Firearms legislation brings out extremists

To the editor:

The May 11/ 18 editorial published in The Truro Daily News borrowed from the federal Liberals talking points of “balanced”, “common sense” firearms legislation, in referring to the new firearms bill currently working its way through Parliament.

While giving a passing nod to hunters and the tools they use, the writer could not resist taking a swipe at semi-automatic rifles – that hunters supposedly do not use – referring to them as having “no use except to do harm to other people.”

If a rabbit or a duck could talk they would in all probability agree, rather than meet their demise, as so many of them do, with a handy semi-auto 22 or light weight semi- auto shotgun.

Continued borrowing from the Liberals paints a picture of two extremes: the rabid gun owner, unopen to compromise and the equally unbalanced anti-gunner.

In between, the Liberal saviours and the “majority” of the public, that in typical Canadian fashion are all about compromise.

Apparently, the writer forgot not only to read the memo on hunter uses of semi-autos but the memo that the rabid anti-gunners – that the Liberals current firearms bill “saves” responsible gun owners from – want semiautos banned.

It is a curious, brave new world where the “majority” of citizens and media outlets are the voices of reason holding two extremes at bay by proposing to do what the Liberals presently quantify as extreme.

Lumping one’s self in with extremists to oppose extremists - how 2018!

While there is nothing in the new Liberal legislation that makes reference to a blanket ban on semi-autos I am sure that they will not be offended by this editorial attempting to outLiberal the Liberals.

One would think, after gun owners sounded the early warning many years ago, well before the auditor general, that the Liberals’ previous firearms legislation would crash and burn, taking billions of taxpayers’ dollars with it, that media would take heed occasionally.

Al Muir,

Plymouth