Canada's federal long-gun registry was a response to spectacular mass killing. I suspect US antis are fuelled by same tragic circumstances coupled to Bambi syndrome. Next month, our House of Commons representing significantly more urban than rural voters will kill the registry. Urban publics supported the registry.
Canadians aren't smarter than anyone else. Apeing the US, we're now spending a fortune on new jails while the crime rate has been falling for years. Individual assumptions, however, are often changed over time in response to experience. The shooting sports community here educated effectively.
Our national and provincial organizations didn't label antis as liberal or conservative, dingbats or socialists. It appealed to common sense. The registry was wasteful and did little if nothing to protect the public. Education is more than taking an anti to range or woods. Education in its broadest sense is uniting people in the pursuit of worthwhile goals.
Sure, antis are conspiring---as we do. Not in the sense of the word as subversive to the public interest but Canadians lobby for political influence as do Americans. Influence wanes, however, when sides become polarized by questioning each other's values. Whatever we may think, it's not smart to make distinctions of citizenship on differing opinions of hunting and guns.
On a world scale, scholars and governments are looking hard at how the West is using the word Islamophobia. It falls easily from our lips. We don't use the word anti-Muslimism as we do anti-Semitism. Not at all. As the West looks for ways to take the steam out of extremist terrorism, imagine the effect of using Islamophobia with its connotations of a quasi-medical condition!
Words mean something. My two cents anyway.
