in E News TEAM CSSA E-NEWS – Aug. 20, 2014
TEAM CSSA E-NEWS – Aug. 20, 2014 ** Please share this E-news with your friends **
COMMENTARY: HARPER GOVERNMENT RESISTS POWER-HUNGRY POLICE
The Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA) is not anti-police.
On the contrary, many CSSA members proudly serve in provincial, municipal and national police forces. Theirs is the difficult task of standing in harm’s way and bringing repeat offenders and hardened criminals to justice. A modern society without police intervention would be a horror show. Perhaps the danger that police officers face daily is the reason some are resorting to bullying black-ops tactics more and more. But here’s the clinker – violent crime is going down, not up.
The play for political power is shifting, too. RCMP brass seems to have created its own federal “Canadian Police Party” to dictate public policy. Even though the Canadian Police Party will never elect a bona fide legislator, it hasn’t hesitated to oppose, contradict and browbeat the current government. In doing so, the top-coppers are trying to juice anti-gun public opinion. Police chiefs associations rallied around the anti-gun flag during the long-gun registry debate, and the RCMP adds more and more guns to restricted and prohibited status under the ruse of public safety. The only “evidence” that anti-gun politicians ever present, in fact, is the disdain of police when the Harper government wants to lighten the load for gun owners.
Small wonder, then, that the Canadian Police Party has made political enemies of many Conservative MPs. Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s announcement of the new Firearms Records Regulation (Classification) on August 15 may be evidence of a new day. The decision to strip the RCMP of its ability to whimsically reclassify guns must have originated from deep within the Prime Minister’s Office. There is reason to hope that the Harper government’s gradual reclamation of fair laws for gun owners will escalate into a legislative steamroller.
Police forces in Canada and elsewhere are twisting their “serve and protect” mantra into sad irony. While many good community policing programs do still exist, the flash-bang grenade mindset is becoming the norm. The August 16 issue of The Globe and Mail ran a piece on the SWAT response in Ferguson, Missouri following the police shooting of Michael Brown. The G&M and CBC both chimed in that even small town police departments are snatching up armoured vehicles across the U.S. It seems John Q. Citizen is now officially the enemy, as SWAT teams routinely serve simple warrants and look for small drug stashes. Even the infamous Kent State University campus cops just bought a 20-ton armoured vehicle to keep all those nasty students in line.
For several years running, the wonderful annual SHOT Shows in Las Vegas features entire rooms packed with lethal weaponry for police. It appears, at least in the United States, that the state is arming for war against the citizenry and in response, the citizenry is arming for war against the state. This is guaranteed not to end well, no matter its outcome.
Canada’s hands are not clean, either – witness the 2010 G-20 summit in Toronto. Could it be that SWAT tactics actually taunt the public to misbehave? Inquiring minds want to know. And, the door-kickers in High River astounded the entire country by using banana-republic gun-grab tactics. Buddy Tavares? Ian Thompson? Bruce Montague? Robert Dziekański? Sammy Yatim? So many more it is hard to keep track of the injustice.
Note to the RCMP brass who just had the gun reclassification rug pulled out from under them: The first step in the militarization of police is trying to tell the government what to do. Is this perhaps a lesson learned?
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TRIBUTE TO THE LATE JOHN MOCK: The Canada in the Rough crew heads to Quebec in search of a bull moose! Keith Beasley will be alongside John Mock of Stoeger Canada and Kari Kuparinen from Sako International. With lots of moose sightings the boys finally get to pull the trigger on a gorgeous bull moose! To see the teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAwPTKFGNRc
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CBC SAYS MILITARIZING POLICE DEADLY AND EXPENSIVE: Video shows men dressed in camouflage, carrying rifles, riding armoured vehicles around the streets of Ferguson – the small U.S. town that erupted in protests after an unarmed black teen was killed by police over the weekend.
But are they soldiers or police officers? It’s hard to tell, and that’s part of the problem.
The militarization of state and local police forces-now outfitted with the armoured vehicles, battering rams and flashbang grenades once reserved for troops – is a rising concern in the U.S. and a trend that experts suspect is seeping north of the border.
“We think it’s one of the most alarming trends going on in American policing today,” said Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank.
The unrest in the St. Louis suburb is just the latest example of how that militarization can play out in city streets, as heavily-equipped officers face down the members of their communities.
For several days since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18, on Saturday, protesters and police have clashed. Vandalism and looting broke out on Sunday after a peaceful vigil. A store was set on fire. The next night, police responded in full riot gear. The Federal Aviation Administration briefly shut down the airspace above the suburb as a precautionary measure.
Lynch says a more appropriate response to riots would be officers armed with batons and sidearms, not carrying rifles like an M-16 and donning the battle-zone-worthy camouflage clothing that have been seen in Ferguson.
“The police are reacting in a hostile manner, as if they are trying to intimidate the protesters by their military-type tactics,” said Lynch. “The police are making a bad situation even worse.”
Paul Szoldra, in a piece for Business Insider, asked “Why do these cops need MARPAT camo pants?”, referring to the pattern designed for the U.S. Marine Corps, or MARine PATtern. When serving in Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine, Szoldra says they used big trucks and uniforms intended to project an image as occupiers, but asks when did this became OK on domestic soil?
The precipitous rise in the use of military tactics and equipment in the U.S. is startling. Where once only a portion of cities had paramilitary units such as SWAT teams, now it’s the majority. Studies by Peter Kraska, a professor and chair of graduate studies in the school of justice studies at Eastern Kentucky University, show that between the mid-1980s and late 1990s, the percentage Of cities of 50,000 or more, like St. Louis, with a paramilitary unit almost doubled to 89 per cent… (CBC News – August 14, 2014)
To see the rest – http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/michael-brown-shooting-the-police-s-military-like-response-to-missouri-riots-1.2735588
IN CASE YOU WERE THINKING IT DOESN’T HAPPEN HERE: New Glasgow first N.S. town to receive Cougar
http://www.ngnews.ca/News/Local/2013-03-04/article-3191279/New-Glasgow-first-N.S.-town-to-receive-Cougar/1
New Glasgow town councillor and New Glasgow Regional Police Service commissioner Jack Lewis and Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay discuss the Cougar armoured vehicle acquired by the New Glasgow department recently at a short showcase on Sunday. The vehicle will be used by the emergency response team (ERT) to better protect the public and ensure officer safety in dangerous situations. The department applied a year ago for one of the cougar vehicles from the Department of National Defence through the system for disposable assets. The vehicle was used in the Balkans and Somalia and no money was exchanged in this acquisition, according to MacKay.
(ED note: New Glasgow is such a hotbed of violent crime they need a tank… jeesh!)
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DURHAM REGIONAL POLICE BOAST BIGGEST AND BEST TOY OF ALL – AN ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/11/durham_regional_police_boast_biggest_and_best_toy_of_all_an_armoured_personnel_carrier_hume.htmlhttp://
When Durham Regional Police took possession of their new “tactical rescue vehicle” recently, they seemed to be telling us the suburbs are a war zone.
Boys do love their toys, especially the boys dressed in blue.
Most of all, of course, the police love their guns, all kinds of guns, big and small, holstered or sawed-off. They also enjoy their Tasers, truncheons, pepper spray and those G-20 noise canons so loud your ears never stop ringing. Then they get to dress up in full-body armour, wear helmets and carry clear plastic shields like ancient heroes on the battlefield.
But the lucky lads of the Durham Regional Police now boast the biggest and best toy of all – a brand new “Tactical Rescue Vehicle (TRV).” The behemoth was donated to the force by General Dynamic Land Systems of London, Ont. It makes a fully-loaded military Hummer look like a Smart Car.
According to a Durham Police press release, “The bulletproof, seven-tonne vehicle will carry eight members of the Tactical Support Unit (TSU) and can reach speeds of up to 100 km/hr.”
Beat that Bill Blair!
The Durham cops call their TRV “a new tool to deal with dangerous hostage-taking or armed and barricaded person calls.”
“This is a significant contribution to public and officer safety here in Durham Region,” said Chief Constable Mike Ewles last week, “and it gives us a new and immediate option in high-risk calls.”
Whatever those high-risk calls turn out to be, they’re unlikely to be like the sort of thing they face in the war zones where they’re typically deployed. Canadian Forces operate dozens of RG-31s, or variations thereof, and used them in Afghanistan. They are specially designed to deflect the blast of an IED.
In the literature, they are described as “a 4×4 multi-purpose mine-protected armoured personnel carrier.”
Heavy-duty is one thing; but this is heavy-handed.
Do the Durham cops know something the rest of us don’t? Is there something happening on the back-lotted streets of Oshawa, Whitby and Ajax that the rest of the GTA has missed? Is the situation so out of control that the police need a bombproof armoured personnel carrier?
Or was General Dynamics just being a good corporate citizen trying to lend a helping hand to those brave men and women fighting the War against Crime?
Perhaps Durham cops didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but they left no doubt what they really think of the people they serve, and it’s not flattering. The police have made it clear they expect the extreme violence of a battlefield and want to be prepared. Such fear and loathing may seem excessive, but better safe than sorry. Still, one can’t help but wonder when police laud the vehicle as a contribution to “public safety.”
We know suburban life can be tough, but since when has it become a war zone?
As well as seeming faintly ridiculous, the thought of an RG-31 full of cops tearing up the highways and cul-de-sacs of suburbia gives one pause.
But never let it be said that Durham’s finest aren’t willing to share their good fortune; they have generously offered to lend the vehicle to other police forces in their hour of need.
“It could be deployed to neighbouring jurisdictions,” the chief constable announced, “if those communities have shared resource agreements with the DRPS.”
Just think, if they’d had the TRV in 2010, we could have seen it in action on the streets of Toronto during the G-20 Summit. That would’ve been something to remember. In the meantime, we’ll have to wait until the fighting resumes in Durham.
Lucky guys! ( by Christopher Hume Toronto Star – Mar 11 2013)
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SIR ROBERT PEEL’S PRINCIPLES OF POLICING
https://www.durham.police.uk/About-Us/Documents/Peels_Principles_Of_Law_Enforcement.pdf
The following nine principles were set out in the ‘General Instructions’ issued to every new police officer in the Metropolitan Police from 1829.
1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
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“Allan Rock said he came to Ottawa with the belief that only the police and military should have firearms. I believe that firearms ownership is a right, but a right that comes with responsibilities” – the Hon. Steven Blaney, Minister of Public Safety
HELP SUPPORT THE GREAT WORK THE CSSA DOES TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS. DONATE HERE
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KEVIN GAUDET JOINS SUN TV: Former Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) National Director (and dear friend of the CSSA), Kevin Gaudet, had joined Sun News as a contributor. With the CTF Kevin fought hard against the long gun registry. He looks forward to taking the same appreciation and support for gun culture to his new role with Sun News.
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ALLISTON AND DISTRICT SPORTSMEN’S CLUB (ADSC) 5TH ANNUAL IPSC MATCH FOR THE STEVENSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION. The event takes place at our range in Beeton, Ontario August 22-23.
Each year our members host many of Canada’s best shooters at our International Practical Shooters Confederation charity event in support of our local hospital. As a Friend of the Foundation, ADSC has donated almost $20,000 to the Hospital Foundation and we are looking forward to contributing more money this year.
Positive media attention and support of the shooting sports through yearly fund raising for the Hospital Foundation are goals that we also hope to achieve each year. Local newspaper support, radio and TV coverage have been excellent avenues for our members to share our positive message of community support and fund raising.
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FORMER MP DISAGREES WITH HIS FORMER POLITICAL PARTY:
To the Editor:
Re: Almaguin News, July 31, 2014 edition, “Government talks firearms in Powassan.”
Recently Minister Stephan Blaney announced that he will table a common sense firearm act this fall. This bill will give gun owners a grace period of 5 years to renew their Possession Acquisition License. The truth of the matter is that nothing will change with this bill.
Under Harper’s law owning a gun without a valid Possession Acquisition License will land you in jail, have all your firearms confiscated, be charged with owning a firearm without a licence, fined, and become a felon. It means you won’t be able to travel to the U.S.A. or other countries because you will have a criminal record. Imagine owning property (a firearm) will turn you into a felon if your possession licence expires.
What an unjust law. We need to return to the old system, where a licence is required for purchase only. Upon expiration of the license, one does not become a felon for simply owning a gun. There is no question the Harper government is worried about Canada’s gun owners. How will they vote in 2015?
Harper says the long gun registry is dead. Don’t for one minute believe that the police are not using the registry. Common sense should tell the Harper to stop treating lawful gun owners like potential criminals. You need to complain to your MP or PM. (By Inky Mark, former Manitoba MP – Almaguin News – August 11, 2014)
MP AGREES WITH HIS CURRENT POLITICAL PARTY:
Bringing common sense back to Canada’s firearms.
Since the 1990s, law-abiding Canadian firearms owners have been forced to contend with inefficient and arbitrary gun laws seemingly designed to discourage firearms ownership for even the most experienced and responsible hunters, collectors and target shooters. This system creates criminals of those who miss a paperwork-filing deadline, allows bureaucrats to instantly prohibit ownership of entire lines of firearms without notifications, and effectively restricts safe and lawful activities like gun shows through unnecessary red tape.
Responsible gun owners are tired of bending over backwards to meet these often-redundant regulations and guessing what rules will be in place the next time they seek to renew their license. But mostly, they’re tired of being treated like some sort of threat to society.
Since forming a majority in 2011, our government has eliminated the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry. Earlier this year, when a dispute arose about the arbitrary reclassification of certain rifles, our government stepped in to ensure that owners can continue to possess their property without threat of criminal charges. Now it’s time to address the systemic problems.
On July 23, our government announced new legislation: The Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act. First, this act proposes to merge the Possession Only License (POL) and Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) under a straightforward licensing regime. The Act goes on to restrict the ability of the Chief Firearms Officer to make arbitrary decisions, and ends needless paperwork by making Authorizations to Transport a condition of a license.
Furthermore, the Act creates a grace period at the end of the five-year license to ensure law-abiding firearms owners aren’t criminalized for paperwork errors. The Act also reinforced Canada’s reputation as one of the world’s safest nations by requiring mandatory safety courses for first time gun owners, and strengthening prohibitions for those who are convicted of domestic violence offences.
As a Member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I know that responsible, law abiding gun owners are not inherently dangerous people. Canadian law should not treat them as such, and the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act is a giant leap towards addressing this issue. (By Blake Richards, MP Wild Rose – Airdrie Echo – August 12, 2014)
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POLICE TELL DETROIT CITIZENS TO ARM THEMSELVES: Detroit police chief James Craig – nicknamed “Hollywood” for his years spent in the LAPD and his seeming love of being in front of the camera – has repeatedly called on “good” and “law-abiding” Detroiters to arm themselves against criminals in the city.
His words have not fallen on deaf ears. Patricia Champion, a 63-year-old lifelong Detroiter, a grandmother and retired educator, decided to get her concealed pistol license – a CPL – two years ago after her son said he was increasingly worried for her safety. Champion, a resident of northwest Detroit, mostly keeps her gun, a 9mm Glock 19 that set her back $600, in her house.
“That’s why I got it: because I’m going to be in the house. Now, if somebody chooses to come in and I didn’t invite you, between the Glock and the dog, you’re gone. If one doesn’t get you, the other one will.”
“The police are not going to protect you when something is being perpetrated on you. They may turn up after the fact and run after that person, but you have to protect yourself,” Champion says… (The Guardian – August 17, 2014)
Read the rest – http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/aug/17/police-guns-detroit-crime-race-cost-issues
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THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
The CSSA is the voice of the sport shooter and firearms enthusiast in Canada. Our national membership supports and promotes Canada’s firearms heritage, traditional target shooting competition, modern action shooting sports, hunting, and archery. We support and sponsor competitions and youth programs that promote these Canadian heritage activities.
To join or donate to the CSSA, visit: http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/membership.html
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CANADIAN SHOOTING SPORTS ASSOCIATION / CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION
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