Take some pride in Canada’s sensible gun laws

Re: Scott Manning’s May 19 letter to the editor “Editorial off target on firearms” — Once again Scott Manning is amazed ... and I am not surprised.

He appears to protest the new proposal by Ralph Goodale, to revise Canada’s sensible gun laws. It seems his main point is to portray this as an attack on semi-automatic weapons. Manning should actually read something, before taking up criticism which is laced with inaccuracies. Nowhere in the proposed bill does it refer to a ban on semiautomatic weapons. It is not mentioned once.

Again, Manning seems confused. There is no ban on semiauto weapons in Canada, nor will there be.

What is banned, are high capacity magazines of 20 and 30 rounds which turns any semi-auto weapon into a killing machine, and useless for any legitimate hunting purpose.

As any hunter knows, after the first shot, or the second, your prey is usually long gone if you did not hit the animal. No one needs a highcapacity magazine for hunting. Manning goes on to regale us with a story about his ownership of an FN FAL, which he was told he was not allowed to use at a range. He complains that this weapon is on Canada’s prohibited weapons list. The very nomenclature tells us why: FN is the name of the Belgian manufacturer Fabrique Nationale. The FAL initials mean Fusil Automatique Léger (light automatic rifle).

Manning, in his wisdom, left out the fact that this weapon is a military assault rifle, and is/was used in more than 90 countries, including Canada. He described it as a semi-auto weapon. He just left out the small detail that it is selectable between automatic fire and semiauto. Automatic fire simply means that the gun will discharge all 20 rounds in the standard magazine as long as the trigger is kept depressed at a rate of 700 rounds per minute. It is a killing machine used in battle. Semi-auto means a separate pull of the trigger for each round.

Manning concludes with the fact that he is a “proud” member of the NRA, an American lobby group with the avowed intention of arming citizens in support of their Second Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, which was adopted in 1791.

Today this is misconstrued terribly by the NRA in its effective BS propaganda campaigns, which he swallows hook, line and sinker.

Perhaps Manning should take pride in his own country which has sensible gun laws, and a death by gun rate under one tenth that of the U.S. Canada sees mass shootings thankfully, very rarely, unlike the weekly examples of U.S. tragedy. With more guns in civilian hands there than population and easy access to them, “gun culture” is a leading result of the lack of integrity, values and leadership that plague that country today. He cites examples of gun law failure in the U.K. and Australia as arguments in his favour. Really?

He should look at the death by gun rates in those countries — tiny compared to the U.S.

Using his example of a mentally deranged person in Toronto mowing down innocents with a vehicle, as an argument in a gun-support opinion, is completely disingenuous and he should surely be ashamed. Facts really do count, Mr. Manning.

Graham Armour Kippens