What police have said about the gun registry. (CAN)

[beevul]

"WHAT POLICE HAVE SAID ABOUT THE GUN REGISTRY"

By Garry Breitkreuz, MP – Revised: March 1, 2004

RECENT QUOTES ADDED

"PRESIDENT OF THE CALGARY POLICE ASSOCIATION: Al Koenig, president of the Calgary Police Association, said the vast amount of money spent on the firearms program could have been much better put to use for front-line police officers in Canada. He said the program has had no effect on crime or acted in any way as a deterrent. "Our position on this is very firm," said Koenig. "We do not support it, and we will be fighting against it. "The police and the public are still at risk. . . . Despite the money spent, it should be scrapped.” "

"Source: Quote from The Calgary Herald – “Police union blasts gun registry” – January 5, 2004"


Theres many more.

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publications/policequotes.htm

Found via link on http://www.rfcsask.ca

[MrBenchley]

1. Wow, another right wing loony....

He seems to be the Canadian equivalent of Trent Lott.....

Once again, the RKBA crowd hitches its wagon to a turd....

[beevul]

2. Hows that B?

Are the words of former and current Police officers not good enough?

That is...the people being asked to enforce the registry.

[MrBenchley]

3. Hey, post all this far right wing crap you want, beev...

I'll bet you can find something by Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh too....

[jimsteuben]

4. we did, we did

We found their love child.

:puke:

Isn't that just a lovely visual?

[MrBenchley]

6. Gee, jim

which of the glocksuckers is it? Since they're both pro-gun all the way it MUST be a member of the RKBA crowd.

[beevul]

5. Some quotes from the list...

"M. BORDEN-CARLTON POLICE CHIEF JAMIE FOX: “Meanwhile, Borden-Carlton Police Chief Jamie Fox, in a statement issued to Island media outlets this morning, called the registry a massive waste of tax dollars that could have been spent on health care and other pressing social needs."

"WINNIPEG POLICE ASSOCIATION: Loren Schinkel of the Winnipeg Police Association says the registry has done little to curb crime. The registry has rung up roughly a billion dollars in expenses since it was first announced in the mid-1990s. Schinkel compares that dollar amount to Winnipeg's annual police budget, which is less than $150 million. "If you put it into that context, you could certainly understand what that money could do for the citizens of any major centre.” Premier Gary Doer wants the whole gun registry shot down. "This is a boondoggle," he says. "It's too much for very few results. We can use this money for health care and more security at the border."

Healthcare, "other pressing social needs", more officers on the street(not in these quotes, but IS in other quotes)...definite right wing talking points...:eyes:

[Romulus]

7. don't fret

what else can you expect from the anti-gun-owner crowd.

[DonP]

8. Yup, another typical cop bashing thread

Pretty much what we have come to expect from the anti folks.

Unless of course it's the head of the FOP or other police chief's group backing the Assault Weapons Ban, then they are intelligent and perceptive people that truly represent the majority of the rank and file.

How dare a regular cop speak his mind. This freedom of speech crap has gone just about far enough.

[jimsteuben]

9. is there a Canadian in the house?

Some anti who lives there and would care to defend the Canadian gun registry?

[MrBenchley]

10. Old News, Jim...

Iverglas already put the RKBA lies on this subject to bed long ago....

[RoeBear]

11. Where oh where would we...

...find one of those? :shrug:

[iverglas]

21. hello?

What, I answer the call and nobody notices?

.

[pnb]

12. Pretty funny...

Can't take him seriously about guns because he is a turd...but he is a turd because you don't like his view about guns.

Pretty neat way of marginalizing ANYONE who doesn't agree with you, huh Bench?

[MrBenchley]

13. Gee, if you love right wingers so much

you snuggle up to them...myself, I know what worthless humholes they are.

[iverglas]

14. nah, actually, that one's a turd

He's a turd because -- well, who knows why people grow up to become turds?? But the evidence that he's a turd is that he is a member of Parliament for what was the Canadian Alliance at the time he was elected, and is now, as a result of a merger, the Conservative Party -- and one of its less savoury characters. Although far from its least savoury.

He's one of the ones the party hasn't been forced to expel for anti-semitic or otherwise nasty racist comments in public. It takes a lot to get you expelled from that party, lemme tell you. Its former leader had formerly been a teacher at a fundie xian private school in Alberta which was found, after a review done on behalf of the provincial government, to be teaching anti-semitism; said leader was also chums with folks like James Keegstra, the teacher who instructed his public high school students in the fine art of anti-semitism (and whose tale was made into a US TV movie starring Raquel Welch).

They're the unsophisticated right-wing turds for the most part, these guys, and not too dangerous because they're just so much too wacko for yer average Canadian, but right-wing turds they are.

The damned thing is that even in Alberta, a majority of survey respondents consistently support the firearms registry. (In Montreal, for example, 97% do.) Ya just aren't going to please all the folks all the time.

Those are some old quotations old Gary has on his site ... and of course a lot of the cops in question are engaged in the same strawperson-battling as so many here like to play at.

... And of course the cop quoted in the lead post was the head of the cop union. In Toronto, the thug head of the cop union and his henchmen have interfered in elections, and instituted a charming scheme to sell "I support the Toronto police" windshield stickers ... "get out of a speeding ticket free" passes, in other words. You can bet where they actually think any spare money should be going, and it ain't to health care.

Hmm. I wonder whether the "Negroes With Guns" brigade around here would agree with that particular thug's characterization of this story:
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2003-04-24/news_story5.php
(NOW is, by the way, a generally progressive news source, novel though I know that concept might be to some.)

The photograph accompanying the story managed somehow to catch Bromell smiling rather than making nasty thuggish faces as he's usually doing.

Police union head Craig Bromell called it "politically correct crap."But after last week's landmark Court of Appeal decision in the November 1, 1999, impaired driving arrest of former Toronto Raptor basketballer DeCovan "Dee" Brown, the days of police denial of the existence of racial profiling should be over.

... Last week's Court of Appeal ruling found that Fairgrieve <trial judge> showed "a tendency to prejudge the merit of (Brown's case) or an inclination to assist the officer at critical stages of the cross-examination." The ruling also found that the officer "was not being truthful about the real reasons for the stop."

The ruling cites as evidence of racial profiling the fact that Olson pulled up and looked into Brown's car before following and stopping him; that the officer prepared a second set of notes "to firm up his reasons justifying the stop after he became aware that the person under arrest was a well-known sports figure likely to undertake a defence of the charge against him"; and that the officer conducted a licence check to determine if Brown's vehicle was stolen.

Gee, a police union boss defending a corrupt cop. What will they think of next?

I find it entertaining how folks hereabouts suddenly become cop-worshippers when cops' self-interest and their self-interest happen to coincide, despite seldom having a decent word to say about them any other time.

Me, I just take 'em like anybody else, and don't have too hard a time noticing when it's their self-interest, rather than their public-spiritedness, talking.

As for the firearms registry? You betcha it's a boondoggle. One of an apparently never-ending series perpetrated by the right-wing Liberal Party federal government, which never runs out of ways of lining its cronies' pockets, or just paying no attention. Me, I never could see how the corrupt and/or inept way in which a government program has been carried out quite works as an argument against the program being carried out at all, of course.

You folks do realize, I trust, that the costs to date are largely start-up costs, and specifically relate largely to some bizarre fuck-ups in designing and implementing the computer system. I can't even begin to imagine how anybody could spend a billion dollars on such a thing, but then I seldom try to figure out how or why Liberals do much of anything. I just vote against 'em every time I get the opportunity.

I know, I know. You guys can't get your head around the idea of a right-wing government instituting a firearms registry (and maintaining a universal healthcare system, and rejecting calls to enact laws to limit access to abortion, and proposing to recognize same-sex marriage ... -- so don't be trying to claim that its reasons for the firearms registry are somehow related to Hitlers', 'k?) . And I don't really expect you to try.

Just for fun, let's look at some more of the musings of Garry Breitkreutz, MP.

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/family.htm

From 2001: http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/breitkreuzgpress/Life2.htm

“Using fetuses for research is against government policy, but killing them is okay.”

Ottawa – “Yesterday was a sad day for the unborn,” lamented Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville. The Saskatchewan MP made the remark after watching his Private Member’s Motion M-228 go down to defeat after just one hour of debate in the House of Commons. “The motion never had a chance in Parliament. Just like the more than 100,000 unborn babies that will never have a chance in the abortion clinics and hospitals across Canada this year.”

Hell, the list of his anti-choice screeds alone fills a long page:
http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/abortion.htm

From 2000: http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/breitkreuzgpress/marriage3.htm

Garry Breitkreuz, M.P. for Yorkton-Melville, was clearly disappointed with the loss of yet another hard fought battle to the Liberals over Bill C-23 which Breitkreuz had renamed, The Death of Marriage Act.

And hey -- that one wasn't even about same-sex marriage; just about benefits for unmarried heterosexual couples.

I'll let the interested browse the rest of his Falwellian archives for themselves.

You guys really do come up with some charmers!

.

[MrBenchley]

15. The RKBA crowd has only the nicest playmates...

[iverglas]

16. and I should have made myself clearer

I'm not too sure what the police (which includes a little more than police unions) are saying about the firearms registry these days.

But if I want to know, I will look for sources that are a little more likely to report the facts objectively -- all the facts -- and a little less likely to be selecting things some police have said that supports what they themselves are saying. Breitkrautz calling his compendium "what police have said about the gun registry" ... well, it isn't actually false (police have indeed said it), but it isn't exactly straightforward, since it is, factually, a selection of what a selection of police have said about the gun registry.

Breitkreutz has campaigned against the firearms registry since its inception. Lots of people and groups and institutions in Canadian society have supported it -- people who are just as credible and have just as much stake in the issues, both personally and professionally, as the police -- and I don't see Breitkreutz quoting any of them.

Certainly there is divided opinion in Canada about the registry -- including among the police in various places and in various manifestations (police management, police unions, police oversight agencies).

But really, saying that the firearms registry has not reduced violent crime in Canada -- when the bleeding thing isn't even completely up and running yet, and when the biggest fool on earth knows perfectly well that the effects, if any, of such a program are going to come in the medium or long term -- well, really. Disingenuous is the kindest word that comes to mind.

A program is evaluated based on its stated objectives, not based on something someone dreams up and says it oughta have done. If anybody wants to make an argument that the firearms registry program has failed in its stated objectives (or hell, even that it is likely to fail in its stated objectives), I'd invite him/her to do so.

.

[MrBenchley]

17. One wonders how and where

the Gotta Geta Gun fraternity stumbled upon this right wing bozo...

[iverglas]

18. didncha see?

http://www.rfcsask.ca

The "Recreational Firearms Community of Saskatchewan", which pretty much seems to be All Garry, All the Time.

Now, if it were my province, I'd have some questions for some of the listed members of that outfit. But it's Saskatchewan, best described as one o' those "redneck socialist" places (Saskatchewan is why the excellent, and gay, Svend Robinson, M.P., was not elected national leader of the NDP a few years ago), in its own way even odder than Alberta. Kinda like Maine, mebbe. ;)

.

[NorthernSpy]

19. yeah, mebbe

Re Alberta, et al:


A lot of western Canada was settled by Americans who crossed the border for land giveaways. Go back a little further, and you find that in their drive west, Americans fell into two basic camps: the New England culture and the Virginian culture. The result all over the West is a patchwork of political, social, cultural norms and trends that seem to trace back to these two original settlements -- New England and Virginia -- and their progeny in the upper and lower Midwest. This may account for the Texas North that is Alberta, and for the strangely unCanadian 'conservatism' of the new Conservative Party.*


Mary


*I mean, how else do you account for the complete absence of the kind of "social-solidarity" conservatism that used to be so characteristic of Canadian Tories? What we're seeing looks a lot more like the pseudolibertarian garrison-state conservatism of the American South and those parts of the West that have a strong Southern influence.

The point is that whatever this bunch is so bent on conserving, it isn't Canadian political traditions, and so their name is really false advertising, if you think about it.

[iverglas]

20. oh, absolutely

The point is that whatever this bunch is so bent on conserving, it isn't Canadian political traditions, and so their name is really false advertising, if you think about it.

And so I am heard to say, constantly. John Diefenbaker is spinning in his grave, I have no doubt. (Dief was from Alberta, and was prime minister from 1957 to 1963, and was ousted in the first round of "liberalizing", in the classical sense, the Conservative Party.)

As the folks in Stringband said about Trudeau, a "liberal" Liberal, a few years back:

Now we got a man up in Ottawa
got ice water in his veins.
You know that he don't give a shit about you
and he don't hear when you complain.

But Dief came out of Prince Albert,
he was raised in the prairie grain.
And he always had a hand for the working man
and you know Dief will be the Chief again.

Dief is the Chief, Dief is the Chief ...

Big influences in Alberta include money (oil money, big money, and a thus a province that hasn't had many financial problems in the past) and the most virulent forms of fundamentalist christianity.

That "social solidarity" -- which was evident even in the less "Red Tory" tradition in Canada, prior to Brian Mulroney -- is indeed the modern manifestation of the old "conservative" tradition of noblesse oblige: the god-assigned responsibility of the well-to-do for the welfare of the less well-to-do. They usually made a hash of it, workhouses and poorhouses and almshouses and the like, but that's what often tends to happen to gods' instructions when people put their own spins on them.

"Conservatism" in the US, and the conservatism of the present-day "Conservative Party" in Canada, is in fact, in economic terms, "neo-liberalism", not conservatism at all.

What they do take from old-style conservatism, and take to the extreme, is a "collectivist" approach to individual liberties that involves interference in individuals' private lives, by both prohibiting/not protecting and denying the benefits associated with individual choices in private matters. Old-style conservatives relied on social/societal pressure, for the most part, to deal with, say, unwed mothers and homosexuals, and on denying them the benefits of social approval. Now that society as a whole is much more "collectivized" -- public schools, whole ranges of public benefits for private choices like marriage -- they have to be more interventionist and actually outlaw the private choices they disapprove of and/or officially deny people who make them the public benefits other choices produce.

On that political-compass graph, our old Tories would be moderately collectivist economically, perhaps not even on the right-hand side of the axis, but also moderately individualist on the personal-liberties side of the graph. Whereas these guys are way right on economics *and* way down at the bottom on the personal-liberties axis.
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/index.html

The US just never had that "conservative" tradition; it got caught up in the 18th century explosion of "liberalism", institutionalized it, and having rejected all of the elements of conservatism, had nothing to mix with liberalism and get what became social-democracy in the rest of the world. But what is properly called "liberalism", outside the US, is very definitely right-wing in economic terms, by today's standards. And that's where our new Tories stand. Only slightly to the right of the Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, of course. ;)

.