Have your say

Gun scenarios abound

James W. Thacker (Guns can curb violence, Letters, July 24) would do well to remember Elder von Moltke's statement that "no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force."

Consider Scenario 3: Person with handgun fires at gunman, attracting attention, and ends up getting shot, along with those people nearby.

Scenario 4: Person with handgun, unused to firing either uphill or downhill, misses gunman completely, killing or wounding even more people.

Scenario 5: Person with handgun fires at gunman. Second person in theatre thinks there are two shooters, pulls own handgun and starts shooting at wrong target.

Scenario 6: Gunman is wounded and decides to detonate explosive device, killing all around and setting fire to the theatre.

Thacker lives in a fantasy world where all goes according to plan. There are many other possible scenarios besides the ridiculously simple one he advances. Once the main hostile force is engaged, his well-laid plan is off. Unfortunately, the only way to minimize casualties in most cases is to not engage the hostile force at all.

IAN TOAL

Winnipeg

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James W. Thacker quotes John Lott, "a noted researcher on the subject," to support his position that concealed carry laws would reduce crime. A better adjective for Lott would be "controversial," since both the New England Journal of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences have questioned Lott's conclusions.

But let's take his assertion about concealed carry to its conclusion. If concealed carry laws reduced crime, then one would expect that Canada, which does not allow people to carry handguns at all, would have much higher rates of crime than the U.S.

Funny thing: Our crime rates have been dropping, and the severity rate also dropped six per cent, according to federal-government figures.

KEVIN LONGFIELD

Winnipeg

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Shortly after the Aurora theatre tragedy, a pro-gun advocate tweeted the standard response: Guns don't kill people, people kill people. That statement is absolutely true.

Here's another statement that's absolutely true: If people can't get guns, people can't shoot people.

DAN CHECCHINI

Winnipeg

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In a perfect world, perhaps someone carrying a concealed weapon in the audience could have made a difference. It is unfortunate we do not live in a perfect world. Firing at a moving target wearing body armour in a dark crowded space full of panicked, fleeing victims is a recipe for more fatalities.

The example of the senior in Florida is no comparison. The two individuals in that case entered the café in full view, threatening to but not shooting and giving the senior the chance to draw his gun. There was no such opportunity granted the victims in the theatre shooting.

The unhinged individuals who perpetrate the kind of catastrophic violence as seen in Colorado have an advantage no legally armed sane citizen can overcome: months of deranged planning and the element of surprise.

JACQUELINE ELSTON

Winnipeg

Preserving green space

Re: Golf course boondoggle is par for Katz (July 21). I am biased. I have lived near Crescent Drive Park and Golf Course for over 30 years. I golfed at this course when you could not get a seat at the little restaurant or even tee time because it was so busy.

There were cross-country ski rentals in the winter. About eight years ago, the restaurant personnel changed to teenagers who didn't know what a Denver sandwich was. The weeds grew, the flowers didn't. The skis disappeared, the dock was dismantled, the walkways became overgrown.

In the meantime, the Jets came back, the human rights museum took shape, artwork moved from the airport to the university, we almost gave away $7 million for a water park and the mayor touted locating a "world class" green space next to his business.

As residents of this community, we just want our green space respected and preserved for future generations.

Some may say we should not subsidize golf courses. Then perhaps we should broaden that criteria to include all sports (yes, even the Jets). What about the human rights museum, libraries, the arts, swimming pools? Are we ready to give it all up? This is where it starts.

JOHANNA DENESIUK

Winnipeg

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Publicly owned golf courses were never intended to be run as a business operation to make a profit for taxpayers. Rather they were established as a part of the recreational opportunities for residents.

Public community centres, libraries, museums and theatres are not expected to be money makers. They are subsidized by all citizens through operational grants -- because they are recognized as vital to a healthy society. Public golf courses provide thousands of citizens an opportunity to recreate at a reasonable cost. Not many Winnipeggers can afford membership in private golf clubs like St. Charles.

Former city councillors should be remembered with pride for recognizing and satisfying the need for publicly owned golf courses.

TONY HICKAWAY

East St. Paul

Farming for comedy

Doug Chorney's July 20 letter, Farmers are aware, in response to Bartley Kives' erudite article Climate chaos (July 14), unintentionally borders on comic inversion. But I must apologize for not possessing Wilde's talents for exploiting the humour of its content.

Apparently it is absurdly unreasonable to expect Manitoba farmers, businessmen as Chorney himself states, to take as much responsibility for the environment as a Nigerien subsistence farmer. After all, where would it end? Next we'd be expecting oil and mining businesses to clean up the messes they make.

Chorney passes the buck, saying it is society's responsibility to maintain the environment and not that of farmers who happen to live near a body of water. Farmers are members of society and, as Chorney conveniently notes, businessmen, not public servants who rely on taxes to fund their incomes. I look forward to hearing of Chorney's retirement from Keystone Agricultural Producers to a remote cave where he will have no further dependence on the rest of the human race.

ANN La TOUCHE

Winnipeg

Pathetic inconsistencies

Atheist Edward Falzon (Atheist Falzon uses humour to skewer Bible, July 21) comes from Australia to amuse Winnipeg with his comments on the Old Testament and his morals. It is a pity that he does not look in the mirror -- to see some of the pathetic inconsistencies of his own group's long-obsolete ideas.

The only philosophy logically allowable to atheists is materialism: namely that only the tiny (less than 0.001 per cent) tangible, physical, measurable sector of the mighty drama of creation is knowable. His philosophy reduces humans to only random bits of valueless matter, of inexplicable origin and destiny, and at best, only instinctual animals, with a brief temporal existence. Morals are simply irrelevant. And intellectuality and science become impossible.

REG GALLOP

Winnipeg

Making a mockery

Regarding Bill Redekop's story Cottagers win sewage battle (SundayXtra, July 22) and its concluding comment by Dunnottar Mayor Rick Gamble, the proposal was voted down for one simple reason at a guess.

It was a complete breakdown of trust created by council itself in writing and in action, including the mayor's closing comment.

We had been handled in a manner that made a mockery of democratic process and a surprisingly significant number of people responded accordingly.

NORM SPARKS

Winnipeg

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 26, 2012 A11