The Gun Registry and the Great Divider

This is the place I came from. I sometimes call it a town, but it's really just a village.

I took this picture standing in a field full of sheep. Baaaaa. A couple of days before, I assisted at the birth of a cow. Mooooo. And when I was a boy I saw farmers protect their animals with guns. Bang. Bang.

So now that I'm living in a city I think I can safely say, I know both sides of the Great Urban Rural Divide.

And because I love both sides. How could I not? It really really pisses me off to see how Stephen Harper and his ugly Cons are using the gun registry to divide Canadians.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper rarely got through a speech here during his five-day tour of northern Manitoba and the territories without mentioning the crucial vote over whether to abolish the registry scheduled for when Parliament resumes in September.

And I hate how the debate is being framed.

Rural voters, the vast majority of whom are white, don’t understand why people in cities want further restrictions on their way of life and a culture that is under threat as Canada becomes ever more urban and multicultural.

I just don't buy it. City folk don't want to torture country folk, or take away their guns. People who live in the country know what community means better than most. And are perfectly capable of filling out a form and registering their guns just like they register their cars.

Because they're not dumb eh? Gun crime and domestic violence are a problem in rural areas just like they are in cities. And so is suicide.

“As a rural emergency physician and coroner, I can safely say that I’ve never seen a handgun injury. I have however seen my share of injuries and deaths inflicted by rifles and shotguns. I have felt the pain of investigating a double murder-suicide as a result of escalating domestic violence. Suicide, contrary to public opinion, is often an impulsive gesture. Keeping guns away from depressed people is essential.

In the assaults and murders I have seen that have involved guns, the perpetrators acted on impulse and the unsafely stored long gun was readily available. Gun-related injury is not just a Toronto problem that involves gangs. It has occurred in my small idyllic rural community and involved people that would otherwise seem quite normal. Registration of firearms is important to ensure accountability and compliance with safe storage.”

So when doctors, and nurses, and police officers and women's groups support the gun registry, both the rube country boy and the city slicker dweller in me agree: it's a good idea eh?

And I support the people who are trying to make us ALL safer.

As Toronto Police Chief William Blair, who heads the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, told the Star, “Frankly I don’t tell hunters how to hunt. I’m not sure why hunters want to tell the police what we need or don’t need to do our jobs.”

And that's all I'm going to say. 

Except that I'll always be proud to be a country boy.

This debate over whether to fill out a form is totally absurd, totally manufactured, and verging on MADNESS.

A man who would defy reason, endanger lives, and pit Canadian against Canadian just to win votes, isn't fit to be Prime Minister. 

We need a Great Divider in this country like we need a gun shot wound.

And the sooner he is defeated the BETTER...