let's go shoot some guns...

I just got back from doing the "Canadian Firearms Safety Course" and can (once my licence arrives) legally store, transport, and handle non-restricted firearms (shotguns and rifles; handguns are restricted and howitzers are sadly "prohibited"). And discharge them, but only in designated areas, obviously.

The guys running the course, although friendly and effective instructors, were frighteningly hardcore. Like ex-Navy SEALs, SWAT members, and generally the kind of people who teach police and military personnel themselves how to use firearms*. But they weren't as scary as some of the other students. Who seemed altogether way too eager to get their hands on fully automatic assault rifles. Or the guy who failed the written part... It seems that some people just shouldn't ever handle a firearm. Yort** comes to mind. Anyway the test was designed by someone in Ottawa, so that any human being with more than 18 brain cells, a vague grasp of the English language, and a understanding of the idea that "guns are dangerous and the government wants you to handle them safely" can pass. Sort of like the "pleasure craft operator's licence" that I got three years ago. In a rather thoughtless manner, the lead instructor marked all the tests at the table directly in front of me and Erik, facing us, making it almost impossible not to notice the score of every person in the class. Almost all were high 90s (need 80 to pass).

However one test was singularly terrible. A mark around 50 was given. This test was intensely basic common-sense stuff. Like "firearms should be removed from potentially violent situations: true or false". You could pass this thing without the 6 bloody hours of course-time. To get it wrong implies that you have no sense of right and wrong, and may be a crazed automaton. The even more frightening thing is that he just had to take it again, orally, and was (from what I could tell) basically walked through it by the instructors (clearly it's in their interests to have a very low fail-rate). During the lunch break, the same guy warned me to watch out for badgers in the mountains. He insisted they were seriously dangerous, and dismissed the dangers of wolves, black bear, mountain lions, wolverines, and grizzlies. He was deadly serious about it, citing tales of badgers fighting bears and winning.

Anyway. I am not a fan of guns at all. I feel that that kind of power is in general more than any person should have. Especially those who are perhaps slightly - unstable. However, in the interest of protection from the hordes of marauding badgers, I'll take the shotgun.

I'm not some misty-eyed dreamer who just wants peace for all and for guns to go away. I take a more logical approach to my somewhat anti-gun stance... mostly I'm in favour of removing handguns from our society (since it's rather difficult to conceal a shotgun or rifle on your person), but it has to start with the illegal trafficking. To outlaw handguns would ensure that the people who get them are those who should least have them. It would be good if the police could use something just as quick-acting but non-lethal, but no such device exists (and the deterrent of death is important, makes the police fearsome). Hunting weapons are okay with me... while I don't condone hunting unless you're actually planning to eat the animal, I do feel a sense of self-preservation and won't mind having a shotgun this summer.

Anyway, since there's no way the police could ever shut down all the gun trafficking, things should stay as they are for now. And I don't want to say "more money for police" to shut down the trafficking. I've never had a bad experience with police, but it does seem to me that so often the wrong sort of person becomes a cop.

A perhaps controversial post. Speak your minds.

PS In a somewhat disconcerting turn of events there was NO firing of guns involved in getting this licence. That's like awarding someone their class 5 driver's licence after doing just the written test. Although that analogy doesn't entirely work because cars kill more than twice as many people per year in this country as guns (2752 car deaths vs 1125 gun deaths). Of gun deaths in our country, 81% are suicides, and the rest are homicides (12%) and accidental (7%). Actually there are more than twice as many cars in Canada than guns, so maybe the analogy does work (25 million cars, 11 million guns).

*I can honestly say that not one of the instructors used the word "gun" at any point, that I heard. It was always "firearm", which they pronounced "fyram" or "frarm".
**Name withheld to protect identity.