And BTW, congrats on the server move, Rich (et al?).
Great speech to our English-speaking breathern to the North. From the National Post Online
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Gun guru spreads the word
It will be a sad day on January 1, 2003, when every gun in Canada has to be registered with your government.
Charlton Heston
National Post
Let me begin by saying that I'm a little envious of you and your federation of hunters, fishermen and conservationists. Surely if your Canadian hearts pump real red blood, then this beautiful province of yours, this British Columbia, must seem an Eden.
If I were a younger man, this splendid reminder of a wilder, more regal North America would certainly tempt me with its natural bounty. As the pressures of daily life weigh down upon us, more and more Americans long for the solace of just such a last great place. We, too, have looked to the West and found renewal along our untrammeled coasts, and in the cloud-piercing majesty of our northwestern Rockies.
We make pilgrimage there for the gift of good land that can heal a sick spirit and lift a heavy heart. And you, my British Columbia friends, have been blessed with the gift of a very good land indeed.
I know all about being blessed, because I've played several saints, presidents, kings and geniuses, and parted the Red Sea in one picture. Even today, the president of the United States refers to me as Moses.
But not with much reverence, I'm afraid. Our president and I tend to disagree quite openly about a constitutionally protected right I cherish and he detests -- the right to keep and bear arms.
When I became president of the National Rifle Association, I fell out of political favour with him. But then, it wasn't really much of a fall, all things considered. Our administration had already hit bottom.
Gun rights are at the centre of a great political debate in America right now, just as they are in Canada. When I entered the fray, I went from celluloid saint to cultural sinner. I get picketed at college speaking engagements and, according to the NRA's political enemies, I'm some sort of Great Satan. That's the kind of heated emotion the debate over gun ownership can bring about. But as I tell my colleagues, the gun itself is just a symbol. It's individual freedom we're fighting for. A thousand years ago you could have substituted a sword or a long bow and had the very same argument.
I'm sure that for the members of the British Columbia Wildlife Federation, firearms are both tool and symbol. It was the same for me, growing up in America's north woods.
The right -- maybe a better word would be the need -- to hunt, fish and be outdoors is still fiercely defended in the woodlands of my youth, just as it is here in Canada.
As well it should be. Because I believe that freedom is a North American legacy. After all, you and we remain basically the same people sharing a common history, separated only by a mostly imaginary political line that does very little to divide our uniquely linked heritage and shared blood.
We are North Americans by birth, on either side of the line. The rest is just survey stakes and politics.
Geese cross the border at will. Deer move back and forth. Salmon rush inland from the same ocean. These creatures that we cherish and work to conserve are no respecters of politics. They pay presidents no heed, nor prime ministers.
But at the same time, politics can certainly erode our common heritage and traditions. In America our most cherished document, our Constitution's Bill of Rights, has been singled out for scorn by those who believe it is out of date, or somehow out of social order. Sometimes we lose an inch and gain a mile. Other days, it's vice versa. But over the long run we've managed to beat back the gun haters and retain our right to keep and bear arms without registration and without confiscation. That's no easy task. As you've come to learn, right here in Canada.
Our countries mirror each other in so many ways. But now, while we still fight to protect this most basic freedom, your government finds it convenient to run roughshod over your gun rights. C-68, I believe it is called. My friends, how did this happen?
I know you fought bitterly, but it wasn't enough. It will be a sad day on Jan. 1, 2003, when every gun in Canada has to be registered with your government.
Written or unwritten, gun ownership in a free nation remains an individual right. You may not be absolutely free when you own a firearm. But I guarantee you will never be free when you can't. That's not written, that's God-given.
First you gave in on handguns, then you compromised on long guns. Then came registration. Next comes confiscation. Trust me -- that's history's proven sequence of events. And that's why, with every passing day, more and more Canadians no longer trust their government.
You know your registration scheme is unworkable, ineffective and outrageously expensive. You know you'll spend some $700-million on this farce while the Royal Canadian Mounted Police begs for money to fight organized crime. That, my friends and neighbours, is sacrilege.
In America, the NRA has told gun owners for years what will happen if we dropped our guard. Now we've got living proof -- we just point in your direction.
We've seen what transpired in England, when police went down the registration list and called in all privately owned guns. It's not a pretty sight, if fine firearms stir fond memories.
Beautifully crafted shotguns, World War I heirlooms, family keepsakes. All went into the pile to be pulverized like rubbish and hauled away as so much scrap metal.
In Australia, the gun bans came as a knee-jerk reaction to one isolated tragedy. But in the aftermath, crime with guns went up, not down, and the bureaucrats are dodging heated questions from angry citizens.
Who would have thought that these nations, allies that fought so hard to free the planet from tyranny during World War II, would now disavow the most basic freedoms we shed blood to preserve?
I served in World War II ... I still have my military sidearm: a Colt .45. It's a fine piece ... we served together two years overseas. But under your new laws, that old pistol could well be contraband. And for owning it, I could be a criminal.
Here it could end up on a handgun owner's list, maybe confiscated and destroyed. You know, I don't think I could let that happen. That gun stands for something. And I will stand for something as long as I own it.
Even your law enforcement officers call this latest Canadian gun sham a financial, unenforceable fraud. So why is your government doing it? Because they can.
Even worse, because you let them. You stood by and watched while one of your most basic freedoms was crushed under the boot heel of an indifferent bureaucracy.
Now that it's done, you're angry. And you're learning that government loves to make laws, but loathes to rescind them. Freedom surrendered is never restored.
And if you think this gun grab will make your streets safer, go to your prisons and listen to what the criminals say. We've got some of them on videotape. They're laughing at this law. One of them put it bluntly. He said, "Crime will increase. Already has, in fact. What did you expect?" he laughed.
Your officials condone early release of violent criminals, yet won't battle for truth-in-sentencing laws. So you fill your streets with violent felons, and take guns away from honest citizens.
That's an absurd way to serve justice, and I have statistics to prove it. In Richmond, Va., when laws against felons with firearms were vigorously enforced, homicides fell from 140 to 34 in a single year. Armed robberies dropped by one third.
The reason was simple: Armed criminals were rounded up off the street and sentenced to a mandatory five years in prison. If drugs were involved, add on five more years. That's the kind of tough justice both our nations need a lot more of. But it takes courageous lawmakers and law enforcers to deliver. While thugs go free after serving only a sixth of their sentences, you've had helicopters and SWAT teams raiding legal gun dealerships, all in a headline-making show of force. Can this be the Canada of old, carved out of wilderness by independent men and women of uncommon valour?
Sure, you can hide them [your guns], bury them, simply not comply. But how are you going to use your sporting arms, if they're buried in the barn?
Back in the sixties, American gun owners were caught unaware by a deluge of harsh gun laws that surfaced in the midst of a period of civil unrest. For a hundred years up until that time, the NRA had been mostly a hunting, shooting and gun safety organization. But suddenly, things changed. We were forced to organize, lobby and fight. And we learned to win.
It took a few years, but we won back some of what we'd lost. So let me challenge you to do the same. After all, we're not that much different, you and I. We can watch, and support and learn from each other.
We share a border that's more myth than fact. And we share a heritage of hunting, shooting and self defense that deserves to be honoured.
So let's tear down the barriers that rob us of our rights. We're of the same sturdy pioneer stock, cut from the same frontier cloth. Freedom is a North American legacy, and our governments had better never forget it.
This is an excerpt of a speech Charlton Heston gave yesterday to the B.C. Wildlife Federation in Prince George.
[/quote]
------------------
The ultimate purpose of gun control is to render people incapable of the ultimate form of protest and resistance to tyranny.
Great speech to our English-speaking breathern to the North. From the National Post Online
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Gun guru spreads the word
It will be a sad day on January 1, 2003, when every gun in Canada has to be registered with your government.
Charlton Heston
National Post
Let me begin by saying that I'm a little envious of you and your federation of hunters, fishermen and conservationists. Surely if your Canadian hearts pump real red blood, then this beautiful province of yours, this British Columbia, must seem an Eden.
If I were a younger man, this splendid reminder of a wilder, more regal North America would certainly tempt me with its natural bounty. As the pressures of daily life weigh down upon us, more and more Americans long for the solace of just such a last great place. We, too, have looked to the West and found renewal along our untrammeled coasts, and in the cloud-piercing majesty of our northwestern Rockies.
We make pilgrimage there for the gift of good land that can heal a sick spirit and lift a heavy heart. And you, my British Columbia friends, have been blessed with the gift of a very good land indeed.
I know all about being blessed, because I've played several saints, presidents, kings and geniuses, and parted the Red Sea in one picture. Even today, the president of the United States refers to me as Moses.
But not with much reverence, I'm afraid. Our president and I tend to disagree quite openly about a constitutionally protected right I cherish and he detests -- the right to keep and bear arms.
When I became president of the National Rifle Association, I fell out of political favour with him. But then, it wasn't really much of a fall, all things considered. Our administration had already hit bottom.
Gun rights are at the centre of a great political debate in America right now, just as they are in Canada. When I entered the fray, I went from celluloid saint to cultural sinner. I get picketed at college speaking engagements and, according to the NRA's political enemies, I'm some sort of Great Satan. That's the kind of heated emotion the debate over gun ownership can bring about. But as I tell my colleagues, the gun itself is just a symbol. It's individual freedom we're fighting for. A thousand years ago you could have substituted a sword or a long bow and had the very same argument.
I'm sure that for the members of the British Columbia Wildlife Federation, firearms are both tool and symbol. It was the same for me, growing up in America's north woods.
The right -- maybe a better word would be the need -- to hunt, fish and be outdoors is still fiercely defended in the woodlands of my youth, just as it is here in Canada.
As well it should be. Because I believe that freedom is a North American legacy. After all, you and we remain basically the same people sharing a common history, separated only by a mostly imaginary political line that does very little to divide our uniquely linked heritage and shared blood.
We are North Americans by birth, on either side of the line. The rest is just survey stakes and politics.
Geese cross the border at will. Deer move back and forth. Salmon rush inland from the same ocean. These creatures that we cherish and work to conserve are no respecters of politics. They pay presidents no heed, nor prime ministers.
But at the same time, politics can certainly erode our common heritage and traditions. In America our most cherished document, our Constitution's Bill of Rights, has been singled out for scorn by those who believe it is out of date, or somehow out of social order. Sometimes we lose an inch and gain a mile. Other days, it's vice versa. But over the long run we've managed to beat back the gun haters and retain our right to keep and bear arms without registration and without confiscation. That's no easy task. As you've come to learn, right here in Canada.
Our countries mirror each other in so many ways. But now, while we still fight to protect this most basic freedom, your government finds it convenient to run roughshod over your gun rights. C-68, I believe it is called. My friends, how did this happen?
I know you fought bitterly, but it wasn't enough. It will be a sad day on Jan. 1, 2003, when every gun in Canada has to be registered with your government.
Written or unwritten, gun ownership in a free nation remains an individual right. You may not be absolutely free when you own a firearm. But I guarantee you will never be free when you can't. That's not written, that's God-given.
First you gave in on handguns, then you compromised on long guns. Then came registration. Next comes confiscation. Trust me -- that's history's proven sequence of events. And that's why, with every passing day, more and more Canadians no longer trust their government.
You know your registration scheme is unworkable, ineffective and outrageously expensive. You know you'll spend some $700-million on this farce while the Royal Canadian Mounted Police begs for money to fight organized crime. That, my friends and neighbours, is sacrilege.
In America, the NRA has told gun owners for years what will happen if we dropped our guard. Now we've got living proof -- we just point in your direction.
We've seen what transpired in England, when police went down the registration list and called in all privately owned guns. It's not a pretty sight, if fine firearms stir fond memories.
Beautifully crafted shotguns, World War I heirlooms, family keepsakes. All went into the pile to be pulverized like rubbish and hauled away as so much scrap metal.
In Australia, the gun bans came as a knee-jerk reaction to one isolated tragedy. But in the aftermath, crime with guns went up, not down, and the bureaucrats are dodging heated questions from angry citizens.
Who would have thought that these nations, allies that fought so hard to free the planet from tyranny during World War II, would now disavow the most basic freedoms we shed blood to preserve?
I served in World War II ... I still have my military sidearm: a Colt .45. It's a fine piece ... we served together two years overseas. But under your new laws, that old pistol could well be contraband. And for owning it, I could be a criminal.
Here it could end up on a handgun owner's list, maybe confiscated and destroyed. You know, I don't think I could let that happen. That gun stands for something. And I will stand for something as long as I own it.
Even your law enforcement officers call this latest Canadian gun sham a financial, unenforceable fraud. So why is your government doing it? Because they can.
Even worse, because you let them. You stood by and watched while one of your most basic freedoms was crushed under the boot heel of an indifferent bureaucracy.
Now that it's done, you're angry. And you're learning that government loves to make laws, but loathes to rescind them. Freedom surrendered is never restored.
And if you think this gun grab will make your streets safer, go to your prisons and listen to what the criminals say. We've got some of them on videotape. They're laughing at this law. One of them put it bluntly. He said, "Crime will increase. Already has, in fact. What did you expect?" he laughed.
Your officials condone early release of violent criminals, yet won't battle for truth-in-sentencing laws. So you fill your streets with violent felons, and take guns away from honest citizens.
That's an absurd way to serve justice, and I have statistics to prove it. In Richmond, Va., when laws against felons with firearms were vigorously enforced, homicides fell from 140 to 34 in a single year. Armed robberies dropped by one third.
The reason was simple: Armed criminals were rounded up off the street and sentenced to a mandatory five years in prison. If drugs were involved, add on five more years. That's the kind of tough justice both our nations need a lot more of. But it takes courageous lawmakers and law enforcers to deliver. While thugs go free after serving only a sixth of their sentences, you've had helicopters and SWAT teams raiding legal gun dealerships, all in a headline-making show of force. Can this be the Canada of old, carved out of wilderness by independent men and women of uncommon valour?
Sure, you can hide them [your guns], bury them, simply not comply. But how are you going to use your sporting arms, if they're buried in the barn?
Back in the sixties, American gun owners were caught unaware by a deluge of harsh gun laws that surfaced in the midst of a period of civil unrest. For a hundred years up until that time, the NRA had been mostly a hunting, shooting and gun safety organization. But suddenly, things changed. We were forced to organize, lobby and fight. And we learned to win.
It took a few years, but we won back some of what we'd lost. So let me challenge you to do the same. After all, we're not that much different, you and I. We can watch, and support and learn from each other.
We share a border that's more myth than fact. And we share a heritage of hunting, shooting and self defense that deserves to be honoured.
So let's tear down the barriers that rob us of our rights. We're of the same sturdy pioneer stock, cut from the same frontier cloth. Freedom is a North American legacy, and our governments had better never forget it.
This is an excerpt of a speech Charlton Heston gave yesterday to the B.C. Wildlife Federation in Prince George.
[/quote]
------------------
The ultimate purpose of gun control is to render people incapable of the ultimate form of protest and resistance to tyranny.