TEAM CSSA E-NEWS

• Quebec failed to consult Inuit on long-gun registry, Makivik Corp. says
• Canmore Olympians Crawford, Davies aiming for biathlon gold
• Governor Mead thinks guns could be Wyoming’s growth industry
• American guns are killing our neighbors in Canada and Mexico
• Calls for stricter rules on air guns after 26 reported attacks on animals in Cheshire

Media continues to push the lie that “most crime guns are domestically sourced”

On January 13, 2018, a bullet fired from a drug dealer’s gun ended 15-year-old Alfred Wong’s life. He died in the back seat of his parents’ vehicle as it traveled down Broadway near Ontario Street, another tragic victim of Vancouver’s ongoing drug trade turf wars.

Our hearts, prayers and condolences go out to Alfred Wong’s family as they cope with the death of their son and the horror now permanently etched on their hearts.

The Province reports known drug dealer Kevin Whiteside, the intended target, has prior firearms convictions and a court-ordered lifetime firearms prohibition order registered against him. On the day he died, Whiteside violated that firearms prohibition order, shooting back at his own killer.

Kash Heed, former B.C. solicitor general, said: “These firearms are from outside of Canada or they are taken during burglaries here in Canada. There is a market for this kind of commodity and most of that market goes to the individuals that are involved in gang activity or drug activity.”

Kash Heed is correct – drug dealers and gangs are the primary market for illegal guns. Therefore, police and government focus should be stopping drug dealers and criminal gangs.

Unfortunately, Kim Bolan, writing for The Province, offered misinformation instead of fact when she ended her column with this statement: “As of 2016, most B.C. criminals were getting their guns in Canada. Some were stolen from individuals or businesses. Others were bought by ‘straw purchasers’ – people not on police radar who are paid to get a gun licence and make legal firearm purchases on behalf of a criminal.”

Bolan perpetuates the myth promoted by police that most criminals obtain their guns inside Canada.

According to Calibre Magazine’s analysis of the 2015 B.C. Illegal Firearms Task Force Report, fully two-third of B.C.’s illegal guns come from outside Canadian borders.

The combined total of all firearms identified by the study, through any method, as having been domestically sourced totals just 377 of the 1,140 crime guns analyzed. That’s 33 per cent … a far cry from qualifying as anywhere near the “bulk” of crime guns.

As the 2015 B.C. Illegal Firearms Task Force Report data shows, one-third is a long way from “most.”

Bolan also fails to mention the “straw purchasers” are individuals easily tracked and prosecuted by police.

Two recent examples, Justin Green and Matthew Ward-Jackson, obtained firearms with a valid Possession and Acquisition Licence. Both men sold their legally-purchased guns to violent criminals. Both are now serving lengthy prison terms for their crimes, as they should.

Justin Green bought 23 firearms legally. He then sold them to criminals. Only an idiot believes guns sold to criminals cannot be tracked back to the legal purchaser. That’s precisely what happened to Justin Green.

“He [Justin Green] was discovered through the efforts of Toronto’s firearms enforcement unit after they found his gun at a crime scene,” said Crown attorney Erin Pancer. “Green’s the worst type of offender. He’s a trusted citizen who betrayed that trust by trafficking firearms and jeopardizing the lives of Torontonians.”

And he paid the price for violating that trust and is now serving an 8-year prison sentence.

Matthew Ward-Jackson also legally purchased handguns and sold them to criminals, including the handgun he sold to convicted murderer Dellen Millard. He is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence, but with our 2-for-1 pretrial custody rules, only 5 years remain on his sentence.

Once more, violent criminals shooting each other in the street leaves an innocent young man dead.

Once more, politicians obfuscate the truth and newspaper writers happily dish out misinformation as if it were the indisputable truth.

Sources:

·     http://theprovince.com/news/local-news/family-grieves-while-vancouver-police-investigate-stray-bullet-death-of-coquitlam-teen/wcm/2bce808a-38ab-4ffa-88f1-189565943ac2

·     https://calibremag.ca/bulk-of-crime-guns-domestically-sourced-false/

·     http://torontosun.com/2015/10/23/u-of-t-student-gets-8-year-sentence-for-gun-trafficking/wcm/fece59f1-09ed-4c65-a855-f4092f880e98

·     http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/matthew-ward-jackson-sentenced-1.4484762

Who is the greatest enemy to Canada’s firearm owners?

• Government of Canada: 49.9% 
• Provincial Governments: 3.3%  
• Municipal Governments: 0.7%
• Anti-Gun Groups: 16.3%
• RCMP: 20.4%
• Ourselves: 7.5%
• Other: 1.9%

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Province’s new long-gun registry came into effect Jan. 29

The provincial government neglected to hold proper consultations on the long-gun registry, according to an organization that represents Inuit in Northern Quebec.

“We have not been heard and we have not been properly consulted in a meaningful manner,” said Adamie Delisle Alaku, who is the executive vice-president of Makivik Corp., which represents Inuit in Nunavik.

“There was no concrete outreach ever made to ensure compliance.”

The new long-gun registry came into effect on Jan. 29.

Makivik Corp. had previously requested full exemption from the bill for Nunavik Inuit until meaningful consultations took place.

Delisle Alaku remains concerned that the act breaches treaty rights and provisions in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

“No accommodations were proposed to reflect particular territorial, traditional, cultural [or] linguistic context.”

He said the rules should have, at the very least, been translated to Inuktitut.

“They’re coming forth with the French act, so people that have difficulties just in mere English — it would have been difficult for them to understand this.”

Firearms part of modern Inuit tradition

He said he isn’t denying the safety components that need be be enforced when it comes to firearms, but cultural practices must be considered.

“We’re sensitive to the fact that these have been sparked by massive disasters,” he said.

“With that being said, we use these tools, these hunting firearms, to feed the communities.”

The use of firearms is “heavily enshrined” in their ways of hunting and within treaty rights, he said.

He said it’s fair to say the firearm is a traditional tool, and said while Indigenous people didn’t always hunt with guns it has become a tradition.

“We traded pelts and then we got guns. It was a tool that we got accustomed to.”

Delisle Alaku said Makivik Corp. still needs to decide what to do next and he did not rule out litigation.

“It’s a bit frustrating for us because we’ve not been listened to since the beginning of this,” Delisle Alaku said.

Under the new law, gun owners have 12 months to register their firearms online.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Security said the government is currently working on a response.

with files from Michael Salomonie

See the story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/makivik-corp-quebec-long-gun-registry-consultation-1.4512506

Rosanna Crawford and Macx Davies, both athletes on Canada’s national biathlon team, are aware that their upbringing may not have been typical of other Canadian children.

For one, they grew up in the beautiful mountainous surroundings of Canmore, just minutes from the Nordic Centre, and second, you might run into Olympic athletes at any turn in the town.

“I remember (2006 cross-country Olympic gold-medal winner) Chandra Crawford showing her medal off in my middle school after she won in Torino,” said Davies, 25, who will be attending his first Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, which starts Feb. 9. “I remember having (2006 Olympic cross-country silver medalist) Sarah (Renner) and (alpine skier) Thomas Grandi coming into my Grade 7 class and talking to us, and then my parents knowing (multiple Olympic medal-winning cross-country skier) Beckie Scott.”

At the same time, Rosanna Crawford, 29, a veteran on the biathlon team and Chandra’s younger sister, believes that if she had not grown up in a place like Canmore, she would not have followed the same life path, which is about to take her to her third Olympic Games.

“With the ’88 Olympics, the Canmore Nordic Centre had this perfect facility to learn how to cross-country ski at a young age, and then at 10, you were allowed to go out and try biathlon,” Crawford said. “And my older brother and sister were doing it, so it was just natural for me to follow in it.”

That closeness and familiarity with decorated Olympians allowed Crawford and Davies to feel that sporting glory was a realistic goal for themselves to achieve.

“It always seemed like there are people that I know who are Olympians, and it’s like ‘oh yeah, if they can do it, I can do it,’” said Davies.

The biathlon team is entering the Games following a strong season, capped by Crawford’s bronze-medal finish on the World Cup circuit in Ruhpolding, Germany, two weeks ago, a career-best mark. In that race, she shot all 20 of her targets for the first time.

“Even if I hadn’t been on the podium, I would have been so happy with that race, with how I skied and how I shot,” Crawford said. “And that’s exactly the mentality that I want to take into the Olympics.”

Such a strong showing on the season is a huge motivator for the team heading into the Games.

Roddy Ward, the team’s high-performance director, said the athletes were motivated to have a positive turn-around this season after a disastrous 2016-17 campaign, after which Biathlon Canada had their funding from Own The Podium cut dramatically to $50,000 due to a lack of podium finishes.

“I think the athletes did a great job at not dwelling on it but using it as motivation and to show them that it was a bad decision and we are worth investing in,” Ward said. “They’re getting really great results and personal bests.”

Crawford, Brendan Green and Megan Tandy are entering their third Games, while Nathan Smith is headed to his second. The remaining six members are first-timers: Calgarians Christian Gow and Scott Gow; Julia Ransom of Kelowna, B.C.; Emma Lunder, of Vernon, B.C.; Sarah Beaudry, both of Prince George, B.C., and Davies.

Crawford has embraced her role as a veteran on the squad, even mentioning she has been called the ‘team mom’ for a few years now.

“I really try to give back to these women, and they’re so motivating to me as well,” Crawford said. “We were able to learn so much from each other, and I took the opportunity to teach them what I knew, so that hopefully they could get the results that I had later on in my career, they could maybe get there sooner.”

One of the lessons she imparts on the younger generation is to look at the Olympics like any other race and not hype it up in their head.

“That could be a big downfall,” Crawford said. “And it’s such a big show, the Olympics. There’s so much going on around you, so you need to have to be very focused about your energy management and what you’re going to allow yourself to do during the Olympics and what maybe you should sit out in order to be best prepared.”

Davies said he is excited for his first experience at the Games, and that the realization that he is going has just set in for him.

“It kind of hit just last week,” Davies added. “I think it will be really fun to have all the different sports and all the different athletes in one place. I think that’s such a cool experience to be there and be able to see everything happen.”

See the story: http://calgarysun.com/sports/canmore-olympians-crawford-davies-aiming-for-biathlon-gold

– COUNTRY STRONG BEARS –

Keith Beasley is hunting with Country Music Singer-Songwriter Meghan Patrick at ‘Adrenaline Outfitters’ for some big Manitoba black bears.

They have many encounters and even some a little too close for comfort.

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See the trailer: COUNTRY STRONG BEARS

The governor, noting the recent announcement that Weatherby Inc. is locating in Sheridan, said that follows similar announcements in recent years from Magpul Industries, Thunder Beast Arms, Wyoming Arms and Best of the West,all of whom have opened or expanded operations in Wyoming.

In the case of Magpul, company officials said one reason they were locating to Cheyenne from Colorado was that gun control legislation that had been implemented in Colorado and that the company considered Wyoming to be more gun friendly.

Governor Mead said that last week when Weatherby announced plans to locate in Sheridan, he was ”mobbed” by gun makers expressing an interest in Wyoming. The governor says he has been working for several years to attract gun makers to the state. Governor Mead made the comments on Tuesday during an interview on KGAB-AM in Cheyenne.

You can see the full interview in the video attached to this story.

See the full story: http://kgab.com/governor-mead-thinks-guns-could-be-wyoming-growth-industry-video/?trackback=twitter_mobile

From his first official day as candidate for president (“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. . . They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists”), to his first speech as president (“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now”) to last week’s State of the Union address (“For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities”), Donald Trump has been clear that a core tenet of his policy agenda is closing the borders to keep violent criminals from coming into the country.

There are many flaws in this approach. Missing from President Trump’s America First program, for instance, is a recognition that the exportation of violence actually goes in the other direction. The United States is culpable in lethal violence abroad because of our refusal to strengthen our own gun laws.

70% of the crime guns recovered and traced in Mexico, and 98% of crime guns in Canada originate in the U.S.

An astounding number of American guns are smuggled across the borders each year, where they are used to commit violent crimes. A new report from the Center for American Progress analyzing data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) found that, from 2014 to 2016, more than 50,000 guns originally purchased in the U.S. were recovered in criminal investigations in 15 North American, Central American and Caribbean nations.

This tsunami of guns leaving the U.S. comes as no surprise when one considers two facts about firearms in this country: There are an astronomical number of them, and our laws are full of holes that enable trafficking.

To the first point, there are roughly 300 million guns in this country. And still, the gun industry continues to churn out more of them. In 2015 alone, the most recent year this data is available, 9,358,661 new firearms were manufactured in the U.S., making it the second-highest year for gun manufacturing in three decades.

We also do much less to protect our collective arsenal than other countries. Both Canada and Mexico have enacted strict laws regulating guns that include limits on assault-style rifles and more extensive background checks and vetting. In contrast, under U.S. federal law, a person can buy a gun from a private seller without a background check. And since the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, there are few limits to amassing a stockpile of these highly dangerous weapons, except in the seven states that have banned them.

The effect of these weapons on our neighbors is disturbing. Mexico experienced a 20-year high in murders in 2017, and 66% of these were committed with a gun. In 1997, by contrast, only 15% of Mexico’s murders involved a gun. Canada is experiencing more gun use in street crime, specifically semi-automatic rifles and handguns — a new phenomenon in that country. Our role in fueling these trends is obvious and alarming: 70% of the crime guns recovered and traced in Mexico, and 98% of crime guns in Canada originate in the U.S.

We could reduce the number of crime guns leaving the country, if only we could muster the political will to do so. Closing the private sale loophole and requiring a background check for all gun sales, not just those facilitated by a licensed gun dealer, would be a good start. These unregulated sales make it far too easy for traffickers to buy large numbers of guns without attracting the notice of law enforcement. We also need to enact a distinct federal crime for gun trafficking and straw purchasing so that prosecutors can focus on the individuals at the top of trafficking networks who are most responsible for arming both sides of the border.

In addition, we need to protect a crucial investigative tool used by ATF to gain information about potential trafficking activity — reports of multiple sales of long guns made by gun dealers in four southern border states. Every year, some in Congress try to prevent ATF from requiring these reports through a restrictive policy rider attached to ATF’s budget, including in the 2018 budget passed by the House.

Some readers may be thinking, so what? Why should we care about public safety concerns of other nations, especially those like Mexico that have deeply rooted challenges that contribute to high rates of violence unconnected to the availability of U.S. guns. This is perhaps an understandable question in this time of America First. But if we want to claim any degree of moral authority in the world, we need to take a careful look at how our inaction on gun violence redounds to the detriment of the safety and security of our international community.

Chelsea Parsons is the vice president for guns and crime policy at the Center for American Progress.

See the full story: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-parsons-us-guns-abroad-20180206-story.html

Animals can suffer horrendous injuries and often die as a result of air guns

The RSPCA is calling for stricter controls over air guns as it is revealed the charity received almost 30 related calls in Cheshire alone last year.

Britain’s biggest animal welfare charity is giving the recommendation for mandatory licensing of air guns in England and Wales as part of a submission to the UK Government’s current review of the regulation of air weapons following two serious incidents involving children.

They also received 4,500 calls over a five-year period about attacks on animals using such weapons – an average of 900 calls a year.

Now the charity wants to see England and Wales follow the lead of Scotland, where air gun owners and users have been required to have a licence since 1 January 2017.

Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner for Suffolk, Dr Peter Dean, wrote to the Home Office requesting a review of legislation covering the use and manufacture of air weapons, following the death of a 13-year-old boy in May 2016 after he was accidentally shot with an air weapon.

David Bowles, RSPCA assistant director of external affairs, said: “The review around the regulation of air weapons is welcomed by the RSPCA and we hope our submission to the Government will help demonstrate the scale of calls to us every year and remind the Government it is important to protect animals as well as people.

“It is heartbreaking that such a tragic incident has sparked this review and our thoughts go out to Benjamin’s family and friends, but we hope that any future regulation of these weapons in England and Wales will better protect people and animals.”

He added: “The RSPCA has long been calling for stricter controls over air guns as well as better education and explanation of the law for those buying one. Our 24-hour cruelty hotline receives hundreds of calls every year reporting air gun attacks on animals.

“Animals can suffer horrendous injuries and often die as a result of air gun attacks and these weapons are potentially extremely dangerous for people as well.”

The RSPCA and British Association for Shooting & Conservation plan to stage a joint conference this spring to bring together key stakeholders from industry, the police, animal charities and more to try to identify the scale of the problem and find practical solutions.

The RSPCA has released a list of where the highest number of calls about air gun attacks were received from. The calls alleged attacks on 519 wild birds, 341 cats, 125 wild mammals and 111 dogs, amongst others.

1. West Midlands = 54

2. Kent = 51

3. Greater London = 49

4. Greater Manchester = 47

5. West Yorkshire = 46

6. Essex = 29

6. Nottinghamshire = 29

7. South Yorkshire = 28

8. Staffordshire = 27

9. Cheshire = 26

10. North Yorkshire = 24

The penalties faced if caught deliberately using an air gun to injure an animal can be up to six months in prison and/or an unlimited fine if found guilty under the Animal Welfare Act.

See the story: https://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/calls-stricter-rules-air-guns-14231841

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