Excuse me, but I'm somewhat of an authority on crime and gun control since I've been a cop for over 30 years. IT ISN'T THE GUN! Just like it isn't the car when a driver drinks too much and runs over someone. A gun has never tried to kill me by itself. The six times I've been shot at, some fool pulled the trigger. If they hadn't had a gun they would have tried it by some other means. Put the emPHAsis on the right syLLAble.



>>http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/12/27/canada.crime.ap/index.html
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>>"Canadian officials, seeking to make sense of another fatal shooting in what has been a record year for gun-related deaths, said Tuesday that along with a host of social ills, part of the problem stemmed from what they said was the United States exporting its violence."
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>>What, like this is a product you can run down to Sears and buy? Are Canadian pols really that stupid?
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>They are saying the main problem that stems from the U.S. is the incredible lack of any real gun control. Guns pour over the border from the U.S. Now, having said that, I think they are overstressing that aspect of the problem. I agree that is a problem, but without all the other issues, there would be little need for smuggling guns from the States.
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>The real problems run from poverty to greed to the 'instant gratification society' to really terrible parenting. I think Martin is dreaming if he thinks 'banning hand guns' is going to have any real impact. I can't even imagine how he intends to go about such a thing. It's not as if the guns being used to kill people are 'legal' guns. Why not go whole hog and ban crime? Oh, yes, it's already illegal, isn't it (unlike shooting people?).
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>I also see no real value, every time somebody gets shot, for the chief of police and the mayor to stand up and tell us that "This simply cannot be tolerated". They are stuck, and they don't want to admit it. It's easy to blame the situation on the U.S. and on poverty. Our mayor thinks that if he builds a few community centers, gangs will somehow just dissolve in the mist. Sure that's part of it. When I was a kid, there were lots of places to go for a game of pick-up football or baseball. Now everything is paved over and turned into shopping centers.
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>But there is still the problem of people wanting things but not wanting to have to work to earn them. And there is still the problem of peer pressure that lousy parents haven't taught their children to ignore. There was peer pressure when I was a kid too, but I didn't give a crap. What my folks thought of me was far more important to me than what some jerk at school thought of me, and I still had friends.
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>All that aside though, you guys in the U.S. really ought to do something about your lousy gun laws. Check this out. I really love the idea that in North Carolina, a 12 year old needs parental permission to play little league baseball, but not to own a gun.