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6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday September 15, 2006 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: IAN OLIVER Group Publisher NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor KELLY MONTAGUE Advertising Director DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Manager TERI CASAS Business Manager MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, Caledon Enterprise, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora Era-Banner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian More guns not the answer The blood wasn't even dry on the hallway floors in Dawson College when the e-mails started arriving. Newspaper editors across Canada are familiar with these e-mails. They arrive en masse following every high profile fatal shooting in Canada. They are short and to the point and eerily similar. The e-mails are from gun control opponents. In their minds each and every high-profile fatal shooting in Canada is an obvious failure of the Canadian Firearms Registry. Heartfelt renderings of concerned citizens or an organized gun lobby? We'll let you be the judge. Curiously, many are also quick to criticize the media and politicians for using this tragedy to demand more gun controls, yet they don't hesitate to exploit this incident for their own cause. What we find most disturbing about these e-mails is a common thread many contained suggesting the best solution to curbing gun violence in Canada is to allow law-abiding citizens to arm themselves. An e-mail from White City, Sask. suggests: "Maybe if we started allowing law abiding citizens carry guns for their protection, like they do in some American states, these crazed gangsters and Rambo wannabes would not be so daring in attacking innocent people, knowing that they might shoot back." Or this from Calgary, Alberta, "All it would take is one law abiding student, with a legally owned and carried pistol, to save the lives of these innocent students. Its time we stopped pushing for more gun control, and start looking at less." Perhaps an armed student could have stopped the gunman sooner once the shooting started. But we have to wonder whether the proliferation of guns in our society would lead to more accidental deaths. Would it escalate heated arguments from shouting and fisticuffs into a more tragic end? How many more deaths would occur through the potent mix of alcohol and drug abuse combined with easy access to handguns? Admittedly, the gun registry is flawed and may even be an expensive failure. But is arming every citizen with a concealed handgun the answer? Sorry folks, that's just not our vision of a safer Canada. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. Strict gun controls are ineffective On Dec. 6, 1989 Marc Lepine walked into École Polytechnique with a semi-automatic rifle and a pocket full of ammunition. His heinous acts that fateful day sparked the beginning of gun control as we know it in Canada. First the arbitrary prohibition of many types of rifles, then the mandatory registration of long guns -- all measures intended to convince the population that their government was doing something to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Fast forward to Sept. 13, 2006. The strict gun control efforts enacted after the École Polytechnique incident are in full effect, and yet, the events that have played out at Dawson College share an eerie similarity to the events of 1989. Bill C68, the long gun registry, and all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the name of gun control have been completely ineffective at stopping the very type of event they were designed to prevent. Combine this with two years worth of wild west like gun battles in the streets of Toronto and it becomes obvious that all the gun control measures in the world won't stop a criminal from acquiring and using firearms in the commission of crime. PAUL MANCINI BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com Pud 9/11 - that's why The weapons in this recently printed cartoon (Oakville Beaver, Wed. Sept. 6) spell out the word "why" with rifles accompanied by a puff of smoke in the background forming a question mark. This was in response to the recent loss of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. If 9/11 has taught us anything, the question is not "why," but what more can we do to stop terrorism before it consumes the rest of the world. Reliving that miserable day on the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, re-watching the hours of footage of burning buildings, and grieving families, if that's not reason enough -- I don't know what is. ROBERTA CARBONE