To Kenora Daily Miner and News

Dear Editor

I read "Showdown over gun control" with keen interest.

I agreed with most of your points but have much difficulty with at least two topics.

The first is your erroneous statement "I maintain my certainty that gun registration will not lead to confiscation, dictatorship and a police state." Mr. Mack confiscation hass already been taking place and you obviously are not aware of it, but should be. The Liberals broke their promise that C-68 would not lead to confiscation of firearms a long time ago. They used C-68 to ban 568,460 firearms without any evidence that these legally owned firearms are a risk to public safety. Liberal Herb Gray MP said to the Montreal Gazette "This could be the start of a global movement that would spur development of an instrument to ban firearms world wide similar to our land mines initiative". According to the RCMP a total of 58,742 are marked as destroyed in the CFRS and in the Restricted Weapons Registration System (RWRS) since January 1, 1995. The police state showed itself when agents trampled the rights of Bruce Montague and Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neil. The terrorist act expands upon C-68 to remove rights and freedoms from the remaining Canadians which C-68 missed. Being a newsperson you must have heard about the O'Neil case? We have two of your three circumstances Mr. Mack, firearms confiscation and a police state; can a dictatorship be far behind?

The second area of contention is your statement "I'm not a redneck and I'm not one to think I have the right to bear arms to protect myself or family." This is a moral issue and has no right or wrong answer. However, if you do not wish to protect yourself or your family Mr. Mack, that is entirely your decision and your right. But do not impede me or anyone else from exercising their right to life. The right to life is a God given right or a natural right. I claim that right. From a practical perspective the licensing of firearms owners and egistration of their firearms do not affect criminals, it only affects innocent citizens. "We have spent $2 billion on licensing and registering guns in Canada and it has not decreased violent crime and suicide" Professor Gary Mauser, SimonFraser University. Fundamentally a citizen living in a free society does not have to get permission from anyone to exercise their right of self-defense. Just as a citizen does not need permission to speak or worship freely. Canada's licensing and registration schemes require citizens to get permission to defend themselves, these schemes do not belong in a free society. Historically registration and licensing schemes have been part of "gun control" programs that made possible the calculated mass murder of between 70 and 170 million people. Licensing and registration make genocide easier not harder. Cultural genocide has already taken place in Canada. C-68 has negatively affected our rich Canadian hunting, trapping and shooting heritage. I fight against genocide and I don't want to make genocide easier anywhere in the world.

Yours in Tyranny,

Joe Gingrich, Nipawin, Sask.