Letter: Guns required for self-defence
Date: Oct 3, 2006 9:07 AM
PUBLICATION: Belleville Intelligencer (ON)
DATE: 2006.10.03
SECTION: Opinion
PAGE: A7
WORD COUNT: 316

————————————————————————
——–

Guns required for self-defence

————————————————————————
——–

Re: Semi-automatics versus gun resistry – Sept. 30

It seems they’ll let anyone write an op-ed article these days – anyone,
that is, except those who know something about guns. I don’t know what
L. Ian MacDonald’s claim to fame is, but he shows his classic
gun-hater’s ignorance when he regurgitates the false assertion that “A
semi-automatic is not a sportsman’s rifle for deer hunting or duck
hunting.”

The vast majority of “sportsman’s rifles” are exactly that -
semi-automatic. Then there are all those semi-automatic shotguns, used
for upland game, waterfowl, and skeet and trap shooting. I think
MacDonald would be hard pressed to find many sportsmen who didn’t own a
semi-automatic firearm, and use them on a regular basis.

MacDonald does hit on a solution to the problem of school shootings when
he writes “Why do shooters pick on schools, colleges and universities?
Perhaps because victims are available there in larger numbers” – but it
probably isn’t the one he was thinking.

One of the reasons why deranged people pick schools to shoot up is
precisely because they are “gun free zones” full of victims. If any one
of those students, staff, or teachers had been legally allowed to carry
a firearm on their person for their defence – in any of the incidents he
describes – the shooters could very well have been stopped long before
they had the chance to effect their evil plans. And yet, MacDonald and
his fellow travellers would continue to see us all be disarmed victims,
rather than armed survivors. Instead of more useless placebo “gun
control laws”, we need more effective “self-defence laws”. If
MacDonald’s beliefs are what pass for the kind of “policy options”
being
recommended to our governments, no wonder we’re in such a sad state.

Bruce N. Mills
Dundas, Ont.