Many people won’t make a connection between violence and housing; but a curious person will appreciate that actual housing and good neighbourhood design connects. Neighbourhoods have hard or soft borders. Law-abiding citizens respect them. Criminals do not.
Since we last connected there has been powerful testimony before the Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs. There is a lot to watch. Your time is valuable. Please watch the two five minute segments, totalling ten minutes of very powerful testimony, in the following CPAC links, and then explore if you have more time.
First, please go to the 2:03:50 hh:mm:ss mark of this video:
This is a more logical place to continue our conversation.
Tim asked what I told you that made you a follower on twitter, as you are an urban Liberal riding association chairman. I explained to him how it came about. Please be aware that Tim has to play the game on twitter, that twitter is not a complete representation of Tim, and that Tim is doing all of his gun file work completely for free so as not to have any conflict of interest. He does not even accept payment for his articles published in mainstream media or The Line, etc. The CPC consults him and wants him to advise them. He has been a member since highschool. He does what he can while still maintaining his neutral reputation. The gun lobby has offered to hire him. He wishes to remain independent as long as practical.
The gun file is similar to the housing file. The differences between urban and rural needs precludes a one size fits all solution. If you have time and interest for the gun file I can send you additional appropriate links. It is a complicated issue, made more complicated by emotions and politics. Being a mathematician and software developer you will appreciate the experts who are tackling the emotions with statistical analysis.
Dr. Caillan Langmann is an emergency room physician in Hamilton, a professor at McMaster University, and one of Canada's preeminent statisticians. He and Tim have teamed up on statistical analysis of the gun file. They are conversant with the academic literature from all the comparable jurisdictions. Their work illustrates over and over again that the Canadian government interventions in the gun file have no statistical effect on homicide rate trends and that the funds wasted on the interventions would be better applied to crime prevention and suppression initiatives.
If you Google Dr. Caillan Langmann on YouTube you will find excellent videos of his testimony before the SECU Committee. In the meantime here are two links to get you into the fold. The last one was compiled by the CCFR and has some "lipstick"; but I assure you it is completely factual. Dr. Langmann was online from his emergency department; so please cut him some slack. The second link bypasses the intermediate steps from the first link. It is a daughter link.
You have a hill to climb in Vancouver-Kingsway. The NDP have had a stranglehold on the riding ever since David Emerson crossed the floor and condemned the Liberals there to purgatory. (My humour is dry.)
Happy Thanksgiving, Tom, and thanks for the references! To answer Tim's question, I'm interested in policing and public safety (especially since Covid has had a significant impact on public safety, with people showing more disinhibition and less responsiveness to social norms, and it seems like there's much more anti-government sentiment on the Internet these days). As Noah Smith says, "walkability is punchability" - there's a close connection between urban living and public safety. That said, I'm sure Tim has much more detailed knowledge of this area than I do.
I mentioned that politicians are generalists rather than specialists. I have specialized knowledge and experience in my area of employment (software development and computer networks), but when it comes to political issues like housing, economics, and public safety, I'd describe myself as an interested layperson, informed primarily by materials aimed at a general audience. I think elected officials are in the same position. (I ran for Vancouver city council last October and met quite a few of the other candidates.)
There's a passage somewhere (Max Weber, perhaps?) contrasting the careful way in which a dentist, for example, will bring all his knowledge and experience to bear when at work, with the casual way in which he will form his political opinions. I try to avoid this by reading widely.
Again, my knowledge of firearms is extremely limited. But to me it seems reasonable, based on Hobbes's argument about an arms race resulting in everyone being worse off, that we need to draw the line *somewhere*. In particular, in an armed confrontation with police, I don't want the police to be facing shooters with semi-automatic rifles. A recent shooting in Saanich, near Victoria, resulted in six police officers being shot and seriously injured. The shooters used SKS rifles, which are unrestricted. They had PAL licenses. https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/investigation-into-deadly-saanich-b-c-bank-shooting-clears-officers-reveals-details-of-attack-1.6204219
To me the key question is where to draw the line. An international comparison from the Council on Foreign Relations notes that most countries other than the US have prohibited semi-automatic rifles, often immediately after a mass shooting. If risk = probability x impact, then a mass shooting is a low-probability, high-impact event. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons
With economics, we have non-partisan experts who agree on a large body of knowledge and who are willing to offer advice to any political party. (A lot of the value they provide comes from being able to tell you what's possible and what's not possible: like the difference between the alchemists who wanted to turn lead into gold, vs. chemists who would tell you that it's impossible.) I'm not sure we have a similar situation with gun control: people who have studied gun control seem to be either for (like Blake Brown) or against.
In this situation my inclination would be to consult with police, e.g. police chiefs via the CACP, as well as police officers in both urban and rural areas. They're the people on the front lines, and they're also the people who would need to enforce firearms restrictions.
You are correct Russil. The key question is where to draw the line, and how much money to spend.
As you mentioned that your knowledge of firearms is very limited I am going to take the liberty to explain things simply as there is a lot to explain. Whenever you wish more detail please ask for it. We can take this one step at a time because there is a lot to cover.
The current laws governing gun ownership are adequate, have proven themselves, and do not need to be changed. Changing them will only harm the millions of law abiding owners, including indigenous and non-indigenous hunters who fill their freezers from the land. That harm has to be balanced against the minisculely low number of criminals in those millions and Canada’s low homicide rates. And yes, semi-automatic or automatic guns are necessary for the safety of the hunter when hunting large game animals or vicious animals.
The problem group is the criminal group who import illegal, untraceable crime guns from the USA. The border is porous. Almost all police chiefs will tell you that that source of illegal, untraceable guns arming criminals is the main problem in this file. They are called ghost guns. Police chiefs will also tell you that 3D printed ghost guns in the hands of criminals are a huge emerging problem. Please ask yours.
The millions of law-abiding gun owners do not possess ghost guns. They bend over backwards to obey all laws. Yes, some PALs holders are bad people; but there are minisculely few of those. PALs is designed to screen the bad out, and it works when the police have enough resources to maintain the system as designed. Currently, they don’t. The money that the Liberals have already wasted on this file could have resourced the police many times over, and strengthened border controls many times over. Please ask your police chief.
Some dentists are bad. As are other professionals. We don’t ban their tools. We have professional colleges to discipline them. Consider PALs as a professional college that is not 100% perfect. No college can be. Ambitious businesses strive for 9999.99 certification. None of them are foolish enough to think 100% is realistic.
Your knowledge of the Saanich shooting is very superficial. It is much more complicated than your use of it as an example. I can ask Tim to give you a detailed synopsis if you desire. What I am most concerned and disappointed about is that you, as a trained mathematician, are attempting to use one piece of data to set a philosophy and draw a line while ignoring the rest of the data. That is like saying we should draw a line for airplane possession because one airplane was deliberately crashed into a mountain by a deranged, highly trained, vetted Lufthansa pilot, and it gravely shook us. Obviously that is absurd. His mental illness was not reported because of legal issues surrounding doctor patient confidentiality and systemic breakdown. Drawing lines due to single data points is letting emotion overrule statistical theory. That results in bad policy and bad laws.
It is wrong to compare Canada to the USA. The gun ownership and control systems are so different that comparisons are not valid. New Zealand and Australia are more valid peer comparators. Tim has done extensive work in this area.
By all means. Please ask to speak to every police chief near Vancouver, and as far afield as possible, that will set time aside for you.
I'd definitely be interested in what Tim thinks of the Saanich shooting. (I did a quick search and couldn't find anything he's written on it.) It's true that prioritization matters, and that there may be other policy changes that would be more productive. To combat smuggling rings, mandatory tracing of guns used in crimes (as in Ontario) seems like a good idea. Not sure how you would combat 3D-printed guns. CACP, June 2022: https://cacp.ca/resolution.html?asst_id=3152
Everybody is struggling with how to keep some semblance of rational control over 3D-printed guns. Many 3D-printed items will prove problematic in the hands of the wrong people. Criminally, and nearly all privately manufactured parts have no serial number, making the quantity in circulation untraceable, unknowable and very difficult to govern. Consequently, police responses to criminal use of 3D-printed items will unfortunately tend more to the reactive side than to the proactive.
It would be helpful if technology was embedded in every 3D-printer that mandatorily etched a unique serial number in every part produced and automatically entered the appropriate number and printer ownership into a database; but the public, rightly so, would be in an uproar over government intrusion. Until the issue is sorted out, and a consensus is achieved, the avenues I see are to keep educating citizens in morals and ethics, divert at risk youth from crime as early as possible with good social programs, including affordable housing for their families, and fund the police to be as reasonably proactive against “amatuer” criminals as possible, without hindering their ability to suppress “professional” criminality.
The technology would have to be embedded worldwide or porous borders would completely negate any benefit.
In regards to the Saanich shooting, it is more appropriate for you to ask any police insider that you are acquainted with, or have access to, for their perspective. It isn’t appropriate for Tim or I to potentially muddy the waters. My apologies.
Hi Tom, no worries about the delay in responding - that's one of the advantages of written communication, you can always take as much time as you need.
Whenever there's new technology (like 3D printing of guns) it's going to take some time for institutions to respond. I remember when the US attempted to restrict the export of cryptographic software in the same way as arms exports, back in the 1990s; someone made T-shirts with a short program which violated those restrictions. Similarly, you could try to ban specific 3D recipes for printing firearms, or require that they include a serial number identifying the printer. But in a liberal society it's very difficult to regulate information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States
"The authors are meticulous in the details they recount, although the tone can feel uneven, at first boosterish when discussing the gun’s origins before becoming more circumspect. Still, 'American Gun' is a fascinating social history. Buyers did not initially take to a civilian version of the rifle, since its .223 calibre bullet was too small for hunting deer. Though it gained popularity over subsequent decades, it really took off in 2001 after the terrorist attacks on September 11th. A new kind of buyer came forward—sometimes mocked by old-school gun enthusiasts as 'couch commandos'. They were more interested in self-defence than they were in hunting."
Good morning Russil,
Many people won’t make a connection between violence and housing; but a curious person will appreciate that actual housing and good neighbourhood design connects. Neighbourhoods have hard or soft borders. Law-abiding citizens respect them. Criminals do not.
Since we last connected there has been powerful testimony before the Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs. There is a lot to watch. Your time is valuable. Please watch the two five minute segments, totalling ten minutes of very powerful testimony, in the following CPAC links, and then explore if you have more time.
First, please go to the 2:03:50 hh:mm:ss mark of this video:
https://www.cpac.ca/episode?id=2eb199a3-ea47-4619-b8f4-97cbb4d110ee
Then, please go to the 00:56:30 mark of this video:
https://www.cpac.ca/episode?id=ae15922e-3a3a-4ac1-ace7-da29e9a811ed
All the best … Tom
Good morning Russil,
This is a more logical place to continue our conversation.
Tim asked what I told you that made you a follower on twitter, as you are an urban Liberal riding association chairman. I explained to him how it came about. Please be aware that Tim has to play the game on twitter, that twitter is not a complete representation of Tim, and that Tim is doing all of his gun file work completely for free so as not to have any conflict of interest. He does not even accept payment for his articles published in mainstream media or The Line, etc. The CPC consults him and wants him to advise them. He has been a member since highschool. He does what he can while still maintaining his neutral reputation. The gun lobby has offered to hire him. He wishes to remain independent as long as practical.
The gun file is similar to the housing file. The differences between urban and rural needs precludes a one size fits all solution. If you have time and interest for the gun file I can send you additional appropriate links. It is a complicated issue, made more complicated by emotions and politics. Being a mathematician and software developer you will appreciate the experts who are tackling the emotions with statistical analysis.
Dr. Caillan Langmann is an emergency room physician in Hamilton, a professor at McMaster University, and one of Canada's preeminent statisticians. He and Tim have teamed up on statistical analysis of the gun file. They are conversant with the academic literature from all the comparable jurisdictions. Their work illustrates over and over again that the Canadian government interventions in the gun file have no statistical effect on homicide rate trends and that the funds wasted on the interventions would be better applied to crime prevention and suppression initiatives.
If you Google Dr. Caillan Langmann on YouTube you will find excellent videos of his testimony before the SECU Committee. In the meantime here are two links to get you into the fold. The last one was compiled by the CCFR and has some "lipstick"; but I assure you it is completely factual. Dr. Langmann was online from his emergency department; so please cut him some slack. The second link bypasses the intermediate steps from the first link. It is a daughter link.
https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/?s=tim+thurley
https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/20230725_Aiming-off-target-SchwartzHurley_PAPER-v2.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOdy7jqbOCU
You have a hill to climb in Vancouver-Kingsway. The NDP have had a stranglehold on the riding ever since David Emerson crossed the floor and condemned the Liberals there to purgatory. (My humour is dry.)
Continued from The Line: https://www.readtheline.ca/p/steve-lafleur-a-reason-to-be-optimistic/comment/41351659#comment-41427837
Happy Thanksgiving, Tom, and thanks for the references! To answer Tim's question, I'm interested in policing and public safety (especially since Covid has had a significant impact on public safety, with people showing more disinhibition and less responsiveness to social norms, and it seems like there's much more anti-government sentiment on the Internet these days). As Noah Smith says, "walkability is punchability" - there's a close connection between urban living and public safety. That said, I'm sure Tim has much more detailed knowledge of this area than I do.
I mentioned that politicians are generalists rather than specialists. I have specialized knowledge and experience in my area of employment (software development and computer networks), but when it comes to political issues like housing, economics, and public safety, I'd describe myself as an interested layperson, informed primarily by materials aimed at a general audience. I think elected officials are in the same position. (I ran for Vancouver city council last October and met quite a few of the other candidates.)
There's a passage somewhere (Max Weber, perhaps?) contrasting the careful way in which a dentist, for example, will bring all his knowledge and experience to bear when at work, with the casual way in which he will form his political opinions. I try to avoid this by reading widely.
Again, my knowledge of firearms is extremely limited. But to me it seems reasonable, based on Hobbes's argument about an arms race resulting in everyone being worse off, that we need to draw the line *somewhere*. In particular, in an armed confrontation with police, I don't want the police to be facing shooters with semi-automatic rifles. A recent shooting in Saanich, near Victoria, resulted in six police officers being shot and seriously injured. The shooters used SKS rifles, which are unrestricted. They had PAL licenses. https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/investigation-into-deadly-saanich-b-c-bank-shooting-clears-officers-reveals-details-of-attack-1.6204219
To me the key question is where to draw the line. An international comparison from the Council on Foreign Relations notes that most countries other than the US have prohibited semi-automatic rifles, often immediately after a mass shooting. If risk = probability x impact, then a mass shooting is a low-probability, high-impact event. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons
With economics, we have non-partisan experts who agree on a large body of knowledge and who are willing to offer advice to any political party. (A lot of the value they provide comes from being able to tell you what's possible and what's not possible: like the difference between the alchemists who wanted to turn lead into gold, vs. chemists who would tell you that it's impossible.) I'm not sure we have a similar situation with gun control: people who have studied gun control seem to be either for (like Blake Brown) or against.
In this situation my inclination would be to consult with police, e.g. police chiefs via the CACP, as well as police officers in both urban and rural areas. They're the people on the front lines, and they're also the people who would need to enforce firearms restrictions.
You are correct Russil. The key question is where to draw the line, and how much money to spend.
As you mentioned that your knowledge of firearms is very limited I am going to take the liberty to explain things simply as there is a lot to explain. Whenever you wish more detail please ask for it. We can take this one step at a time because there is a lot to cover.
The current laws governing gun ownership are adequate, have proven themselves, and do not need to be changed. Changing them will only harm the millions of law abiding owners, including indigenous and non-indigenous hunters who fill their freezers from the land. That harm has to be balanced against the minisculely low number of criminals in those millions and Canada’s low homicide rates. And yes, semi-automatic or automatic guns are necessary for the safety of the hunter when hunting large game animals or vicious animals.
The problem group is the criminal group who import illegal, untraceable crime guns from the USA. The border is porous. Almost all police chiefs will tell you that that source of illegal, untraceable guns arming criminals is the main problem in this file. They are called ghost guns. Police chiefs will also tell you that 3D printed ghost guns in the hands of criminals are a huge emerging problem. Please ask yours.
The millions of law-abiding gun owners do not possess ghost guns. They bend over backwards to obey all laws. Yes, some PALs holders are bad people; but there are minisculely few of those. PALs is designed to screen the bad out, and it works when the police have enough resources to maintain the system as designed. Currently, they don’t. The money that the Liberals have already wasted on this file could have resourced the police many times over, and strengthened border controls many times over. Please ask your police chief.
Some dentists are bad. As are other professionals. We don’t ban their tools. We have professional colleges to discipline them. Consider PALs as a professional college that is not 100% perfect. No college can be. Ambitious businesses strive for 9999.99 certification. None of them are foolish enough to think 100% is realistic.
Your knowledge of the Saanich shooting is very superficial. It is much more complicated than your use of it as an example. I can ask Tim to give you a detailed synopsis if you desire. What I am most concerned and disappointed about is that you, as a trained mathematician, are attempting to use one piece of data to set a philosophy and draw a line while ignoring the rest of the data. That is like saying we should draw a line for airplane possession because one airplane was deliberately crashed into a mountain by a deranged, highly trained, vetted Lufthansa pilot, and it gravely shook us. Obviously that is absurd. His mental illness was not reported because of legal issues surrounding doctor patient confidentiality and systemic breakdown. Drawing lines due to single data points is letting emotion overrule statistical theory. That results in bad policy and bad laws.
It is wrong to compare Canada to the USA. The gun ownership and control systems are so different that comparisons are not valid. New Zealand and Australia are more valid peer comparators. Tim has done extensive work in this area.
By all means. Please ask to speak to every police chief near Vancouver, and as far afield as possible, that will set time aside for you.
I'd definitely be interested in what Tim thinks of the Saanich shooting. (I did a quick search and couldn't find anything he's written on it.) It's true that prioritization matters, and that there may be other policy changes that would be more productive. To combat smuggling rings, mandatory tracing of guns used in crimes (as in Ontario) seems like a good idea. Not sure how you would combat 3D-printed guns. CACP, June 2022: https://cacp.ca/resolution.html?asst_id=3152
I’m sorry it took so long to reply Russil.
Everybody is struggling with how to keep some semblance of rational control over 3D-printed guns. Many 3D-printed items will prove problematic in the hands of the wrong people. Criminally, and nearly all privately manufactured parts have no serial number, making the quantity in circulation untraceable, unknowable and very difficult to govern. Consequently, police responses to criminal use of 3D-printed items will unfortunately tend more to the reactive side than to the proactive.
It would be helpful if technology was embedded in every 3D-printer that mandatorily etched a unique serial number in every part produced and automatically entered the appropriate number and printer ownership into a database; but the public, rightly so, would be in an uproar over government intrusion. Until the issue is sorted out, and a consensus is achieved, the avenues I see are to keep educating citizens in morals and ethics, divert at risk youth from crime as early as possible with good social programs, including affordable housing for their families, and fund the police to be as reasonably proactive against “amatuer” criminals as possible, without hindering their ability to suppress “professional” criminality.
The technology would have to be embedded worldwide or porous borders would completely negate any benefit.
In regards to the Saanich shooting, it is more appropriate for you to ask any police insider that you are acquainted with, or have access to, for their perspective. It isn’t appropriate for Tim or I to potentially muddy the waters. My apologies.
Hi Tom, no worries about the delay in responding - that's one of the advantages of written communication, you can always take as much time as you need.
Whenever there's new technology (like 3D printing of guns) it's going to take some time for institutions to respond. I remember when the US attempted to restrict the export of cryptographic software in the same way as arms exports, back in the 1990s; someone made T-shirts with a short program which violated those restrictions. Similarly, you could try to ban specific 3D recipes for printing firearms, or require that they include a serial number identifying the printer. But in a liberal society it's very difficult to regulate information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States
By the way, I came across a review of a book ("American Gun") describing the history of the AR-15, which I thought you might be interested in. It mentions that it's not that useful in hunting large animals (or defending against them). https://www.economist.com/culture/2023/10/05/the-ar-15-is-a-symbol-of-liberty-or-loss-depending-on-whom-you-ask
"The authors are meticulous in the details they recount, although the tone can feel uneven, at first boosterish when discussing the gun’s origins before becoming more circumspect. Still, 'American Gun' is a fascinating social history. Buyers did not initially take to a civilian version of the rifle, since its .223 calibre bullet was too small for hunting deer. Though it gained popularity over subsequent decades, it really took off in 2001 after the terrorist attacks on September 11th. A new kind of buyer came forward—sometimes mocked by old-school gun enthusiasts as 'couch commandos'. They were more interested in self-defence than they were in hunting."