Re: "Blanks" kill actors

["R.H.Campbell" <rh.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Shaun, I have stayed pretty much out of this thread because it deals with
American situations. As you may or may not know, our laws in Canada are in
many ways pretty horrible as far as the bureaucratic restrictions put on
legitimate owners; however, in matters of safety, they do deal adequately
with training and safe storage. We do have laws dealing with trigger locks
as well, but there is no way of knowing whether they work or not, since most
gun owners in rural areas either don't bother with such things, or have
chosen to ignore the laws because they simply are not practical in those
areas. And in the cities where it's more applicable, the minority who have
chosen to register their firearms and keep them locked up with a trigger
lock on them as the law requires, don't advertise it for fear of theft. And
those who don't follow the law don't advertise either for obvious reasons.
However, on occasion, some child does get hold of a firearm and shoots
himself or a playmate, and our laws ensure the owner is charged with a
serious offence. Whether trigger locks help or not in the overall scheme of
things, I can't say, but it's logical to assume they do to some degree (all
firearms must be unloaded, stored under lock and key, with a trigger lock on
them)

The one area where I might take exception to what you say is in regards to
how the news media treat the issue of gun control. I have been following
this issue for over 30 years, and I can say with absolute 100% assurance
that the news media do a very poor job of showing both sides of the gun
control issue. Time and time again, they completely distort the issue
ensuring that people only see one side - always the negative side. So much
so, that any reasonable person knowing anything at all about the issue, can
only conclude they are doing so deliberately, or are completely incompetent
in their reporting abilities. I once met with the editor of a large daily
paper here in Ottawa on this issue, and I'll always remember his words..."
We're running a business here, and we have to fill a large number of pages
daily with news. Is it any wonder that a lot of it is not researched very
well, or just plain wrong"...(or words to that effect)

One can only conclude that if they present such a distorted, negative and
one sided view of this issue to the public, what are they reporting when it
comes to the millions of other issues in the news.

Scary stuff....

R.H.Campbell
Home Security Metal Products
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
www.homemetal.com


"Shaun Eli" <missingchild@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1126525031.009224.122870@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> If you believe that even a conservative newspaper like the NY Post
> deliberately omits news stories that show gun owners using their guns
> to stop criminals, and that this happens several hundred thousand times
> a year yet a vast conspiracy is keeping this out of the news, I don't
> know what more I can say to you.
>
> Except we do agree on much-- obviously a safety course isn't going to
> force a trigger lock on someone, but it may make them realize the
> advantages.  Just like all those gory driver ed films probably do get
> some students to think about seat belts, not driving drunk, etc.  And
> before you start saying that they're ineffective, I think thirty or
> forty years of actuarial studies would prove that wrong.
>
> As far as the NRA doing something 'right' because they have a lot of
> supporters, well, doing something that favors their members doesn't
> make it right.
>
> And in addition to the news stories about kids finding daddy's gun and
> shooting little Timmy by accident, there are also news stories about
> daddy going to jail.  Yes, they lock him up.  Sometimes even when it's
> his OWN kid who died.
>