I asked Officer K. if he’d mind getting to the point. He thought I was being difficult. Not me. I am, however, uncomfortable playing 20 Questions in the morning with armed men on the porch.
The point?
Officer K. reminded me that my firearms licence had expired. He said I could turn the gun over to them for storage, or they could take the gun and destroy it.
My gun? It is a single-barrel .20 gauge shotgun. It is 40 years old. I used to take it into the woods up north to get partridge in the fall. (…)
I guess, when the Feds began the long-gun registry, I should have lied and not bothered to register the damn thing. (…)
I told Officer K. I would not hand my gun over and he could take the next step, whatever that might be, and close the gate on the way out.
Did I think they were aggressive? Yes. Was my response temperate? Not especially.
An hour later Officers F. and K. showed up with their boss, Officer Nicolle. He was as angry as he was pushy and he said he wanted the gun or he’d come back with a search warrant.
I was offered no options.
***
Fiorito is one of those old guy columnists who writes “observational” stuff we’re meant to think is simple yet wise and profound, about the homeless losers and crazies and lazy but loveable poor people who litter the streets and how this makes Toronto Such A Colourful Place To Live ™.
I’m sure that after all this, he still believes The Cops Are Your Friend ™.
At first you think, today, maybe, he’s gonna get it. He’s sounded appropriately pissed off and principled.
But he ruins his column by saying half-way through: “I hate writing this…”
Why do Canadians write and think this way? You should be a “from my cold, dead hands” kind of guy. This “on the one hand/on the other hand” crap IS THE PROBLEM.
It is the reason the cops figure they can just show up on your doorstep and take your stuff.
Also we do not enjoy private property rights, according to that worthless piece of paper we call the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And by the way: once Canadian cops put your gun “in storage”, you never get it back. (See above).
“No one in the city should have a handgun”? Get lost, Mr. Professional Liberal Torontonian. Now you see the results of your very own belief system. It has come to bite you on the ass, and you’re all like, “Wha…?!”
You’re tough for a while, but then you handed over your property because they “threatened” you with “having to go get” a warrant?
They are supposed to NEED a warrant, fool. Getting a warrant is not a minor inconvenience that it is your repsonsibility to relieve them from enduring, just because they are rolling their eyes and making “tutting” noises on your doorstep.
(Of course, that’s the rule in a real country. Not one like Canada…)
Thanks for coming out.
(Stay tuned, by the way. Within the next month, Fiorito will make a crack about those “stupid, redneck Americans” and how superior we are to them, either in print or at some social thing. That will be the response the majority of Torontonians who read this article will have automatically have, too.)
UPDATE: a reader writes in…
Remember – Canadians USED to be like you. This “peace-keeping” nonsense is almost as new as Trudeaupia, and as destructive.
When I was a little boy there was a book called “Good Stories, Jokes, and Riddles” dating to about 1925 around the house. I read it when I was thirteen, They had a lot of “Halt, Who goes there” jokes from WW1. One was:
“Halt, who goes there?”
“What the @#$##@# has it got to do with you?”“Pass, Canadian!”
we’ve lost that …
