An American Tourist in Calgary
Calgary is one of the largest cities in Canada. Know for cowboys and oil companies, it is also the host of the Calgary Stampede, an annual surrender to the gluttony of fatty foods, country music and modest animal abuse.
Among metropolitan areas in Canada, Calgary is relatively safe, in a nation sort of known to be relatively safe.
However, during this year's Stampede, Kalamazoo resident and 20 year police veteran Walt Wawra had a fateful encounter with a pair of gentlemen in a city park. In a letter to the editor of the Calgary Herald, Wawra describes what must have been a frightful scenario:
Recently, while out for a walk in Nose Hill Park, in broad daylight on a paved trail, two young men approached my wife and me. The men stepped in front of us, then said in a very aggressive tone: "Been to the Stampede yet?"We ignored them. The two moved closer, repeating: "Hey, you been to the Stampede yet?"
I quickly moved between these two and my wife, replying, "Gentle-men, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye." They looked bewildered, and we then walked past them.
I speculate they did not have good intentions when they approached in such an aggressive, disrespectful and menacing manner. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort, but rather concluded it was in their best interest to leave us alone.
Wawra laments that it is not legal to carry a concealed sidearm in Canada as, given the above altercation, one cannot feel safe without one, even being within a very safe city in a very safe nation:
I recently visited Calgary from Michigan. As a police officer for 20 years, it feels strange not to carry my off-duty hand-gun. Many would say I have no need to carry one in Canada....
Would we not expect a uniformed officer to pull his or her weapon to intercede in a life-or-death encounter to protect self, or another? Why then should the expectation be lower for a citizen of Canada or a visitor? Wait, I know - it's because in Canada, only the criminals and the police carry handguns.
of course, the Libra-net erupted into a storm of scorn for our heroic police officer. Canadians felt butt-hurt that someone might have wanted to defend themselves from an obviously life-or-death situation, which only the providence of the Almighty prevented from turning sour that fateful day! People in Calgary, feeling personal safety is a laughing matter, put up signs like this one:
or memes like this started appearing on the lib-tard twitterverse:
how dare they!?!? How dare they paint the heroic Walt Wawra as some kind of trigger-happy maniac. I mean, can you prove the men who approached him weren't going to kill him and his wife? Can you prove they weren't going to pull a weapon? I mean, ignoring the fact they didn't, and by Wawra's own account, the men were left bewildered by Wawra's response to them. And sure, ignoring that the men may have been doing some type of promotional work for the Stampede (though, not as part of official Stampede promotions). I mean, how much proof does one need to know they are being threatened? If you can't shoot someone who approaches you in the middle of the day, in a public place, and asks an innocuous question, who can you shoot?
Thankfully, some readers of the Calgary Herald have rushed to Wawra's defense, arguing:
“Everyone is dumping on this poor man,” said retired Calgarian Jim Miller.“None of us were there. How can everybody assume these two guys were friendly? It’s turned into an anti-American rant. Let’s cut this guy some slack. He’s unwittingly poked a hornet’s nest.”
In a letter to the Herald, one man said it’s plausible that Wawra and his wife “were accosted in an open wilderness with few witnesses around by two possible con men under the apparent pretext of so-called Canadian friendliness.”
Exactly. We should give Wawra the benefit of the doubt so that he doesn't have to give the benefit of the doubt to random strangers. We should imagine the best possible intentions in him so that it is ok when he imagines the worst possible intentions in others. You know, fair and balanced (and I mean, seriously, those scum, appealing to the pretext of Canadian friendliness, I'm going to be sick).
Whats more, Wawra is a law-enforcement official, so we should take him at his word, as he has a clear ability to accurately judge situations and because he is a God fearing man. I mean, just read this critique of President Obama he wrote to a local paper after rapper/poet Common was invited to the white house. Incisive, topical, intelligent, this man is a clear gem among the wise blue-line, and Canada should be ashamed, ASHAMED we gave him such a poor impression of our nation by requiring he not pull a weapon on what were ostensibly innocent citizens of our nation.
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ok, so, sarcasm aside, this one was a real laugh for me. Hope you enjoy. My real sort of "opinion" on the matter is covered really well by The National Post's Matt Gurney. While I certainly don't endorse every word of his opinion here, I do agree with most of it, especially the idea that Canada might need to think about a happy medium between our complete ban on personally carried firearms and the cluster**** American gun laws appear to be, enjoy:
But it’s still fair to address the substance of Mr. Wawra’s complaint — that free citizens, in Canada as much as the U.S., should be able to carry a personal handgun for their own defence. There is merit to that statement. It’s simplistic to simply declare that more handguns in a society would make it safer for the law-abiding citizens to go about their business in peace. But should I ever find myself in a movie theatre or lecture hall with a deranged madman set on racking up a high kill count, I’d rather one of us poor statistics-waiting-to-happen be packing heat than hope the shooter has lousy aim and a limited supply of ammunition. Until society thinks up a way to totally eliminate such mass shooting events, you can’t blame me for wishing I’d have a way to shoot back.But proponents of concealed carry need to offer some reasonable assurance that concealed carry laws won’t result in idiots with more firepower than brains blowing each other away. There are entirely reasonable and legitimate arguments to be made for allowing properly trained and vetted citizens to carry a concealed handgun in public. But those arguments always stumble over an equally legitimate counterpoint: that putting more guns out onto the streets will result in people double-tapping each other over fender-benders, high-stakes sporting events or — just to pluck an example out of thin air — random encounters with talkative strangers in a park.
It would be possible to design a system of background checks, psychological screening and firearms training that would be (mostly) effective at keeping handguns out of the hands of the macho, the short-tempered or the unstable. But one would like to think that police officers who have presumably been screened and trained in firearm safety would know that talkative strangers need not be confronted with a gun. In this case, they’d be disappointed.
Mr. Wawra has thus given ammo (pun not intended, but acknowledged) to those who’d argue that concealed carry is more trouble than its worth because even screened and trained individuals may reach for the gun first and think much, much later. I don’t think they’re right. But thanks to people like Mr. Wawra, I think they’d win the debate.