Sticking to his guns

In response to the letter from Graham Armour (“Take some pride in Canada’s sensible gun laws,” The Telegram, May 22), he isn’t surprised that I’m amazed and I’m not surprised that he is wrong, as usual.

To start, I began by pointing out that in the “Guns Blazing” editorial (The Telegram, May 11), the writer stated that semi-automatic firearms have no purpose other than to hurt people and that a majority of Atlantic Canadians are opposed to them.

I pointed out that semi-automatic firearms are used by hunters and sport shooters quite extensively and that the author has no evidence of how many people favour or oppose their use.

Armour then accuses me of not researching my statements and incorrectly accuses me of saying that Bill C-71 is about banning semiautomatic firearms.

I said no such thing.

What he fails to notice himself is that Bill C-71 does, indeed, prohibit a number of presently non-restricted semi-automatic firearms, namely some of the CZ858 and Swiss Arms firearms. Far from trying to regale the public with my ownership of an FN, I made the comparison to the way the FN was allowed to be brought to a range for a couple of years and then determined to be too dangerous to move. Exactly the same as these present new prohibs are being approached. Also, Armour accuses me of being disingenuous about my FN being a select-fire assault rifle. My FN is a Ishapore 1A1 FN FAL that was manufactured as a semi-automatic, with no select-fire or full-auto capability. It is a 12.5 prohib.

If it was as he describes, it would be a full auto 12.2 class prohib or a 12.3 converted full-auto prohib. Again, open mouth, insert foot. High-capacity magazines have been banned in Canada since the 1990s, hardly a component of Bill C-71.

I am not the least bit ashamed to compare an inanimate object like a van being misused to kill to a firearm, which is also an inanimate object that can be misused to do harm. I have a hard time taking pride in laws that punish and restrict the law-abiding gun owner, while having no effect on the criminals who care nothing about the law.

Also, Mr. Armour, do you think it’s a coincidence that Canada having one-tenth the gun deaths of the U.S.A. may be related to Canada having one-tenth the population of the U.S.A?

In closing I will say that I don’t appreciate the personal attacks on myself and the NRA coming from an individual that is obviously uninformed of which he speaks and who seems to have some sort of an axe to grind with the NRA and with anyone who owns firearms for any purpose other than hunting.

I own firearms for sport shooting and for the historical value.

I do not hunt (although I have no issue with hunting or hunters) because I have no interest in killing anything other than a paper target. Scott Manning,

Still a proud NRA, NFA and CPC member Torbay