The Gun Registry is an Issue of Sovereignty

As we learned prior to the vote on the gun registry, the American NRA had a louder voice in our government, than the Canadian people.

But we drowned out their voices. Good for us.

However, it would appear that Stephen Harper is not done, and just as the NRA helped to get him elected in 2006, by having a representative work with their Canadian counterparts, we can expect more interference next election.

Harper is making this about rural and urban Canada. Hunters and farmers under attack.

Bull.

This has zip, zilch, nada to do with farmers or hunters or rural Canada, and everything to do with the crazy Republicans wanting to force "American values" on the Canadian people.

Loonies, Guns and a Polite Society

Many Canadians think themselves immune from the anti-politics of right-wing extremists. But consider how the National Firearms Association (FA) moved into the spotlight during the 1997 controversy over the Liberal's gun control legislation. The NFA's director, John Bauer, alleged that federal gun control was some kind of world disarmament conspiracy, led by the pacifist Canadian government and their girlymen army of peacekeepers. "A [Liberal] majority means the end of a culturally distinct Recreational Firearms Community [RFC] in Canada and maybe even [in] the world as we are being used to pave the way for Total Global Disarmament by 2003" said Bauer. "The RFC has been pushed ever closer to extinction every year. Why? Why? Why? What have we done to deserve this oppression?" (1)

Recreational Firearms Community? Not guns to shoot rascally varmints? And where does this notion of Total Global Disarmament come from? In large part through men like Wayne La Pierre (shown above), who wrote a book: The Global War on Your Guns

The Global War on Your Guns takes you inside the U.N. plan to destroy the Bill of Rights by attacking the one right that makes any right possible, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. LaPierre's well-researched chapters outline the threat itself, how the U.N. works, and the phalanx of international forces determined to eliminate the basic human right of self-preservation through elimination of all private firearm ownership.

He sounds a little nuts, right? But in 1997 he was one of a group that Stephen Harper referred to when he said "your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world." LaPierre is a member of the Council for National Policy, where Harper delivered his speech that showed contempt for the Canadian people. He is also the chief executive officer of the NRA.

Counting over 2.8 million members, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has been called “perhaps America’s most powerful political lobby,” and “serves as spiritual godfather to gun groups around the world.” The Chief Executive Officer of the NRA, Wayne La Pierre, is a member of the Council for National Policy. Under his direction, the NRA has been extremely active in pursuing its anti-gun control agenda abroad, especially in Canada. According to Tony Bernardo, Executive Director of the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action (CILA), a gun lobby group, the NRA was “instrumental to the formation of the CILA” and provides “tremendous amounts of logistic support.” On July 4, 2001, La Pierre stated “the National Rifle Association of America supports and endorses the work done by the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action,” which works with the National Firearms Association to advocate for the “rights” of gun owners.

But I thought this was about farmers ... hunters? ... gatherers? ... and puppies?

The NRA has provided most of the talking points for Stephen Harper. And they are also involved with the National Firearms Association, another group that has helped tremendously with the success of Harper's party since their Reform days.

In 1994, even before the gun control showdown, Reform's Vancouver South riding association argued for the legal right of "law-abiding citizens to own and use" firearms because "disarming law-abiding citizens not only opens the road to dictatorship, but also grants criminals an open season on the rest of us." Their assumption is that social harmony is improved by an armed citizenry, especially by folks packing concealed weapons—an outlaw-gunslinger fantasy defined by the Far Right credo, "An armed society is a polite society."

Leading up to the 1997 federal election, the NFA pledged support to the Reform Party and its efforts to protect the "culturally distinct" status of gun owners. They organized a fundraising drive, "Giving a Loonie to Save a Gun," in which Canadian gun owners were encouraged to donate a dollar to Reform for every firearm they owned; Bauer estimated that $21 million would be raised if every gun owner responded to the call. The NFA'S president, David Tomlinson, assured his membership that gun owners were playing a central role in nominating Reform candidates so that no more "enemies" could be sent to Ottawa. "The firearms community, in this area, is not outside the [Reform] Party looking in and begging for handouts," said Tomlinson. "It is an active and aware segment of the party." (1)

"An armed society is a polite society"? I guess that's why Canadians are so darn nasty. If we were packin' heat, we'd learn some manners.

"I'm sorry. Did I just shoot you in the foot? It's these tight jeans. They make me a little trigger happy."

The NFA even launched a boycott against businesses who supported the Liberal party. Now that's commitment.

This entire thing is about the "right to bear arms". They want to turn us into Americans and are using the Americans to do it. We have to remove the notion of this being a battle between rural and urban Canada. This is a battle for Canadian sovereignty.

The willingness of neo-conservatism's fringe to champion unlimited firearm freedoms over public safety evokes the ultra-violent Western: minimal dialogue, unfettered freedoms and cartoon plots. Part child, part tyrant and part sociopath, the victim-warrior of the Far Right has become a political force in the 1980s and 1990s simply because nobody knows how to defuse this hysterical cowboy; after all, he's always threatening to explode or claiming himself the victim of a major conspiracy. For people with this Rambo mindset, politics is post-literate: all action, no talk. Which means you aren't going to win too many arguments—especially with people who read the Revelation of St. John as nonfiction: "Which of us can stand his ground, now that the great day, the day of their vengeance, has come?" The Reform Party is known for these extremist tendencies. (1)

"Extremist tendencies". So not Canadian.

Sources:

1. Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9, Pg. 159-160