Walt Wawra Feels Unsafe in Canada Without Gun, Writes Letter To The Editor

[riverbendviewgal]

The tune by the Guess Who went playing in my mind when I read this story in Huff.
I loved this tune....1969 I think..

Read the story..

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/08/08/walt-wawra-gun-letter_n_1756991.html?utm_hp_ref=canada#slide=more243664

n a message to the Calgary Herald, Wawra, of Kalamazoo, Mich., describes what he felt was a dangerous confrontation with two men in Calgary's Nose Hill Park — for which he wished he had had his firearm.

Walking with his wife, the men approached Wawra and asked if the couple had been to the Stampede. After receiving no response, they asked Wawra again. He told them "Gentle-men, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye." The men looked "bewildered," he writes in the letter and likely had bad intentions indicated by their "aggressive, disrespectful and menacing manner."

[phantom power]

1. Begone, younge Ruffians! Or I shall unsheath my Dueling Pistol!

I wonder if this guy defines all unscripted human interaction as "menacing?"

[Spazito]

2. LOL, those darn scalawags...

asking if he and his wife have been to the Calgary Stampede while the Stampede was going on, how dare they!

No paranoia on the part of Mr. Wawra, no sirree, none whatsoever.

[Hoyt]

3. Guy felt uncomfortable and wished he had a gun, although no one was hurt.

Sounds like the American gun culture member was going to pull his gun and stand his ground.

I don't get it. Everything turned out alright. There was no need to pull a gun or shoot anyone.

In fact, assuming the "two men" were intent on robbing him, sounds like Canada's gun restrictions worked in the American couple's favor in that the "suspected criminals" were not easily armed.

America's love affair with guns is irrational. I suspect most countries would prefer that we keep that disease/addiction quarantined within our borders.

[phantom power]

7. the whole thing doesn't scan. since when...

do men with "bad intentions" back off if you say "Gentle-men, I have no need to talk with you"

The idea that this paranoid freak is a police officer ought to worry people.

[DanTex]

4. LOL. I wonder what screen name this guy uses to post in the gungeon...

Here's the link to his LTTE
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/letters/Nose+Hill+Park+confrontation+makes+visitors+feel+unsafe/7050028/story.html

[riverbendviewgal]

9. Here is one of the paper's columnist write of his letter.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/nosehillgentlemen+Kalamazoo+police+officer+letter/7054368/story.html

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Wawra that the need didn’t arise in Calgary, and that if he’d been carrying a handgun, two people might now be dead because they asked him if he’d been to the Stampede.

As an American who is also a Canadian citizen, all I can say is, thank God I live in Canada.

[Hoyt]

19. Now that is really funny, and so true. Thanks for a good laugh.

[frylock]

5. thanks goodness that the Lord Jesus Christ was there to save the brave officer wawra..

from these murderous bastards.

[kooljerk666]

6. coward...........

plain & simple. Fuckin stay in your basement.

These guys remind of the gun nutz in "Tremors".

Canada was less safe while he was there.

[The Magistrate]

8. A Shame He Did Not have A Gun, Ma'am

He might have drawn it, and been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, convicted, and given several years in stir, since there was not a shadow of genuine cause for him to feel under threat. Then he would have been off any police force, where a man of his cowardice and poor judgement certainly does not belong.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

10. Who is Walt Wawra? An off-duty Kalamazoo cop who was visiting Canada and came to the

realization that violent crimes can occur in Calgary, Canada as they do in the United States. He also came to the realization that not all Canadians are friendly. Being an American, he felt free to express himself and describe a confrontation which will inhibit him from visiting Calgary again.

Many Canadians have responded to his letter with criticism. None apparently have suggested taking steps to reduce the criminal activity. Their way to respond to his letter is a choice for Canadians to make.

Is there crime in Canada? Are all Canadians friendly?

Here's two recent stories:
1. In Nova Scotia, four individuals forced their way into a home, beat two men with baseball bats, and sprayed eight other people with bear spray.
http://metronews.ca/news/canada/323768/police-lay-36-charges-in-home-invasion/
2. In Ontario, three individuals engaged in armed robbery inside of a home at approximately 2:30 a.m., last friday.
http://www.saultthisweek.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3598349

So, you have an off-duty cop who was surprised by a pending confrontation and who, as a tourist, expressed his views to a Canadian newspaper. The responding Canadians, without expressing a desire to lower the crime rate, are piling on to show their contempt for the former tourist. He can, as some have said, stay home.

[riverbendviewgal]

11. Apples and oranges IMHO

So glad I am Canadian.....

I have my firearms license...can shoot a gun but own none. Those two stories you gave us have no comparison to the Calgary story.

FEAR is rampant in America. It is something in the brain. There have been actual studies indicating this with MRIs and CT scans and years of research.. Fear of change and what "may" happen...

[AnotherMcIntosh]

15. I'm so glad that you are a Canadian as well.

[DiverDave]

52. And you act like

a stupid american.
God, are you really glad he is canadian?
Weak.

[DanTex]

31. The odds are pretty good that Wawra is a right-wing teabagger.

Not all Americans are paranoid gun fanatics, it's mostly a right-wing thing. There was a study a while back on the psychological attributes that correlate with political conservatism in the US, it found that conservatism was grounded in, among other things, "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity". I think that these traits go a long way in explaining why right-wing Americans seem to be so obsessed with guns, as exemplified by this Wawra guy, who apparently can't even handle innocuous smalltalk without a loaded gun.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/13/usa.redbox

[AnotherMcIntosh]

45. Dear Dan in Texas, just as not all Texans are "paranoid gun fanatics," not all right-wingers are

teabaggers.

Although all cops may be authoritarians, there is nothing to indicate that any of them wear teabags on their uniforms or display teabags when they are off duty.

[muriel_volestrangler]

55. However, given his LTTE linked to in reply #17, 'teabagger' seems the right description (nt)

[The Magistrate]

12. What You have, Sir, Is A Contemptible Coward

Whose judgement of human interaction is so poor he is not fit to be entrusted with anything more lethal than a popsicle stick.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

21. He's "A Contemptible Coward"? (1) I don't like cops for a number of reasons, including that they

are inherently irrational bullies.

(2) The fact that you don't like this particular cop does not mean that he is a coward, a contemptible one or otherwise.

If anything, cops go looking for trouble. They do it all of the time. It's in their DNA. And they readily deliver violence.

Although they always prefer to use superior force and will swarm against both criminals and innocent civilians, they will deliver violence even when out-numbered two to one, four to one, or even 10 to one.

Your animosity towards this cop, and his expressed desire to have a standard weapon used by cops to give him superior force, does not make him a coward.

(3) You would have more credibility if you supported your statements based upon facts.

[laundry_queen]

29. Like your assertion is 'based on facts'?? re: 'confront' LOL.

Also, "his expressed desire to have a standard weapon used by cops to give him superior force, does not make him a coward."

Yes, it does. And no, most cops do not go 'looking for trouble'. Only the ones who are total cowards on power trips continuously trying to prove themselves, covering up the fear underneath. My cop SIL works with those kind of assholes and can't stand them. Walt is just another one of them.

[kestrel91316]

37. You have got some nerve trying to school The Magistrate, dude.

[The Magistrate]

40. A Contemptible Coward, Sir, Unfit To Wield Lethal Force On His Own Testimony

He says he felt he needed a gun, in a situation in which, had he produced a weapon, he would have committed a major felony. He is not fit to wield anything more lethal than a popsicle stick, and is utterly unsuited to work as a police officer. that he can apparently be kept on as such in a minor city is a testimony to both poor personnel policy and the basic safety of this world. Because the man is a coward, double-dyed and bent in the grain.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Excuse me, asking if you have been to the stampede

Is akin to assault?

That is....

[CBGLuthier]

14. Walt Wawra is a walking stereotype. Doesn't feel like a man without his gun.

I imagine Canada is a hell of a lot better off without his visiting if he is going to be waling around paranoid without his penis, I mean gun.

[ieoeja]

16. A commentor on one of the linked articles posted earlier says ...

... the Calgary Stampede has people walking around the park in pairs handing out tickets. Odds are they simply meant to see if this couple wanted tickets.

This man appears to be part of the growing Right-to-Keep-Bear-and-Kill subset of the otherwise reasonable pro-gun groups. And that does need criticizing.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

28. I have no idea as to the odds that people were simply "walking around the park in pairs handing out

tickets" when they encountered him. I only know that this tourist wrote a letter to the newspaper describing his perception.

I don't care for cops, and I don't care whether his perception was right or wrong. What I do care about is rationality and the irrational responses of some who have sought to pile on this former tourist.

You say, "This man appears to be part of the growing Right-to-Keep-Bear-and-Kill subset of the otherwise reasonable pro-gun groups." There is nothing that I've seen in his letter or elsewhere to support that.

Why isn't it enough to stick to the facts? Why isn't it enough to say that at the Calgary Stampede, people walk around in the park in pairs handing out tickets and he may have misperceived their intent? Why is it necessary to say that he "appears to be part of the growing Right-to-Keep-Bear-and-Kill subset ..."?

[LanternWaste]

39. Much as Zimmerman did earlier this spring...

"describing his perception..."

Much as Zimmerman did earlier this spring. Thankfully, the results were less, shall we say, permanent. (certainly hope I'm 'sticking to facts... much as you did when you wrote "he may have misperceived their intent&quot .

[AnotherMcIntosh]

41. Nope. Exactly the opposite of Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a self-appointed stalker, a

vigilante who disregarded a police dispatcher's instructions to not follow his shooting victim. There is no information that he ever visited Canada as a tourist, although he has by his actions expressed an interest in visiting another country South of the U.S. border. There is no information that he ever wrote a letter to a newspaper.

The off-duty Kalamazoo cop has a right to not visit Canada if he wants to. He has a right to express himself and describe why he may choose to not visit Canada in the future.

[laundry_queen]

56. He also has the right to open his mouth and remove all doubt. nt

[ForgoTheConsequence]

18. So...

You're ok with foreign nationals carrying handguns in the United States? There was no "pending confrontation" by most accounts he was asked if he has "been to the stampede" by people in the park handing out free passes. A gun would have helped nothing in this situation. Get out of your paranoid fantasy world.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

22. No facts to post?

[ForgoTheConsequence]

25. You first.

You were the one that claimed that there was an impending confrontation, when by all accounts (including his) he was just asked a question.

Why are you so afraid?


You never answered my question, would you be ok with the United States allowing foreign nationals to carry firearms in the United States? Why should Canada?

Canada is not the US, its their rules, play by them or go home. He had no rights guaranteeing that he could be there.

Canada's violent crime rate speaks for itself and Canada doesn't have anything to learn by listening to paranoid American gun freaks.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

30. False. At no time did I claim "that there was an impending confrontation."

I expressly referred to his feelings and how he felt.

I expressly said:

Being an American, he felt free to express himself and describe a confrontation which will inhibit him from visiting Calgary again.

Your bait-question, "would you be ok with the United States allowing foreign nationals to carry firearms in the United States?," is totally irrelevant.

If you do not understand what I origionally posted, you should re-read it. I'm not interested in responding further to someone who has shown that they cannot understand what was written.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

38. Likewise.

I'm not interested in debating delusional gun nuts. Your whole false equivalency argument is thin and you're now realizing it, I don't blame you for backpedaling.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

43. Name-calling doesn't support your position.

In fact, name-calling is used by a person who is emotional and doesn't have facts to rely upon.

[sibelian]

62. That observation may have had some value had there in fact been any name-calling.

[DanTex]

44. Umm, yes you did:

So, you have an off-duty cop who was surprised by a pending confrontation and who, as a tourist, expressed his views to a Canadian newspaper.

And you've gotta be pretty delusional to describe a couple of guys asking about the Calgary stampede as "a pending confrontation".

[AnotherMcIntosh]

47. Um, taken in the context in which such sentence appeared, the answer is "no."

The context is that the off-duty cop was describing how he felt.

he felt free to express himself and describe a confrontation which will inhibit him from visiting Calgary again.

His perception led him to write the letter.

[The Magistrate]

49. And His Perception, Sir, Was Idiotic, The Result Of His Contemptible Cowardice

He was 'confronted' by two persons handing out free tickets to an entertainment event. He read this as menace and impending assault. Only a coward, and a coward of particularly low grade even for the species, would have had that reaction. It is a shame he did not have a gun on him; had he pulled it, as it seems likely he would have done, he would have been arrested and convicted of a felony, been put in jail, and struck off any further employment as a police officer, a position he is manifestly unfit to hold.

[laundry_queen]

20. That post is laughable

I have no idea where you got that Canadians have no desire to lower the crime rate. What a load of hooey. Guess what, our crime rate is already lower, and plunging. Do bad things still happen. Well holy shit, yes they do. That's human nature. The people who 'confronted' (LMAO) this moron didn't do anything criminal (OMG !111eleventy! They asked if the couple had ever been to the Stampede And then they walked away when this moron asked them to. Clearly criminal. ), so even your false premise doesn't apply. People are writing to make fun of the American that is scared shitless without his gun. Real safe with HIM patrolling your streets, yesiree.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

23. To paraphrase your post, I have no idea where you interpreted anything that was said

as supporting your interpretation that "Canadians have no desire to lower the crime rate."

Go back and re-read what was actually said. The actual words speak for themselves.

[laundry_queen]

26. LOL. I did read it.

Perhaps you need to re-write it. The words speak for themselves indeed.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

27. Can I ask you a question?

Have you been to the stampede yet?






















BOO!

[Spazito]

24. LOL, your post is really, really reaching...

and failing. If Mr. "Kalamazoo" is that frightened by his very benign encounter then, yes, he is better off at home with his trusty gun and badge. If I lived in Kalamazoo, however, I would be worried about this guy being a cop given his attitude about people who merely ask questions.

[Lucy Goosey]

36. "None apparently have suggested taking steps to reduce the criminal activity."

Your post is a bit over the top. Attempting to initiate a conversation with a stranger is not a crime in Canada; in this situation there was no criminal activity to reduce.

[dgauci]

57. Oh Really??

Yes, I can now see how terrified Barney Fife could have been concerned for his safety in a country that doesn't pack....cause if everyone doesn't have a gun, it just isn't safe.

http://rt.com/usa/news/mass-year-people-massacre-710/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57474421/tuscaloosa-ala-shooting-suspect-nathan-van-wilkins-turns-self-in/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/colorado-shooting-2012/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/08/07/arizona-loughner-giffords-shooting.html

There's been so many mass shootings down there over the past few years, they've all just melded into one big bloodstain in my memory but maybe these will refresh the old memory............

Nov. 5, 2009: The Army says 13 people were killed and 30 wounded in a shooting rampage at its Fort Hood base in Texas.

April 3, 2009: A 41-year-old man opened fire at an immigrant community center in Binghamton, N.Y., killing 11 immigrants and two workers. Jiverly Wong, a Vietnamese immigrant and a former student at the center, killed himself as police rushed to the scene.

Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.

Dec. 5, 2007: 19-year-old Robert A. Hawkins opened fire with a rifle in Omaha, Neb., at a Von Maur store in the Westroads Mall, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

April 16, 2007: Cho Seung-Hui, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Feb. 12, 2007: 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic killed five and wounded four at the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was then shot and killed by police.

Oct. 2, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, shot to death five girls at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, then killed himself.

March 21, 2005: 16-year-old student Jeffrey Weise killed nine people, including his grandfather and his grandfather's companion at home, and then five fellow students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minnesota, before killing himself. Seven students were wounded.

March 12, 2005: Terry Ratzmann, 44, gunned down members of his congregation as they worshipped at the Brookfield Sheraton in Brookfield, Wisconsin, slaying seven and wounding four before killing himself.

July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people in shootings at two Atlanta, Georgia, brokerage offices, then committed suicide.

April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before committing suicide in the school's library.

March 24, 1998: Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, killed four girls and a teacher at a Jonesboro, Arkansas, middle school. 10 others were wounded in the shooting.

October 16, 1991: George Hennard, 35, smashed his pickup truck through a Luby's Cafeteria window in Killeen, Texas, and fired on the lunchtime crowd with a high-powered pistol, killing 22 people. At least 20 others were wounded.

Maybe if Canadians had more guns, we wouldn't need to use baseball bats in our mass batting sprees.

Deputy Wawa, you are truly a frightened little man. I'm amazed that you still have a job.

[riverbendviewgal]

17. I don't think this policeman likes Obama or rappers.

Last July, Wawra wrote a letter to the editor of the Kalamazoo Gazette, criticizing president Obama for inviting rap poet Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr, known as Common, to the White House. Wawra said the rapper "celebrates the death of cops."
It drew six online comments.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/08/canadians_tweeters_tweak_kalam.html

[The Magistrate]

42. I See, Ma'am: A Walking Right-Wing Freak Show And A Racist, As Well As A Contemptible Coward

[AnotherMcIntosh]

60. According to your own post, he doesn't like a rapper who "celebrates the death of cops." That does

not mean that he doesn't like rappers. It is illogical to conclude from the limited amount of information that you've posted that he does.

Also, according to your own post, he issued a one-time criticism of President Obama for inviting a rap poet who "celebrates the death of cops." That does not mean that he dislikes Obama. As a matter of fact, he might like President Obama and many of his pro-police policies.

Certain pro-police policies should be disliked by liberals and progressives, even foreign ones. Which President voted to give immunity to the telecoms that spied upon all Americans in violation of the U.S. Constitution for the benefit of the Bush/Cheney Administration? Which President hired a chief of staff who openly expressed his contempt of liberals and progressives, and who asked "Where else are they going to go?" Which President has an Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice who has stood by and done next to nothing when police have openly used excessive force against ordinary Americans exercising their Freedom of Speech by macing and spraying them with pepper-spray? Which President has an Attorney General who has done next to nothing when the police have killed over 700 people by zapping them with "non-lethal" Tasers?

If anything, this off-duty cop who went to Canada as a tourist should be celebrating the pro-police stance of the Obama Administration. There is nothing to indicate that President Obama has done or intends to do anything to curtail the excesses of the police no matter what they do.

None of the things that President Obama has done or will do should offend any of the police in this country. President Obama will be re-elected because he is better than Rmoney. For all we know, Wawra (apparently the cop's real name) may even vote for him.

[kestrel91316]

32. It's a good thing he DIDN'T have his gun, or those men would have

been on the receiving end of his standing his ground.

[Lucy Goosey]

33. ...then don't go to Canada?

Seriously, Walt, maybe you'd just be more comfortable on your own side of the border. I guarantee you that you misinterpreted that exchange with the Calgarians, and it would (I'm pretty sure) have been illegal for you to pull your gun on them.

And why did he even need a gun? It sounds to me like he said he didn't want to talk to them, and they stopped talking to him. So...he got what he wanted without a gun, right?

Oh, but what do I know? I'm just a brainwashed citizen of Soviet Canuckistan.

[nykym]

34. The

Ugly American from Kalamazoo, polite albeit!

[Buns_of_Fire]

35. "Fie on thee! Fie, I say! Removeth thyself from my presence, thou shag-eared villains!"

(I've heard that Will Shakespeare would really kick your ass if you got on his bad side.)

[Lucy Goosey]

46. The 'Gentlemen’ Were Calgary Stampede Promoters Giving Away Free Tickets

Report: ‘Nose Hill Gentlemen’ Were Calgary Stampede Promoters Giving Away Free Tickets

"The denouement to the #NoseHillGentlemen story is this: the two guys were handing out free Calgary Stampede passes," tweeted Calgary Cultural Ambassador Jenn Lutz late last night.

Lutz pointed to comments left by readers in a Kalamazoo Gazette report on Wawra's controversial letter claiming they were approached by the same men and offered passes to the Stampede's centennial celebration free of charge.

http://gawker.com/5933264/report-nose-hill-gentlemen-were-calgary-stampede-promoters-giving-away-free-tickets#13445351496544&

[phantom power]

50. Ruffians! Begone with your menacing free tickets!

[bluesbassman]

58. Aha! Now we know: It was friggen Canadian Socialists and their damnable FREE stuff!

(just in case)

[struggle4progress]

59. ^^^^^

[Kingofalldems]

48. Gimme my guns you gun grabbers!

[polly7]

51. LOL! nt.

[KamaAina]

54. KamaAina Feels Unsafe in Park With Walt Wawra, Unless It's In Canada

Goodness only knows what he'd do if I approached him in a park here in the gun-friendly U. S. of A. and asked him for the time of day or something.

[riverbendviewgal]

61. Today's paper in Toronto

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1239438--u-s-tourist-s-pro-gun-letter-sparks-social-media-storm

check out the picture.
It's dirty harry