My U.S. gun surprise.

For the first time since I was a child, I took a trip down to Minot North Dakota for a weekend getaway. And to be completely honest, I was completely taken aback at how much I loved it there. Sure I expected to have a good time, but I think I expected Americans to be more... I don't know.... xenophobic maybe? But whatever I expected, I had no encounters this trip to justify anything close to what I had preconceived!

There was a point in our trip where (as an outdoor enthusiast) I went into a local sporting goods store located in the mall, where I happened to walk by the handgun section to notice 3 customers purchasing assorted handguns. I happened to overhear one customer ask what it required, and to my utter shock, the salesperson said "do you have a driver's licence? Then you're all good". The one thing I didn't see during my trip, was any sort of fear, or violence. But it made me realize how the Canadian Government has oppressed the rights of ownership for average Canadians. So needless to say I was a little frustrated with my own Country.

My frustration made me go "off book" in one of the shops we were in, where after some friendly banter between a young saleswomen and my wife and I, I broached the subject of her opinion of conceal and carrying sidearms. Being a 25 year old young lady, I naturally assumed her to be an anti-gun Liberal. Boy did she blow my socks off (funny thing about that statement, we were in a shoe store! lol)! Not only was she pro-gun, SHE had a conceal and carry licence!!! She explained that she had gotten it for protection at 18 when she left home, and then proceeded to ask me about gun laws in Canada.  I have to say I was both so embarrassed and furious at my Countries willful erosion of personal rights that it was getting hard to keep my voice moderate, but I managed to explain all the restrictions, to which she just shook her head and said it seemed "unreal".

Are we too willing up here in Canada to let our Government and it's officials run roughshod over our rights? How did we get to the point that we allow the Government and it's agencies to dictate ownership and self defense right to us? We have gone over the rails, sacrificing personal rights for the appearance of security by Government agencies.

Time to repeal the "do nothing" Gun laws (not all laws do nothing, I believe we should toughen penalties, and laws for crimes committed with a firearm, and allow self defense), to allow Canadians to be free.

Racism, it may not look like what you think.

I have gleaned from social media that after the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins in double overtime, with the game winning goal coming from P.K. Subban, that he was called names based on the colour of his skin. I'll be honest here, I was actually quite surprised. Why was I surprised you might wonder? I was surprised because his skin colour had nothing to do with their win or the Bruins loss!

I believe that because these "low brow" Neanderthals just had nothing else to blame their defeat on, they picked the lowest hanging fruit possible in their anger. It's hard to say if these cretins are like this all the time or not, but a couple things of note are 1. we can often say things we don't mean when we are emotional. And also contradictory  2. We often show our true nature when under the same emotions.

That being said, let me tell you a story of a hate crime perpetrated on myself due to racism. I was best of friends with an native individual in elementary school, until our last year. We would sleep over at each others houses, spent lots of time together, and I even spent time with him on their reservation. We had a great time together, or so I thought, but that all changed in our final year. The thing is that I hadn't changed over the summer, and I thought our friendship would pick up where it left off, but apparently I was no longer "worthy" of being his friend. Apparently now my skin colour was vile and loathsome to him and his new "friends", and they made it known to me in no uncertain terms one day. I got off with just a few bumps and bruises, but what hurt the most was not knowing what I had done to deserve being treated like that. Trying to figure it out as a 13 year old was not easy, and it took me years to understand that it wasn't anything I had done, The change was all in my one time friend, who now hated me for nothing more than the colour of my skin.

Sure minority groups have been oppressed and targeted in the past, but as personally I found out, Racism is not limited to race, creed, religion, or colour. Racism is a learned behaviour, whether actively taught, or through observational learning, it is being passed on, and it needs to stop. If the colour of someone's skin, or where they come from bothers you, you are probably one of the aforementioned cretins (which goes for everyone).

Ten thousand regulations.

I was wondering to myself last night: "When was the last time having a police force made me feel safe, rather than nervous?" I was thinking this because I had a dream where I had been given something that I wanted (A handgun from someone who had passed away), but then had fear of the police for not having the "proper paperwork" to even take it home. As someone who tries to abide the law, yet believes in personal freedom this was very conflicting (this was literally a nightmare), simple due to the severely restrictive nature of Firearm's laws in Canada. Even the other day on a Highway trip I knew I wasn't speeding (had the cruise set), yet when the I saw the red and blues come up behind me (and pass me) I had no feelings of safety or protection. What I did get was a ball in the pit of my stomach, even though I knew I wasn't breaking any laws!

Now I've already explained (previous post) how law enforcement is incapable of protecting the citizenry from crimes upon the person, but what they are supposed to do is enforce infractions to the laws, so to be honest the only problem I have with the police in this post is their compliance to enforce laws that actually restrict the freedoms of what we obviously mistakenly think of as a "Free Society". The problem itself comes with the incompetency of (knee jerk) lawmakers who put forward restrictive legislation which only affects those who respect law.  Winston Churchill once said "If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law", and to be honest I believe for a lot of responsible gun owners it has come to that point. We now had the potential for 10,000 "paper criminals" that were facing mandatory time in prison, for owning a firearm that has been recently deemed "scary" (arbitrarily reclassified from non-restricted straight to prohibited) See here.

When did we start giving up freedom for the perception of safety? And let's face facts, right now all you have is the "hope" that some criminal won't somehow victimize you, not the security that they won't (which no one ever has). For one thing penalties for "actual" criminal offences are so short that they are no deterrent for a real criminal, yet there are those that the mere thought of doing something administratively wrong, yet not even truly criminal,  is enough to give them nightmares. Does that sound right for a free society? The Government has the power to either protect rights or oppress them, and in the case of responsible gun owners they have gone the way of oppression.

Manufactured rights vs inalienable.

A few things have topped my thoughts in the last few days, and they are: Human rights (conscience, thought and belief), Omar Khadr (and the Geneva convention), and gay marriage, abortion, and feminism.

Seems like a pretty random collection of items, but when they are put under the initial topic of Human rights, they do all fit. Fair warning this could be a long post, which started for me at 3:38a.m. while I was trying to sleep.

Let's start at the beginning with Human Rights: Human rights are commonly understood as "inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being."  Wikipedia.  In short as I understand them a Human right must apply to everyone equally. 

This moves us logically on to Gay marriage, and the “right” to it. First off it should be obvious that the “Institution” of marriage is not a right, it is a human contrivances, not something we were born to receive but something man has put in place therefore to be granted by those that sanction it. This is what can be considered a “Manufactured right”, because it applies to only a specific (and small) group of people rather than the whole. The same can be said for the “right” to Abortion, even more so because it violates the Human Right to LIFE that the aborted human has (Zygote, cluster of cells, we can try to justify it by renaming it all we want, but there is only one thing it will ever turn out to be, and that is a human being.)

Of course these two items bring us to a hot button issue in the current 2012 Alberta Provincial Election, Conscience Rights. Here we are talking about an ACTUAL Human Right, belonging to all people, which is trying to be superseded by the manufactured rights of gay marriage and abortion. Wilfred Laurier said “The rights of each man (er, and woman) end precisely at the point where they encroach upon the rights of others”. These are called individual rights, and to have the expectation that others will respect yours, you have the obligation to respect theirs. Rights must apply equally to all people, institutions man has created should, but can not be subjected to, if they violate another’s inalienable human rights.

Both of these manufactured rights are part of a social re-engineering experiment taking place in our society: we are unaware of the consequences they yet hold, but you can be sure that in time they will bear fruit, just as Feminism has.

Feminism has not stopped at women's right, but has gone beyond equal rights of men, to the need to reduce/remove men in the lives of women. Feminism has also left a void in society that was once filled by a compassionate caregiver who instilled in their children a sense of identity and belonging. This has been replaced by the emotionally (sometimes) strong, sexually free, absentee mother role model, which has been replaced by the entertainment industry, and peers, as the main emotional caregiver and nurturer. We are coming upon a generation of lost ad confused kids, and we can see that the social experiment of Feminism may be fine for those that had what today’s kids are missing out on, but not so fine for this generation (and potentially worse for the next.)

I understand that today we have many more single parents, many of which have no choice but to work to support their children (to my dismay), but what social re-engineering took place to cause the current state? (Look back at the 60's and 70's and you will find your answer.)

Finally I move on to Omar Kadhr; This is troubling on so many levels. I keep hearing him called a “child soldier”, yet according to the Geneva Convention rule 136 Children MUST NOT be recruited into armed forces or armed groups. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/612-136?OpenDocument Ok so then he wasn't a soldier at the time when he admitted to killing a US soldier, then what was he? If not a civilian based on his actions as a combatant by throwing a grenade, and not a soldier according to the Geneva Convention, there is only one other option, a Terrorist. This makes me question the insistence that the left parties in Canada have, that he should be immediately repatriated and incarcerated here because his “Charter Rights” were violated. Didn't this person violate someone else's HUMAN RIGHT to life?

Human rights, if not applied equally to all people, have no value to them. Manufactured rights are at best social re-engineering our society, and the courts should be forced, by responsible Government, out of this practice.