Alphecca

Weekly Check on the Bias

James Roszko started using drugs when he was 12 years old. At 16 he and a friend robbed a gun store. At 18 he was convicted of vandalism. At 21 he was convicted of harassment and a local newspaper actually had to take out a restraining order against him. At 25 he began molesting a 10-year-old boy for which, 17 years later he would be convicted of such and serve 2 1/2 years in prison.

In the meantime, at age 35 he was charged with unlawful confinement, pointing a firearm, assault with a weapon, impersonating a police officer and failing to comply with bail conditions. He was tried on seven of those charges in June 1996 and aquitted of all.

In 2001, while in prison, he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon stemming from an incident in 1999 when he shot one man and hog-tied another. Amazingly, charges were dismissed in 2003 when he was back out on the streets. More charges followed. In 2004 his property was searched several times for illegal weapons he was known to --bragged about-- having.

The original idea of the Canadian Gun Registry was to track and keep firearms out of the hands of mutants like Roszko. The scheme, which was initially estimated to cost Canadian taxpayers two million dollars, has ended up costing them almost $2 billion dollars.

Last Thursday Roszko gunned-down four Royal Canadian Mounted Police who were trying to execute a search warrant on him. Then, it is believed he turned the gun (mercifully, I would say) on himself.

Garry Breitkreuz, a longtime gun registry opponent from Yorkton, Sask., said James Roszko's murderous rampage with an assault rifle last Thursday in Alberta illustrates a fatal flaw in the $2-billion federal program: criminals simply ignore it.

"Incident after incident like this clearly indicate the gun registry does not prevent this kind of crime," Breitkreuz said Monday outside the House of Commons.

"It does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It is a paper-pushing exercise."

Breitkreuz argues Canadian citizens would be much safer if Ottawa simply invested the $2 billion spent on the registry in boosting the resources of front-line police forces.

"In this case, (Roszko) was already prohibited from owning firearms. The gun registry has no effect on this case." --Canadian Press Online

It seems strange in this "culture of safety" that the federal government has seen fit to spend billions of dollars to register the non-problem firearms of responsible target shooters and hunters, but seems to give short shrift to the very forensic facilities that could help to put irresponsible, gun-toting criminals behind bars.

Canadians have by now seen through the Canadian Firearms Act and know it for the sham that it is.

Perhaps, it is time to rejig the firearms registry as a dangerous offender registry and start registering the names of people who are not allowed to possess firearms, rather than listing the guns of people who scrupulously obey the laws. It certainly could not be any more useless than the current firearms registry and, in all likelihood, it will actually provide some benefit to the public safety. --a letter last month in the Toronto Star.

Remember that bumper-sticker you've seen at countless gun shows: Criminal Control, not Gun Control. The murder of the RCMP officers was a true tragedy but it points up the uselessness of registering firearms because the simple fact is that criminals don't obey laws and they're not going to register their guns.

Al Gore wanted to have national handgun registration here in the United States (which probably cost him five states in the 2000 election). Does anyone really think that if such legislation was passed that the Muhammads and Malvos, the Harrises and Klebolds would march down to the local police station to register their guns? That gang members would charter a bus to the local precinct to comply with the new law?

And even if they did, would that have stopped a mutant like Arroyo, Sr., down in Tyler Texas from losing his marbles?

The real problem is that criminals -- if convicted at all -- serve little or no time even when repeatedly arrested and convicted of serious crimes. From the Edmonton Sun:

Kim Connell, a 29-year RCMP veteran who spent his last 10 years in the Mayerthorpe detachment, wanted to know why Roszko was ever set free.

"They're going in and out, the violent ones, why are they letting them out?" the former Mountie asked.

"If the justice system had put him where he belonged this wouldn't have happened."

Exactly. There's quite a battle going on in Canada's media over why Roszko was -- dispite numerous parole violations -- on the streets. There's also been a lot of debate over the actions (tactics) employed that horrible day by the RCMP. I won't go into that.

[Source material for Roszko's criminal history comes from the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.]

Unfortunately, focusing on the weapon instead of the criminal is also a pastime of gun activists meeting in Johannesburg yesterday. From the department of "World ends, women and minorities suffer most" comes this Reuters story:

Gun control activists said on Monday the world was awash in small arms, fuelling violence, and called for global cooperation and stricter limits on the trade.

"You can't control international arms proliferation, especially small arms proliferation, without international cooperation," said Brian Wood, Amnesty International's arms and security trade research manager. "We want tough action."

A human rights report by a consortium of groups highlighted the impact of guns on the lives of women, saying they were often the "silent victims" of the small arms trade.

The activists noted there were an estimated 650 million guns in circulation around the world -- almost all in the hands of men.

"Given that they are almost never the buyers, owners or users of small arms, (women) suffer disproportionately from armed violence," said Denise Searle of Amnesty International, one of the groups releasing the report.
[...]
Statistics worldwide indicate young men are the main victims of small arms, whether used in disputes, in conflict zones or in criminal activity including gang violence.

But the report issued ahead of International Women's Day on Tuesday showed women too are paying a price, often in their own homes as a result of domestic violence.

"Where guns are available, more women are likely to be killed," Searle said.

So it's alright then when men are killed but when women are killed, "We want tough action".

This is all silliness. The problem is the same as the above story. Criminals do little time in jail. And sadly, often when a woman is the victim of domestic violence, she doesn't press charges. A restraining order is not enough -- it's simply a piece of paper and that won't contain a violent spouse; a concrete cell with iron bars will.

Needless to say -- and unspoken in the article -- is the fact that whenever worldwide gun control activists say something like, "international cooperation is needed" what they really mean is that the United States must scrap it's Second Amendment and join all the sheep of the rest of the world in being defenseless against criminals.

Oddly enough, Reuters didn't ask for any contrary opinions from the NRA or other defenders of freedom.

And oddly enough, too, the New York Times didn't consult any constitutional scholars today when they released this article:

Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a Congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.

People suspected of being members of a terrorist group are not automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap.
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Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials and gun control groups have voiced increasing concern about the prospect of a terrorist walking into a gun shop, legally buying an assault rifle or other type of weapon and using it in an attack.

I love how "gun control groups" are now considered to be as unbiased as the un-named law enforcement officials in this story. In any event, this is a report commissioned by one of the most virulently anti-gun partisans in Congress, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). Fortunately, he seems to have the solution:

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, who requested the study, plans to introduce legislation to address the problem in part by requiring federal officials to keep records of gun purchases by terror suspects for a minimum of 10 years. Such records must now be destroyed within 24 hours as a result of a change ordered by Congress last year. Mr. Lautenberg maintains that the new policy has hindered terrorism investigations by eliminating the paper trail on gun purchases.

"Destroying these records in 24 hours is senseless and will only help terrorists cover their tracks," Mr. Lautenberg said Monday. "It's an absurd policy."

He blamed what he called the Bush administration's "twisted allegiances" to the National Rifle Association for the situation.

The N.R.A. and gun rights supporters in Congress have fought - successfully, for the most part - to limit the use of the F.B.I.'s national gun-buying database as a tool for law enforcement investigators, saying the database would amount to an illegal registry of gun owners nationwide.

Notice how the writer of this screed, Eric Lightblau, once again uses his quotes AND INNUENDO to somehow try to tar the NRA and President Bush and anyone who doesn't support gun control as providing aid-and-comfort to terrorists.

Ignored is the implication stated at the start of the article: Firstly, this is a very small number of firearms purchases we're talking about. Secondly, that these purchases are only by people suspected of something. They haven't been charged. They haven't been convicted. In fact, they haven't done anything other than being investigated. Never mind that it could be someone who simply works as a janiter in a mosque or someone who donated money to an organization suspect of ties to an overseas group.

The real issue is that Lautenberg wants to create a de facto gun registry by holding onto all NICS background check requests or all firearms transactions paperwork for TEN YEARS. Folks, that's gun registration pure and simple.

If these "suspected terrorists" have done something then lock them up. In this country our judicial system is still based on being innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, if one of them does buy a gun and then uses it wrongly in some manner, well, that's unfortunate but it's also the price we pay to enjoy our freedom and liberty. Does Lightblau actually work for the Brady Bunch?

Here's what's happening by some of my friends at some other pro-2a blogs:

Say Uncle reports on some firearm related legislation in Tennessee.

The Ten Ring has a funny parody about how the Brady Bunch might view a lever-action rifle as an assault weapon.

Gullyborg has the latest Carnival of the Cordite up.

Heartless Libertarian is celebrating Buy A Gun Day a little bit early. I'm jealous.

Contertop Chronicles is joining the growing efforts of pro-2A bloggers by offering free instruction (and ammo) to those in the Washington DC area who want to learn what shooting is all about.

You can find a more comprehensive list of these generous bloggers over at Publicola. Good all to them.

Okay, my goal is to get this up by Ten AM every Tuesday so... Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to listen to me do this report live today on the Cam Edwards NRA Live Show.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at March 8, 2005 09:58 AM