Wednesday, January 7, 2009

No to blood money. Or, Kudos to Bill Tucker, Thames Valley District School Board

It's the Gun Control Yenta again. Late last September, Bill Tucker, director of the Thames Valley District school board, acted on his conscience and refused to accept the funds raised by the East Elgin Sportsmen's Association for the East Elgin secondary school drama club. I wrote the following letter, published by the London Free Press, commending him. Which reminds me, I still haven't sent them a cheque... time to put my money where my mouth is. Er, was.
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Kudos to Bill Tucker for teaching students that a public school board education director's principles are more valuable than money. Just the way we no longer allow cigarette companies to sponsor sporting events, we shouldn't permit gun clubs or manufacturers to sponsor school activities. Bill Tucker is one hundred percent right--guns and students do not mix.

Let's just look at the most recent newsworthy 'law-abiding gun owners:

On Sept. 21, Albert Legault , a 71-year-old retired cattle farmer, decided to investigate gunshots that seemed to be coming from his nearby fields. Simon Lanthier, 18, allegedly shot Mr. Legault dead. Lanthier was target-shooting; he's been charged in Gatineau court with reckless endangerment, two counts of careless use of a firearm, two counts of unauthorized possession of a firearm and one count of contravening weapons storage laws.

On Sept. 19th, Vernon RCMP were called to investigate a shooting. Three hunters apparently wished to take a shortcut near a farmer's property. An "altercation" between the armed farmer and the hunters ended with the farmer sustaining life-threatening gunshot wounds to the leg, as well as one of the hunters, a woman, being assaulted, according to an RCMP spokesman (Castanet.net).

On Sept. 15th, Cody Wellard, a 31-year-old hunter, turned himself in for allegedly shooting the Jack Russell terrier pup of Max Rose, 12, a brain cancer survivor. The Quadra Island shooting--which occurred 30 meters from the Rose family's driveway--may be related to a previous run-in Wellard had with the boy's father. The RCMP prudently decided to confiscate the 25 guns registered to Wellard's father.

That's just the 'legitimate' sport shooter/hunter news of the last few days. Let's jog the memory a little further back.

In January, John O'Keefe was allegedly accidentally shot by twenty-three-year-old Edward Parades during an altercation with a bouncer at 1 a.m. outside a Toronto strip club. This happened just blocks from where Jane Creba was murdered weeks earlier. Parades was the legal owner of the handgun used in the shooting and apparently a member of the Gormley gun club The Grange.


And a little further still: Kimveer Gill (Dawson College shootings, 2006), Valery Fabrikant (Concordia University shootings, 1992), Marc Lepine (Ecole Polytechnique shootings, 1989) all obtained their guns legally. Please note: these were all school shootings involving 'legal' gun owners.

Guns are accidents (and worse) waiting to happen. Five thousand 'legal' guns are reported stolen every year. Choking off every avenue of supply of these inherently dangerous machines is in the best interests of all Canadians, most especially those of us who are unarmed, law-abiding, and innocent.

Those in the gun lobby who repeat the foolish mantra that we must target 'criminals' and not 'law-abiding gun owners' should wake up and smell the coffee: you're all law-abiding--right up till the moment that you're not.

Please let those of us who would like to help make things right by the students know where to send out cheques.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What utter tripe. That is what best descibes this rant. I cannot believe that any thinking person would publish such rubbish.

For the record I happen to be the Match Director for the event in question and I am personally insulted by this garbage. For years the members of EESA have been important contributing members of the local community. I simply will not allow bigots such as you or Bill Tucker to undermine those efforts.

As a follow up to the story I am happy to inform you the the 2009 EESA Charity Match was a great success. We raise $4350 which was donated to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The 2010 event is currently being organized and will be our largest such event yet. This year we will be working closely with the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Founcation and hope to break all previous donation records.
If only you could put your efforts into actually helping Canadians instead of sniping with your inane insulting ramblings. Things might be a modicum better. Sadly I honestly believe that you are too emotionally twisted for there to be much hope of that. Instead you will insist on attacking good Canadians from coast to coast. So much more the shame.

John Evers
EESA Director
IPSC Charity Match Director.

Anonymous said...

Good to see the Breast Cancer Foundation isn't bigoted.

Anonymous said...

I hope you realize what a complete asshole you look like, Ms. Ackerman.

If you'll forgive my language, but I can't think of a better adjective to describe the type of person who will denigrate and slander a group of people for donating to charity.

Regards,
TJ

Anonymous said...

Oh one more follow up.

Ok actually two.

The 2010 EESA IPSC Event raised

$10178 for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

YES TEN THOUSAND!!

the 2011 recipent will be the Canadian Prostate Cancer Foundation.