Yo! Gun Owners! You Are Being Played!

Take it from one who knows, my Facebook friend Connie at the Freaks:

The CPC will never touch this issue again. They will do like they have done with the same-sex marriage issue and say that they tried, but that there was no appetite for getting rid of the registry.

The gun owners are about to get screwed just like the socons did.

Just watch.

And here in reply to another poster:

RadicallyLiberal wrote:
Connie, the CPC proper may not, but I guarantee every executive in rural ridings will be pounding this issue during the next election campaign.

What the CPC leadership does to control parliament is one thing, but even Harper knows that during a campaign he has absolutely no power.

As has been said by others on this board, Harper has one election left in him. Then it is a whole new game.

Yes, this was very well played on Harper's part. It was a move that will solidify his base, and he now has an excuse to avoid this issue from now on. The best hope for gun owners is for Harper to NOT win a majority so that we can replace him with someone who actually wants to do some good instead of playing politics.

And today The Jurist doubles down on the notion; detailing the opportunities the ReformaTories have whiffed on:

Since taking office, the Cons have introduced three government bills which would have had the effect of repealing the long gun registry. And as the governing party, they've had full control as to when the bills would be debated and voted on.

And pointing out exactly where the blame lies:

But with the Cons telling rural voters that the registry is the only issue that matters and that he has some interest in getting rid of it, it's well worth pointing out that the registry only exists today because Stephen Harper chose to leave it in place.

So, I ask again: Why wasn't this a government bill?

And I answer again: Because the issue is double-plus-good: a wedge and a cash-cow.

BONUS: EKOS poll suggests Stevie Peevie may have shot self in foot.

KKKory's Freudian Lingerie

This is delicious. ReformaTory, aka US Rethuglican-wannabee, lies and shenanigans spin together two current ugly confrontations -- the long-gun registry (which, by the way, may now be safe thanks to the NDP) and the Fox News North kerfuffle -- into a perfect hurricane of irony.

I knew I'd heard KKKory Teneyke say something about the US National Rifle Association meddling in Canadian politics as he hysterically claims Avaaz, the organization running the Stop Fox News North petition, is doing.

I was looking for a link, but was pretty sure it was during the shouting match debate betweeen KKKory and Avaaz's Canadian director, Ricken Patel, on the Evan Solomon CringeFest a week or so ago.

Bingo. James Bowie to the rescue.

"What if the NRA came in to Canada trying to influence policy and decision? People would be outraged!" - Kory Teneyke 03 09 10

Hee. The NRA is doing exactly that and has been for years and yes, KKKory was right on one thing, people are outraged.

When I heard him make that comparison, I thought to self, 'KKKory, are you sure you want to go there?" Maybe as he was bloviating about 'foreign' meddlers, he had a Freudian lingerie moment and out popped the name of a powerful foreign extremist group that he knew bloody well had been meddling for years.

Wikipedia says of the NRA:

Members of Congress have ranked the NRA as the most powerful lobbying organization in the country several years in a row. Opponents of the organization accuse it of unduly influencing political appointments.

In related news, Avaaz today turned over the Ottawa-area IP address of the saboteur(s) of the FNN petition to the RCMP and the Ottawa Police. You remember, that sabotage that KKKory has some connection to? KKKory said that an 'acquaintance' told him he or she had signed up fictional characters. But the acquaintance denied signing up real-world journalists -- which would be identity theft. Avaaz says that the same IP address was used to sign up both.

Ooooh, I'm making a REALLY big bowl of popcorn for this one.

Conservative Backlash!

Good news. Another NDP MP will vote to keep the long-gun registry.

But what really gladdened this despairing old heart was this line:

A Conservative backlash is driving more New Democrats MPs into the pro-gun registry camp, the Toronto Star has learned.

Conservative backlash. Doesn't that sound lovely? Wouldn't you love to see it on every newspaper and blog in the land? On the lips of every commentator and pundit?

Conservative backlash = enough people are finally finally f*cking sick to death of these goons.

When a Blogging Tory Uses a Photo Like This . . .

. . . you know someone has bitten off a hunk of burning stooopid.

Here's one of them opining on the long-gun registry. First he (probably) outlines how everybody in Canada -- except the Frenchies and who gives a shit about them? -- is on side with scrapping the registry because everybody knows that those darned criminals just won't register their deer rifles. Then, with breathtaking (well, for a BT) clarity, he (surely) goes on:

So - with things going our way, what do we do?

* we build more prisons that we don't need, throwing money away while running a massive deficit, based upon ideological motivations unsupported by any evidence that more prisons will make us safer, based upon Stockwell Day's comments that they are to address "unreported crime"- hence taking away any "high ground" we otherwise have in the argument against spending money on "crime reduction" without evidence to support that crime is reduced
* on the virtual eve of what appears to be a probable successful vote to scrap the registry,we fire the R.C.M.P. head of the registry;
* after receipt of a report on the registry, which is suggested to be positive, we appear to bury the report until after the vote, and when called on this, the response of Vic Toews is “Canadians don’t need another report to know that the long-gun registry is very efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoors enthusiasts, while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars.”

Really Vic? How 'bout letting me and other Canadians decide what we "need", pal?

Because, while I'm no genius, I'm thinking if the report comes out later and is positive, it will give the hapless Michael Ignatieff yet another weapon to use to suggest the Conservatives are secretive and not to be trusted.

Gee, ya think?

But how the heck can the report be 'positive' if the gun registry is such a blight on our liberties?

The blogger says that they'll just explain that the report isn't really positive and then everyone can continue blithely ignoring all the facty-sciency-experty stuff they don't like.

Who ya gonna believe?

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is having a bunfest in Edmonton and oh, looky here. They're honouring the guy who got axed sent on a language course because he strongly supports the long-gun registry.

As the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Conference convened in Edmonton on Sunday evening, an absent RCMP Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak was honoured for his work as the director general of the Canadian Firearms Program.

Toronto police chief William Blair, the association president, presented the award in absentia to Cheliak, who is on leave from the national police force.

"He made the program work and I cannot overstate the enormity of his contribution to helping all of us in law enforcement and all Canadians understand better the value of that information," Blair said during the presentation.

The award follows Cheliak's removal as head of the program by RCMP Commissioner William Elliott.

Cheliak originally was supposed to present a report on a national firearms strategy at the conference, but was told by the RCMP that he would no longer be attending.

Yeeheehee. And no, of course Cheliak's removal was not, no-way, no-how political. He just developed an urgent need for a brush-up on his irregular French verbs.

Here's a link again to the excellent website Truths and Myths, set up by a by bunch of supporters of the registry, including cops, medical professionals, mental health activists, and the YWCA. More truthy-facty stuff can be found here and here. You know, for those times you're arguing with the shrieeekers at places like this for whom the debate is over once they've sneered: 'Oh yeah? Well, how many criminals are going to register their guns? Hmmmm?'

Another of their talking points is the MASSIVE poll done by a cop magazine. Now that we've all had the crash course on voluntary, self-selected truthy-facts versus the more rigorous kind of sampling a properly done census produces, let's see if we can see what's wrong with this:

Kuntz, a 22-year EPS [Edmonton Police Service] veteran, says 2,410 of the 2,631 officers from across the country he surveyed in Blue Line magazine since last spring believe “inaccurate” data from the registry is affecting police safety in every province and territory.

Officers 'believe' the data is 'inaccurate'. Oh. Well, then. Kinda like Shelley Glover, also an officer, believes that crime is rising despite what StatsCan says. And like this guy, who believes that nasty soap bubbles amount to assault.

Hmmmm

Long-gun registry. Long-form census.

Could it be that the loathsome ReformaTories are intimidated by anything long?

What's next? Long division? DJ! is accepting suggestions.

Another day. . .

Another group of experts for the ReformaTories to dismiss, ignore, or slander.

This time it's 41,000 cops and doctors and nurses and survivors of gun violence.

Supporters of the long-registry have launched a new website. Here's a list of the groups:

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
The Canadian Police Association
The Canadian Association of Police Boards
The Canadian Public Health Association
The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
The Canadian Association for Adolescent Health
The Canadian Paediatric Society
The Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists
The Trauma Association of Canada
The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions
The YWCA of Canada

The website is full of facty-logicky stuff -- for example, cops accessed the registry more than 4 million times last year at a cost to us of a buck each time.

Pretty reasonable, eh?

Oh. Did I say 'reasonable'? My bad.

If a program or policy is reasonable -- instead of say, idiotic, counter-productive, regressive, and insanely expensive -- that's enough for these ReformaTories to kill it.

I hate these people. Why can't we get rid of them?


h/t to Scott Tribe for the new website.