When I write about the victims of gun violence, I don't just think about those whose lives were snuffed out in an instant, by the simple pull of a trigger.
I also think about the survivors and how many other lives were ruined.
Like those who survived the Montreal Massacre.
The injured and witnesses among university staff and students suffered a variety of physical, social, existential, financial, and psychological consequences, including post-traumatic stress disorder. A number of students committed suicide. In the suicide letters of at least two of them, the anguish they suffered following the massacre was cited as the reason for killing themselves.
And those who survived this other day of horror.
A groundbreaking study on fallout of the 2006 shooting at Dawson College in Montreal reveals that nearly one-third of students and staff suffered from psychological trauma in the years after the event.
The study, released Thursday in Montreal, said 30 per cent of people surveyed suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, a major depression, alcohol dependence or a social phobia as a direct result of what they experienced.
Which is why I support any and every measure designed to control firearms and discourage gun ownership in Canada, especially in urban areas.
You know... I looked at the angry words I wrote the night of the Dawson horror.
And four years later I feel sad rather than angry. But I still consider gun control, like medicare, one of the things that sets Canada apart from the United States. One of the things that makes me proud to be Canadian.
I still despise Stephen Harper's Cons for putting their foul ideology before reason and the lives of their own people.
And now after this latest attack on the gun registry, I have absolutely no sympathy for gun owners too lazy, selfish, dumb, and paranoid to fill out a form.
There is no second amendment in this country, no "sacred right" to bear weapons. So if the gun nutz don't like it they should feel free to move to the United States.
Go vote for Sarah Palin.
Or go sing a long with the Terminator...
Yup. They can keep Amerika eh?
I'll keep my kinder, gentler Canada.
I still believe this:
If we want to save the kids. As well as ourselves.
We have to save our country first.
And I will REMEMBER...
