I heard about this as my wife and I were picking our children up from school today. These are days that I am thankful I live in Canada.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why another three victims had to pay today for the insane idea that any regulation on firearms in the United States is an affront to freedom. One man is dead, and two twelve year olds have gun shot wounds.
What about their freedom?
Mike Landsberry’s right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness ended today because of the failure of America to get its love of guns and gun ownership under control. He went to school to teach, instead he ended up dead. Doesn’t seem right.
Let’s get something straight. Canadians do not hate guns. In fact, we have a lot of gun owners in this country. The rate of gun ownership is about the same as it is in the USA. The difference is we have decided as a people that guns are a tool, like a hammer or a saw, or like an automobile, and not something to be worshipped. They are a consumer item and nothing more. As a tool they are subject to proper safety precautions, and considering their very dangerous potential in the wrong hands, we have rules on who gets to have them and how they go about doing that.
Like a motor vehicle, we require training, testing, and licensing of firearms. Almost anyone in Canada without a criminal or violent past can own a firearm, we just feel that it is a privilege one earns like a driver’s license and not a “God-given” right.
If there were more reasonable laws in place, the weapon today most likely would not have been a handgun. My guess is that it would have been a knife or something that required much closer range to inflict damage.
Mike Landsberry had served as a Marine. He had the training to disarm someone brandishing a knife. He would still be alive. Instead he’s in the morgue.
As for freedom, I feel more free in Canada. While gun crimes sometimes happen, I know that they are the exception. Yes, we have violence, but it doesn’t seem as out of control as what I see on the news from down south. I feel free partly because of our reasonable gun control, not despite it.
