Gun Control And the Women Who Made It A Canadian Value

Growing up in Montreal I was haunted by the picture of these murdered women. 

Murdered at the École Polytechnique more than 30-years-ago.

Savagely slaughtered just for being women, by a man who hated feminists.

The Heroic Healers of the Las Vegas Massacre

I am trying to avoid watching TV stories or reading anything more about the Las Vegas massacre.

Even though I am still curious about what could have driven someone to commit something so senseless and so murderous.

I can't handle any more of that misery and that madness.

But I do want to take a minute to recognize some true heroes.

The Day Donald Trump Went Over the Deep End

He was already the most dangerous demagogue ever to run for President of the United States.

He is a foul bigot, a creepy misogynist, a bloated narcissist with delusions of grandeur.

He has exceeded the bounds of human decency over and over again.

But now Donald Trump has finally gone too far.

Why Does Stephen Harper Want to Turn Us Into Bloody Amerika?

I try not to watch too much American TV news, because what's happening in this diseased Harperland is crazy enough.

And because every time I do watch it these days, it seems another black man is being killed by a white police officer for no sane reason.

And when I see someone handcuff a human being after shooting him six times in the back, as the South Carolina police officer Michael Slager did to Walter Scott, makes me almost physically ill... 



Because as I've said before, my heroes are healers not killers.

And this too could only happen in cruel, crazy, blood soaked Amerika. 

Harper's Canada and the Attack on Parliament Hill

I'm sure you've all seen the pictures of this nightmare day on Parliament Hill, this criminal assault on our democracy. 

So all I have to say tonight is this:

(1) To the crazy fanatics who killed a young soldier today and another one in Quebec the other day: you and your kind will not intimidate us.

And we will remember Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and  Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent​...



Long after we have forgotten their cowardly killers. 

The Incredibly Incompetent Comic Adventures of Peter Dumbo MacKay

OK. Before I write another word, I want to make one thing perfectly clear eh? I'm biased.

I have ALWAYS had a very poor opinion of Peter Dumbo MacKay.

From the moment he was suckered into selling out the Progressive Conservative Party to the Reform Alliance. 

And became Stephen Harper's hapless stooge, or useful idiot.

To the ghastly moment not long ago when he tried to smear the Chief Justice by accusing her of making an improper phone call she never made...

Stephen Harper and the Burning Hypocrisy of the Cons

It must have been a frightening apparition in New York City today. Like a scary blimp in the Macy's parade eh?

Stephen Harper as Great Mother Leader, posing as a friend of women and children, while floating on a cloud of toxic hypocrisy. 

The Gun Lobby Goes After the Harper Cons

Well it seemed like a good idea at the time eh?

Kill the long gun registry, screw those dead women, get the RCMP to hide the cost of destroying the records.

And pleasure his rabid base.

Because he thought they would be easily satisfied...



But unfortunately for Great Majority Hunter Leader they weren't. 

Commander Harper and the Guns of June

Well he's been acting a little strangely lately.

The stress of watching the flood waters AND the opposition advancing, has clearly driven him over the edge.

He's been dressing up in a military uniform and pretending to be Great Commander Leader.

But while his pathetic phony photo-ops are hilarious, this is the absolute limit. 

Stephen Harper and the Newtown Massacre

Well I see that the camera caught Stephen Harper in an unusually tender moment.

Claiming that he had to turn off the TV when the sights and sounds of the Newtown Massacre became too much to bear. 

“I think once you’ve been a father, you’re affected by the deaths of children in a much more profound way than other people. It’s hard for me to talk about it,” he said in a one-on-one interview with Global National anchor Dawna Friesen. 

“It’s hard for me to imagine how anybody can be so deranged, so angry, so troubled that they would do such a thing. It’s really beyond our comprehension.”

Which was all very moving eh? If it wasn't so phony. Or so deranged.

Vic Toews and the Bushmaster Man Card

Uh oh. Zombie alert. As if the Newtown Massacre wasn't scary enough, here comes Vic Toews, the Minister of Public Insecurity.

Stumbling out of his crypt to claim that the Cons are protecting Canadians from gun violence.

"We made (it) very clear that there are certain types of firearms that simply should not be in the hands of civilians. They have a very specific police or military purpose, but we believe that they should not be in the hands of ordinary citizens," Toews said.

While conveniently forgetting to mention that the assault rifle that killed all those children and their teachers is easily available in Canada.

Guns, God, Madness, and the Harper Cons

I was glad to see Obama visit the latest community in America to be shattered by gun violence. And I was happy to hear him say this.

"We can't tolerate this any more. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. 

So maybe all the poor little children, and the brave adults who tried to save them, didn't die in vain.

But I just wish Obama had mentioned the word "gun" instead of invoking "God" so many times. Because there was more than enough God and madness in America today.

The Slaughtered Children and the Gun Nutz

I'm sure you know how I feel about guns and gun violence. And how I feel about those who hurt children.

So you can imagine how I feel about this horror.

A heavily armed man opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school Friday leaving 27 dead — including 20 children — and forcing students to cower in classrooms and then flee with the help of teachers and police.

But for hours I wasn't able to write anything about it. I had to write about something else. Not because I was sad, although I was. But because I was so angry.

The Montreal Massacre and the Shameless Cons

It's hard to believe that it's been 23 years since their lives ended so suddenly and so brutally.

Their faces still stare out at us, so young and full of hope.

If they had lived some of them might have kids in university today. And some of their daughters might be studying to be engineers, striding confidently down a road that their mothers helped pave.

For let's never forget that they were pioneers, proud young women making a place for other women, in a male dominated profession. And that's why Marc Lepine killed them.

The Long-Gun Registry Lives !!!!!

At least in Québec.

The federal government’s plan to destroy all data from its long-gun registry is unconstitutional, a judge has ruled, giving Ottawa 30 days to hand to Quebec records collected from the province’s gun owners.

“Quebec didn’t embark in the project of setting up a registry knowing that it would later be deprived of the fruit of its co-operation,” the judge wrote in a 42-page decision.

Glory, glory, hallelujah.

The Montreal Massacre and the Murdered Legacy

I'm glad the Harper Cons weren't invited to this sad ceremony on Parliament Hill.

For how could those grotesque Cons mourn those murdered women? When they are greasing up their guns to murder their legacy.

“Even as we mourn the 14 women killed at l’École Polytechnique, this government is taking the last remaining safeguard off the very weapon that murdered these women,” Ms. Turmel said. “The Conservatives are recklessly dismantling the only positive thing to come out of the tragic events of Dec. 6.”

Spitting on their graves, and shattering the lives of those who loved them, and along with so many others worked so hard for 22 years to make Canada a safer place.

Free from this kind of violence... 

The Slow Death of the Gun Registry

I see that the bill to kill the long-gun registry has passed second reading in the House of Commons. And what an ugly sight it was. The Cons on their feet yelling "Yippee" and "Yahoo" like a bunch of drunken rednecks.

I've already written a post about my feelings on this issue. So I'll leave it up to Sabina and this righteous cowboy to say what needs to be said.

And all I'll add is this:

(1) I will never apologize for wanting a kinder, gentler world with less guns and less violence. For that's what being a progressive means to me, and so does being a Canadian. 

(2) I will never forgive the Cons for endangering the lives of police officers, paramedics and other first responders. Some of whom are my friends. By depriving them of a useful tool to take guns out of the hands of criminals, the mentally ill, and men who kill women.

(3) I will work tirelessly to unite the left, and join the struggle to redistribute seats in this country, so a small group of rural gun nutz can't tell most Canadians who live in cities how to live their lives. Just because they're too dumb, too greedy, or too paranoid to put the good of society before their selfish interests. 

(4) Once again I am proud to come from Quebec the last bastion of Canadian values.

Quebec has opened up a second front in the fight against Ottawa’s law-and-order agenda, refusing to pay for higher prison costs flowing from a federal omnibus anti-crime bill and blasting the legislation as counter-productive.

The Quebec government is also in a dispute with Ottawa over its decision to kill the long-gun registry, suggesting it will go to court to get the information it contains on gun ownership in the province and set up its own database.

And if that great people ever decide they must leave Canada to preserve those values, I will gladly go with them. For I do not consent to live in a country with the values of rural Alberta. Or Alabama.

And finally, as I said before, I will never forget the murdered women of the École Polytechnique, whose precious legacy was the gun registry. That legacy has been trampled upon by the Cons, who believe that a woman's place is in the kitchen, or on her knees with her mouth open.

It has been betrayed by the indifference of progressives, too old or too tired to fight the good fight. Or remember what the struggle for women's rights is all about.

But I won't forget those murdered women, or all the others killed by violent men with guns.  We will fight those Amerikan Cons forever.

And we will remember...



Oh yeah.... one more thing. Gun nutz please don't bother sending me any comments, for I will delete them upon arrival. Save your spit to oil your rifles.

You didn't really think you could threaten the lives of others, destroy a data base, and get away with it did you?

Enjoy your smelly little victory you ghastly Con teabaggers, for it will not last long... 

The New Con Assault on the Gun Registry

Hee Haw. Blow me a dog whistle. I see Stephen Harper's Cons are going all out to try to buy the votes of their rabid duck hunter gun nutter base.

By putting up even MORE porky billboards.

The huge 10-by-20 foot billboards will go up in the key ridings early this week, calling on constituents to pressure the local MPs to vote with the government and support Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill to scrap the registry later this month.

And referring the rednecks... who can read....to their fancy website.

Because they and their friends in the big gun lobby got all the money eh?

While those of us who believe in a less violent Canada, must rely on the humble power of reason and gentle persuasion.

You know that homicide rates for women in rural communities across Canada are higher because of the availability of guns. You know that, while many gun owners use their weapons responsibly, women in those same rural communities are painfully aware that the shotguns and rifles in their homes are not just used for duck and moose hunting. Their injured and sometimes fatally wounded bodies are, too often, the damning evidence.

To save the lives of women in rural and urban areas. As well as the lives of police officers, teenagers, and so many others.

“Too bad none of today's MPs were there with them, as I was, that awful, heart-searing day in 1975 when a kid with two long guns in a duffle bag shot up Brampton Centennial Secondary School, killing 17-year-old John Slinger and teacher Margaret Wright, and seriously wounding nine students before killing himself ... Too bad the prime minister can't face the surviving Slinger children, Rob and Jayne, and make his argument for getting rid of the registry in front of them.”
Oh boy. Don't you hate those gun nutters who would sacrifice all those lives just because they're too lazy, ignorant, selfish or paranoid to fill out a simple form?

But here's the good news eh? When the AmeriCon porkers say this:

"These MPs need to be reminded they work for their constituents who want the long-gun registry scrapped, not their Ottawa bosses who want to keep it."

The same thing applies to THEIR MPs in urban areas where the gun registry is popular.

Don't they need to be reminded they work for their constituents who want to save the registry, not the slobbering bubbas who want to kill it?

And don't they realize it could cost them?

Because boy will it EVER. If the Cons kill the registry with this whipped government bill, it will trigger the biggest backlash this country has ever seen. No Con seat in an urban area will be safe.

We will make sure their constituents know whose bloody fingerprints are on that cold dead registry.

And of course, like I always say. Because you can't say it ENOUGH.

We will REMEMBER...

Gun Violence and the Other Victims

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...

The Globe, the Goobers, and the Gun Registry

Oh. My. Hee Haw. I see the Globe and Mail is desperately trying to attract new readers... or good ol boys. With this road kill of an editorial.

Or did that guy write it ? Because it's so full of shit manure from beginning to end it might as well have been dictated by the NRA itself.

Look if the Globe is going to encourage rednecks to read.... which is a good thing....  they should really instruct them to read this instead.

So when some gun nut opens and shuts its pie hole rhythmically, and screeches "Guns don't kill people criminals do!!!!! Goober.Goober. And they use hand guns !!!!!! "

They can read this....if they can.

Criminals also use shotguns and rifles. Of the 16 police officer shooting deaths in Canada between 1998 and 2009, 14 were killed by a long gun. Long guns are as lethal as handguns and have been used in domestic violence and in suicides. Most firearm-related deaths are caused by rifles or shotguns with suicides the leading cause of death by firearms in Canada.

Or we can  read it to them. SLOWLY. Remember you have to be pretty dumb not to be able to fill out a form. Or lazy and paranoid and Amerikan.

And when the NRA Globe editorialists say the gun registry doesn't work. We can tell them to have three more scotch and sodas and then hit them with this:

The Firearms Registry, along with the educational measures and safe storage regulations introduced at the same time have worked to reduce rifle and shotgun murders in Canada at a rate far greater than murders by other firearms like handguns. Youth suicide rates by shotguns have also declined more than suicide rates by other means.

And if after that they still don't get it we can try explaining it even more simply. Pausing after every word to let it sink in. Good guys are good guys...... until they shoot their wives. And the gun registry is about more than just fighting the criminals (PAUSE)  It's also about fighting suicide and domestic abuse.















And if the gun registry can save the life of just one woman, or one police officer, or stop one teenager from committing suicide it's more than worth the money spent on it.

And if those goobers STILL don't get it, and are not interested in a compromise, then do what I do, and simply ignore them. 

Tell them to go vote for Stephen Harper...


















Because he's obviously their kind of guy. And they should definitely kiss his big gun. Or sit on it.  

Or better still tell, them go vote for Sarah Palin.

And take their big guns  tiny cannons with them...



I think gun worship is RIDICULOUS.

As well as dangerous and disgusting.

I want to live in Canada not Amerika.

But hey,if these gun nutters want a WAR. 

I say we give them one...