63 Replies to “Be It Resolved: “Lorne Gunter is Canada’s smartest columnist””

  2. Barbara Kay: “But I don’t get the semi-automatic thing, since it’s only purpose is to mow down enemies by spraying bullets around so promiscuously…”
    *sigh* Whatever Babs – Usually one has to know and understand something before getting it.
    But I’m not a columnist.

  4. I found it terribly depressing that of the entire panel, only Chris Selley and Lorne Gunter even touched on the “no, the onus is on you to explain why we can’t, not the other way around.”
    And as a former teenager, I just about cringed when Barbara put her foot in the “semi-automatic” quagmire. Although not as much as McParland’s constant “nobody needs a sniper rifle” bollocks, as if sniper rifles are somehow different from hunting rifles.

  5. Sigh! People who don’t understand an issue shouldn’t debate it. Legal firearm owners have been required to pass police check and be licensed since the early 1980’s and this will not change, in addition to firearm safety courses that are mandatory now, but weren’t prior to FAC’s coming in. Handguns (and some long guns) have been listed as restricted or prohibited since WW2 and this also doesn’t change. Ironic that a huge problem right now is handgun crime, which boils down to poor law enforcement,as registration hasn’t worked preventing handgun crime. Stats Canada data shows that gun crime has been on the decline since mid 1970’s, and there has been no change to the rate of decline during the long gun registry era, thus negating the argument that the long gun registry reduces gun crime. And my final point to these so called expert reporters…I am a gun owner and not a criminal. Treat real criminals as such and leave me out of it.

  6. Lorne Gunter = Western Canadian
    The rest = Ontarians and Quebeckers?
    As a Westerner, I’m thrilled to be part of a distinct society.

  7. Gunter won with his last statement,it’s about freedom and property rights,which is why most of us are against “gun control”,a political exercise and nothing else. Give the GC advocates an inch….
    McParland argues from ignorance on “sniper rifles”. Almost every hunting rifle in use today is a sniper rifle,including several of mine. Any rifle equipped with a scope is a potential sniper rifle.
    Kelly should talk with some hunters about WHY one has a scope instead of iron sights. It’s about a clean kill,Kelly. And local hunting conditions.
    Some shooters just love those SKS Chinese made pieces of junk. I suppose you could hunt deer with them,most of us would rather have a finely tuned hunting rifle with scope,but some folks just love the rapid bang-bang of the semi-autos.
    The guys who own the SKS’s are among my least favourite gun owners as they come to my rifle range,which has no warden on site, and shoot the hell out of the place. Targets,target holders,the posts that hold the target holders are all blasted to hell in rapid fire.
    They also drag old stereos and other junk,like 10-pin bowling balls,to the range and blow the hell out of them,and leave their garbage scattered all over the Range.
    Then,when annual cleanup day comes around,they are suddenly “busy”.
    Good post,I’d like to have taken part in the debate in person.

  8. As far as I’m concerned, there should be absolutely no restrictions on any kind of weapon that I want to own. If I am found to be a trustworthy person and have a firearms aquisition certificate (FAC), then I should be able to buy a canon if I want to. It doesn’t matter if I never use it or if I use it to try to shoot my old car. If I am not a criminal – I should be able to have it. Same goes for handguns. Yes, handguns are used in crime but so are machetes, knives, bats, sticks, fists, etc. I’m not a ciminal and I should be able to own one without registering it. The government should not be able to tell me what I can and can’t have as long as I’m not hurting anyone else. If I want an Apache helicopter, I should be able to get one if I can afford it.

  9. dmorris: Ahem…as one of those “guys who own the SKS’s”, I am sorry for your experence. My $200 1950 Russian SKS shoots 1″ groups at 100m with an $89 scope and hunting ammo. This rifle will be perfect for my 11 year old once he is old enough to shoot deer. Low recoil = no flinch and better accuracy for beginners. It’s cheap to shoot too!
    Gunter is my favourite NP columnist by far!! McParland drives me nuts with his “why do you need a sniper rifle”. He is so ignorant he should be embarrassed.

  10. Let’s say you are a cop called to a family disturbance. You get to the scene and the gun registry records show no guns are legally owned by the home’s occupants. Do you go to the door unprepared or do you go ready just in case? If you go in unprepared you may be smart enough to be a politically driven Police Chief but you are too stupid to be a cop.
    Likewise for gun control supporters, since you prefer criminals having weapons over my ability to defend my family, in my mind you are too stupid to vote.
    Stay home and watch Glee, place your own faith in a call to 911 and let me place my faith in myself – and, yes, my guns.

  11. I recall Lorne writing some columns in praise of a remote sensing guy who claimed that his satellite data showed less tropospheric warming than all the other measurements indicated.
    Over the top praise, to be charitable about it; he proclaimed John Christy to be a modern-day Copernicus.
    But it turned out that his copernicus couldn’t calculate his orbits.

  12. I don’t want (or own) a firearm but I don’t see the point of the long gun registry.
    I do want a Predator drone though!

  13. I second that motion, Kate!
    And I’ve always been a real fan of the feisty, straight-up Barbara Kay: her apparently, metro-enamoured, leftward-moving son, not so much. If the NP caves—like the Conservatives too often seem to do—I’ll be royally pi**ed off. (And perhaps cancel my subscription: first, the Globe and Mail, then McLeans, which we only got because of Mark Steyn. Next, the NP? I sincerely hope not.)
    It’s about Cain (as in Herman, but, appropriately, also about evil and betrayal), not the gun registry issue, but, over at National Review: Andrew McCarthy asks, “Why Does the Right Still Play by the Left’s Rules?”
    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/281880/cain-andrew-c-mccarthy
    Kyrie eleison.

  14. “There’s another point missed in this discussion: the concept of “need” is antithetic to democracy where the citizens are sovereign,” says Gunter.
    That this needs to be pointed out to the various National Post editors is the part of the debate that concerns me the most. It shows the sorry state of Conservatism in Canada. What a disappointment these people are.
    It is also disappointing that “conservative” Michael Coren is chummy with “conservative” David Frum. Frum is also chummy with these same “conservative” editors at the National Post. Frum considers Ronald Reagan to be yesterday’s man. Frum’s wife: “conservative” Danielle Crittenden, is the Editor of Huffington Post Canada (I’m not kidding!) and is, in her own words, “anti-Palin”, a view shared by her husband.
    They all call themselves conservatives. Where I come from, we would call them something else.

  16. When you constantly have to go to your rulers and beg “Please sir may I have some more” You should have a clue to the state of your slavery…. democracy is a fable told to keep the sheep asleep and toiling for their masters.

  17. People only need one style of shoe. Why have closets full of shoes? Those high-heeled ones are especially dangerous and only appeal to women with self-esteem issues. Tell women to grow up and ban every type of shoe except plain white sneakers.

  18. Barbara Kay and Kelly Mcpherson are clearly dangerous people who are openly advocating for, (whilst using half baked incorrect facts), the further STATE confiscation of our individual liberties and property.
    If we follow their argument, there is no proven “need” for either of these people to be on earth. I’m not convinced and I haven’t heard one good reason “why anybody needs” these two. They do want to limit our freedom which is destructive and harmful, their argument would therefore suggest the government eliminate them, based on their own argument of “need” and the STATE’s place to eliminate everything that is not “needed” that could be harmful to other individuals. Your argument requires you prove you are “needed” Kelly, otherwise you’re toast. Right now I’d like to listen to them try to convince me of why each of them “need” to be.
    Journalists our intellectual superiors.

  19. Some people want guns for hunting and rodent dismissal, but many people want guns because their fear their fellow citizens and fear their government.
    “It can’t happen here doe doe dote n doe doe” – Frank Zappa

  20. Be It Resolved: “Lorne Gunter is Canada’s smartest columnist”
    And, about the only one who understands civil liberties.

  22. Set you free:
    Do you never get tired of thinking Ontario/Quebec bad, West good?
    It’s boringly repetitive and a tad bit schoolyard kid stuff.
    Our area of Ontario is full of red-necked, plaid flannel shirt, hunting boot types that can’t be distinguished in any way from the western variety.
    Just a little rougher round the edges maybe.

  23. gellen:
    Apparently, none of our brethren from Ontario/Quebec are on the editorial board of NP.

  24. Do these idiots really need as much air as they’re using? If they’d STFU, we could reduce global warming.
    Good for Gunter who makes the only reasonable argument.

  25. All I read was a lot of people who don’t know anything about what they are talking about.
    Lorne as usual does.

  26. This whole ‘debate’ is why you should never register your firearms in the first place.

  27. It would seem that McParland likes to set up straw men for target practice. Mines aren’t available to the general public (as far as I know), and Predator drones are not available for sale to the private sector. Even if they were, they would be unlikely to have the military-grade avionics and loadouts. Plus, you actually have to know how to fly to operate one. Which of these applies to a scoped rifle?
    I don’t think I can respect McParland any more, presuming I did in the first place.
    In Kay’s defense, she seems to have taken the correction on semi-auto. The rest of her comments seemed largely to be fine.

  28. Not sure what’s happening with the NP lately but at least Gunter is a voice of reason. He and George Jonas along with Rex Murphy give hope that there are still right thinking people out there. (along with everyone who reads SDA of course).

  29. Am I missing something? The debate I read featured Matt Gurney, but there was no reference Lorne Gunter.

  31. I’m not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to firearms but is it possible some of the panel were thinking about .50BMG caliber sniper rifles rather than ‘regular’ hunting rifles with scopes?

  32. What is sad that several of these people at the Post know nothing about rifles/carbines. At least no-one bemoaned ready access to “high power” weapons.
    Several recent articles have wailed on about the allure of “military style” rifles. So what? It’s not what a gun looks like that does damage. What is important is whether or not its length, firing and magazine capabilities, are legal or not.
    Mark
    Ottawa

  34. Citizens own firearms, subjects and slaves register them or ask someone else’s permission to possess them.

  35. I read this yesterday and noticed most of the sensible points were nade by Matt Gurney.
    He also had a Knowledgeable column last week on the same subject
    Lorne Gunter has one good,lengthy comment at the end. There is enough credit here to go round.

  36. Lorne Gunter is a very good columnist, but he’s an even better speaker.
    Listening to him on the Western Standard cruises one got the impression there was nothing he didn’t know about the subject he was discussing.
    On the CWB he cut to the chase, it is a freedom issue, the rest is noise, same with the gun registry, it’s about freedom.
    We should be seeing him on SunTV….

  37. Speaking personally I really wouldn’t care if my neighbour owned a Predator Drone or several landmines. I would care if he was attempting or succeeded in using one to kill people.
    Once again with feeling. Its not the tool that is the problem its the person using the tool that causes problems. A person is just as dangerous with any potential weapon should that person decide to go on a destructive rampage. How many people were killed with fertilizer or natural gas or….

  38. I am amazed at how uninformed some of these people are. Are they too busy to do a little research? If they have no expertise or experience in an area why do they feel qualified to debate it? If I knew as little about guns (ie the infamous ‘sniper rifle’ nonsense) as some of these famous colomnists do i would keep my mouth shut for fear of being exposed as an idiot. Funny how it doesnt stop them…I guess that old saying about opinions being like buttholes never really sunk in.

  39. I don’t get it — every good hunter is in fact a “sniper”. And the kind of rifle a hunter uses is in fact a “sniper rifle”. There’s no dang way you could be successful at killing big game unless you can shoot accurately from hundreds of metres away. That’s precisely what a sniper — i.e. hunter — does.
    Mass murderers with machine guns and automatics are not “snipers” — any idiot can take a gun like that and run around with it in a crowded place and kill all kinds of people with their eyes closed. And suppose if they did it in a zoo — where big game is crowded together and caged — then would they be called hunters!?

  45. It’s pretty sad to realize how many columnists for the “Conservative” Post are big government knows best pussies.

  46. Excellent post Kate. Folks just don’t get it. Human beings are social predators. More akin to wolves than Monkeys.
    Some people are completely anti-social, while others are so territorial they try to control everything & everybody.
    The Alpha males & Females sometimes are ogres.
    The crux of it is we all not only need this tool for use in rural areas but against those who would like sharks kill us with no qualms.
    The Police have become social workers for the very monsters who assail us.
    Gunther is right, why should citizens have to go hat in hand to the top dogs? When this is supposed to be a Democracy. With the right to life , to pick our own leaders, to protect our families or even hunt. You know the activity that has kept the human race alive before agriculture?
    Most of those arguing fall into the control at all costs crowd who themselves live in virtual castles.
    Than buy groceries at safe way, so their delicate consciences can be spared the brutal truth of living on Earth.
    Gunther has the right of it. We owe the control freaks nothing but contempt.

  49. My $200 1950 Russian SKS shoots 1″ groups at 100m with an $89 scope and hunting ammo. Posted by: carsonH at November 2, 2011 12:03 PM
    Wow. You’re lucky. I’ve test-fired several sks rifles (CCCP and Chinese)and they didn’t group worth a damn.
    But, I’m off topic. Agree with the rest of your post.

  50. I forgot to include Matt Gurney, so high fives to him also. It appears that Kelly would not know a sniper rifle from a water pistol. Any decent rifle with a good scope can be a sniper rifle.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation