Dear JTH,

When you make an argument you should speak for yourself and not for the whole of Scandinavia ("We here in Scandinavia"). Authoritarian people always talk on behalf of everyone else. It is a very sinister thing to do.

We had a spate of this recently in Canada when our ex-Prime Minister Paul Martin was always talking about "Canadian values" as he scoffed &160 Million of the taxpayers money for a steamship company owned by his sons that is registered in Panama and as far as I know pays no Canadian taxes.

CBC news does it all the time and they think its reporting. They start of by saying Canadains think "--------" this or Canadians " think that". My reaction pretty much 100 % of the time they c laimed I believed was, I don't think that at all you goddam dick heads."


VBR,

Ted Gorsline

Dear Ted,
As you may notice, I did put a question mark after the word Scandinavia in my reply and also repeated a couple of times that what I write are basically my own wiews. But if we want to discuss on a bit larger scale like differences between Europe and the US, we have to make some generalisations and I thought that the word Scandinavia might have been nearest to the correct one in this case. Erik, Arild and other Scandinavians can estimate if this was out of line or not.

Anyway, the point I tried to make is that discussing at the level of "Europe" is of no use, since there is not much common between southern and northern Europe in many things, regardless what the EU says. Different cultures, different ways of life, in general more differences than similarities.

But I see what you mean and I agree with you, it is annoyning to see other people make BS generalisations on things that you don't agree with and count you in as one of them. I try to avoid that in the future

Mono cultural societies are always easier to govern that multi-cultural countries because everyone understands the rules and has the same values.

And southern Europe is where the immigration is greatest and multi culturalism most prevalent.

But multicultural societies are likely easier for an authoritarian regime to impose its will on because its easier to divide multi cultural people because nobody knows if the can trust his next door neighbour.

About forty years ago Pierre Trudeau decided to make Canada into a multi-cultural society. It always did have two cultures - French and English and that was headache enough. Anyhow it has really buggered the country.

To give you an example of what I have seen.

1) When I was a small boy there were no beggars and there was no crime in Toronto. On hot nights (in pre-air condition days) people used to sleep in the parks to get cool and nobody robbed their homes.

2)I saw my first ever beggars when I was 19 and went to South America. There were none in Canada.

3) By about 1970 there were lots of beggars in Toronto but still not much crime.

4) When I left Toronto about 1988 there were lots of homelesss people but no crime to speak of and no street gangs.

5) Now today there are beggars on every corner and about 57 street gangs. Murder is an everyday thing. About two months ago there was a shootout in downtown Toronto involving about 15 different armed individuals.

There are now many serious organized crime gangs from Jamaica, Viet Nam and China.

The most powerful are probably the Hong Kong Triad which owns at least 20 % of Ontario industry including banks and I think now even newspapers.

And there is now corruption in the Toronto police, the Ontario Provincial Police and the upper ecehelons of the RCMP. The way you can tell is all kinds of hard core criminals are being let in. The police know that but it is happening anyway. The main corrupting force is drug money.

I know of one senior RCMP officer, who has said off the record, the only way to reverse things now in Ontario is with Latin American style death squads.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Gorsline:

But it is a good idea to put rifles in the hands of the people and make sure they are not registered and that the location of the weapons is not known to the central government.
The American have it figured. The Canadians are begining to figure it out. The Europeans are lost souls.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Ted...
Thats a pretty bold statement isn´t it ?
JHT´s mentioning of Scandinavia with a questionmark seems rather unsignificant compared to yours

The US ( and Canadian ?) habit of using the term Europe as if it should ba a "United States og Europe" is in my book as wrong as it can be.
As JTH points out, we are very different in culture, politics, religion ( or lack of religion ) and not the least nature and environment.

The Scandinavian countries have an age old tradition of hunting and therefore armed citicenship.
The right of hunting has been a right of the many. The common farmer, fisherman and citydveller had guns an did hunt to sustain ther families. ( the Scandinavian use of the word hunting differs from the same term in UK.
They call it stalking.)

Here on AR a common term for describing Europeans in a negative context, is to call us
socialists and liberals en gross.
Even if some of the countries in Europe has a socialist government for the time beeing,
tey are not comperable, even if there are some similarities.
But from across the pond, we probably all looks the same..... lost souls ??

Anyway...the jump this tread has taken from the gun cabinets in Germany to the drunken loners in the Finnish outbacks and the WWII restistence in Norway, clearly show the diversity of the old world...

Yes Lost souls is perhaps unfair. I guess I say that because the numbers of hunters in Europe is now too low to have a great political impact and so I think of them as lost souls. Wheras that is not yet true in North America. The NRA can make a very strong argument that it put George Bush in power as can anybody who swung a few votes his way as he won by such a small margin.

Guns are inanimate objects and the way to control crime is to do back ground checks on individuals. If they have a record ban them from gun ownership. If they don't let them have what they want but don't register them. It is the registration that is dangerous because it can lead and usually does lead to confiscation.

I worry about gun ownership being viewed like a teamsport by Europeans instead of being something having to do with Liberty.

I see it in Europe. People will say we do it this way and since I am a Finn I must be right and our way is right rather than looking at it as a principal.

I remember talking to a British hunter from London and he had a 460 Weatherby and he was going on about, "How he knew this person and that person and that is why he got the permit". It was clear he felt he was a special person because of his connections and not part of the usual riff raff who are not allowed to own 460 Weatherby's.

He was so proud of this that I didn't have the heart to tell him that when I was a boy living in Canada I could have bought a truck load of 460 Weatherbys and 10,000 rounds of ammo at the corner store and so could have my little sister.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

quote:

Originally posted by JTH:
I thought that the word Scandinavia might have been nearest to the correct one in this case. Erik, Arild and other Scandinavians can estimate if this was out of line or not.

I'm not sure we Norwegians want to be associated with the Finns. From what we hear over here, you Finns spend most of the day drinking Vodka, and sitting in saunas while you whip yourselves, and each other, with birch branches!

(Norwegians are generally too uptight to do all that stuff. Well, at least the sauna and whipping part! )

Well Ted, this may be big news to you but here it comes: .460 Weatherby isn't that big deal here either and one thing I am happy about in Finland in general (especially when compared to the countries of southern Europe ) is that you don't need to know any special persons or offer bribes to any officials to operate in this society. Corruption is IMHO as low in this country as it is altogehter possible anywhere, I would say.

What we obviously have in common is that I also don't like people who don't see the big picture in issues. Usually they seem to come from some countries which think that their system is by far the best and also the ONLY possible form of Real Liberty (and I don't mean North-Korea...). They are usually very reluctant to hear and see any suggestions different from their own package. But I guess they can be found everywhere...

ErikD: Well, I think we can find a form of unity. Imagine, what could be more warm-hearted companionship than a Finn and a Norwegian mocking on Swedes

quote:

Originally posted by JTH:
ErikD: Well, I think we can find a form of unity. Imagine, what could be more warm-hearted companionship than a Finn and a Norwegian mocking on Swedes

I'm all for it!

In Canada, to this day, the only people who have figured out how things work (and this is some 300 years after Thomas Jefferson) are in western Canada.

This whole gun law thing could have been beaten in Ontario, where most of the votes are, 30 years ago when the number of hunters was twice as high as now.

But the organized hunters there chose to bow and stoop to authority. That just made them look weak and led to Paul Martin recently announcing that he was going to ban handguns.

I think (hope!) Martin's actions have finally convinced shooters in Ontario that they have to look out for their own interests and not put those interests in the hands of the police who will quickly try to turn the gun registry into a money generating bureaucracy. That is what civil servants like the police always do.

I think in Europe this bureaucracy is already a done deed.

This sounds like the start of something worrying!!

Now, it was only a couple days back that a Swedish friend of mine suggested that to him,a Norwegian speaking, sounds as though he were drunk.

I think after Eric's admission - that it may not be just the accent after all!!

Rgds Ian

Mr. Gorsline,

Having grown up in Toronto, downtown Toronto, Cabbagetown, being 44 years of age, born the summer of 1961, and being every bit the savvy city kid having grown up in the heart of Toronto, and in my late teens in East York, having now spent 44 years in this beautiful country I call home, Canada, I have read your posts about Canada, Canadian politics and all your info on what Toronto was all about in the 60's, 70's and 80's, with much interest. In reading them I have formed two questions in my mind that I would like to ask ......

# 1 - What part of Toronto were you raised in ?

# 2 - Are you still living in Canada ?

Lynn D

Having spent a lot of time in Sweden , Norway etc all I can conclude is this.
The Europeans wish to possess firearms nmainly to undertake the sport of target shooting and hunting/stalking/pest control.
From this thread our American breathren primarily have firearms for self defense and civil uprising, all other uses are secondary.
I suppose it originates from our histories of war and conflict and the fact that a lot of legislation such as legal calibres in France developed after WWII. Huge ammounts of rifle ammunition were left lying around by the allies after the war.
Secondly and more worryingly it shows democracy in action with an increasingly urban population who's meat comes in sterile clingfilm. they have a overly emotional response to how land and wildlife is managed. For example they want cheap meat but no animals killed and more housing in the counryside but maintain wildlife habitat. You and I know this is impossible but thats the way Joe Public thinks. The bad news is Joe Public votes the politicians in, and Joe Public believes the media.
Our role for the future is to provide a strong, rational lobby that tries to educate the public.
Public opinion in the UK is that badgers are rare fluffy creatures that need special protection. Landowners know that in certain areas badger populations are out of control,diseased and becoming destructive to the ecosystem. The politicians will follow the people who vote them in so they can keeep their jobs. Urban population has a greater vote than rural population hence it remains illegal to cull any badger.

Dear Lynn,

I am 60. I was raised in Stratford but lived in Toronto for about 14 years near the old St Lawrence market (not the Jane Finch corridor). I have lived between Africa and Germany for 18 years but return to Canada via Toronto once every year and have had a chance to watch the steady slide downhill. I was at the old Eaton Centre about a week before the last major gunfight.

Time to take a big saw, cut around Toronto, float it into the lake, down the St lawrence and tie it to some place in the Atlantic like Sable Island.

VBR,


ted Gorsline

Mark H, I think the generalizations you make about American versus European motivations or justifications for firearms purchase simplify the problem far too much. One very significant word is missing from your opinion, and that is "legal", in terms of ownership. France, for one, has incredible amounts of unregistered, ie illegally, possessed firearms and that suits most of the owners just fine because they own them for personal defense and would just as well not have them registered. But the nature of that motivation and that justification will hardly be played out on an internet forum. Since it remains silent you draw an erroneous conclusion. Concerning Americans, our legal basis for ownership of all firearms, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, is based on the right of defense, not the privilege of hunting. Americans defend their right to own bolt action rifles for hunting with the same right to own handguns for self-defense. The day you seperate the two, ie you are allowed to own a firearm because at some conjuncture in time hunting is allowed, then you miss the point about what is a "right" and what is a controlled privilege. Americans believe in their rights and defend them vocally, Europeans have to go underground, or limit their speech to the presently politally correct or tolerated.

Dear Lynn,

Interesting Addenda,

There were three times as many participants at the gunfight at the Eaton Centre in Toronto last October as there were at the OK Corral. But the guys at the OK corral were better shots. The Toronto drug dealers only managed to kill innocent bystanders.


VBR,

Ted Gorsline

Dear Wink

I know I was being far to far simplistic.No offence or judgements were intended, I am attemping to distil the major argumnets going through this thread without all the fine detail.
From my personal experience I have found American culture the most difficult to understand when I have been overthere. We share a common language,we have American television pumped into our houses every day and read American novels. However with all these factors I found it to be a far more foreign country psychologically then I ever expected. There nothing wrong with this its just very very different outlook on things.
As other European post have stated I personally dont feel as oppressed as the US forum members on the other side of the pond think we are. That's not to say we are happy with all firearms legislation. I have all the firearms I want to from air-rifles to a 458 Lott. No problems, no difficult questions.
Regards

Mark

In theory at least I think American law tries to put the rights of the individual above the rights of the state. You have rights.

European and Canadian law put the rights of the state above the right of the individual. Some are more equal than others. You have priviledges.

The United States was created in reaction to British (and other European) laws of the day.

According to the late Neal Knox the American Revolution was not sparked by a tea tax as is popularly believed but by an attempt by the British army to disarm the colonial population.

As regards self defence. I think if you looked up a list of the last 1,000 people murdered in London you would find there was not a single police oficer at hand during any murder.

The police come into action after the event. Maybe they solve the crime. Maybe they don't but one way or another the victim is dead.

There is a growing movement in the USA to allow people to do something to rectify this situation (castle law).

In Canada and Europe the police want to keep the job of defending the popultion for themselves but since they are never there when the crime is committed I don't follow the logic in it.

Its the old joke about do you want to be tried by 12 or carried by six.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

You Europeans got on the wrong side of history when you committed continental suicide in World War I. In World War II you killed six million Jews - the smartest people you had - and now you have got twenty million Muslims instead. Good luck to you, you will need it.

Dear Lynn,

Yesterday someone carried out the biggest massacre in Ontario history murdering 8 people. Because of the federal Liberal Party, Canada now has a huge organized crime problem.

I remember seeing a story about how Lloyd Axeworthy, the Winnipeg Liberal who once wanted to run for Prime Minister, getting caught taking a Capo Mafioso (identified as such by Italian Police) to North Dakota in his own car so the guy could leave Canada briefly and then return for another 3 or 6 months or whatever it was he wanted.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline