that's a different story. If you have video recording with sound, and whole interaction is recorded.

One thing people have to understand, self defense is one legal entity of its own, and firearm usage has another own sets of law. When you combine both, it's overly complicated to explain in the court. So it's not like American castle doctrine to protect your property, or someone trespass. You have to series of law and evidence between self def and Firearm to reach a lawful conclusion. No matter how stupid it might be, at least for Canadian scenario. That's why I found it useful to review Ian Runkle videos because he explain it in great detail.

PS: the example provided is a very simplified version, of legal precaution to follow if you are in the court of law to explain yourself, from a self defense perspective. There are probably errors since I am not a lawyer, some things I have observed and compiled from friends who practice self defense and going through the legal process if situistions arises.

[u/[deleted] → u/GinnAdvent]

Technically there is no duty to retreat clause. Here in Southern AB someone fired a warning shot and hit someone else in the hand and got off despite fulfilling literally none of those. Like the guy went out of his house with a .22 to confront burglars trying to steal an ATV and they posed more or less no threat to him and he got off by saying he was firing off a warning shot. The argument could be made that anything from a plastic spoon to a baseball bat is a deadly weapon. Personally I'm a 5'8" 135lbs guy, most females could overpower me. If some guy is coming at me with a bat my only real option is to shoot him. Hence why I keep a handgun on my bedside table (it's stored in a quick access safe with a combo trigger lock on the firearm, it's all legal). Thankfully Alberta's judges are pretty loose on their intrepations of a self defense shooting.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I like where you're getting at but combat medical training, actual gun courses and threat assessment are all things that aren't available to the average gun owner here. You'd have to go and do your own homework on those subjects because of our pathetic gun culture. Don't you love overemphasized sports shooting?

The intent is both. God forbid it ever happens but yeah, I'd be taking someone's life to preserve my own or other innocent people.

You'd be right on your assessment but just because we live in Canada doesn't mean it's impossible for the laws to be changed.