U.S. retirees busted at border with undeclared arsenal
This isn't a new story, but it's interesting on a couple of points. And yes, it's from the National Post! Ran across it while reading a link from google news about something else; the Post gave this as a related story.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/22/u-s-retirees-busted-at-border-with-undeclared-arsenal/
... The Canada Border Service Agency said that when officers searched their 2008 Winnebago after they said they had nothing to declare, the officers found a derringer-type pistol, a cowboy-style revolver, three semi-automatic pistols and a shotgun.
... Whysall <the BC lawyer representing them> said having firearms in Texas is a fact of life there. “It seems they believe they have to have guns to protect their property,” he said.
I just liked that last line. Yes, these are strange people with funny notions and outlandish customs, but they're entitled to a lawyer and I'm it.
Here's the interesting bit, to me:
“That charge is the major concern,” Whysall said. “It’s one of (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper’s minimum sentencing provisions which was never intended to deal with a situation like this.
Yes, the charming right-wing scum Stephen Harper and his unneeded, unwanted, proven failure, uncosted Tough On Crime™ legislation. Who is among the first victims? Why, the very people who would be voting for him if they lived in Alberta rather than Texas!
I wish I'd known about the story in October. I'd have been sure to get one of my own party's MPs to ask the PM about it during debate on his crime bill. Snork.
But hey, enforcing those laws already on the book, especially those tough-on-illegal-guns ones, is the right way to go, right?
= new reply since forum marked as read
You are too funny, hypocritical, but funny!
...it's not okay to insult Canada.
I'm game
Or declare sovereignty over the highway, or something.
A lot of people coming from the US do think of the route to Alaska as something not quite the same as actually entering a foreign country, it seems. Having non-continguous bits of one's country with another country in between isn't standard issue.
During my lengthy childhood hospital stay, that and ... that cowboy song, streets of ... Laredo, that's it, were my faves. I was much too young to know I was singing for the villains.
Fair trade:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Queenston_Heights
Stan Rogers, one of those musician guys who die in small plane crashes. Had a beer with him once. He was pretty grumpy.
Here's one you'll love:
On the 96th day we sailed again,
When a bloody great Yankee hove in sight
With our cracked four pounders we made to fight
God damn them all!
I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold
We'd fire no guns-shed no tears
Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett's Privateers.
Kinda like Eric Bogle's Waltzing Matilda ... we others tend to commemorate the losses in the ruling classes' wars more than crow about the wins.
And look what I've just found! -- the real story ... fired our guns and the Yankees kept a-comin ... fired once more and the Yankees started runnin', down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico:
(is it just me or is that Tony Blair covering his ears)
I wonder how New Orleans residents would have fared in Katrina had the outcome been different in 1814 ...
She probably still believes the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2009/04/mccain-napolitano-and-myth-911-terrorists-entered-us-canada
(Rabble is a counterpart to DU in Canada, several notches over to the progressive; James Laxer is a long-time left-wing activist/academic in Canada: for those who like to know their sources.)
Janet Napolitano, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary recently informed a CBC interviewer that some of the terrorist-hijackers who carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001 entered the United States from Canada. This week Senator John McCain told Fox News: "Well, some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada as you know."
... Hillary Clinton who was then a U.S. Senator from New York said that the U.S. should lobby Canada to tighten border security: "We need to look to our friends in the north to crack down on some of these false documents and illegals getting in."
Actually, Clinton was more explicit than that, in an episode some years after 9/11, and refused to apologize after saying she'd been misled by security officials and the hoax was plausible because we Canucks are just so lax, but it's kind of ancient history now and hard to find in the annals of the internet. She wanted to tighten up that border -- just what the economy of her stated needed.
Now my man Joe, you wouldn't get anywhere with him. In a series of interviews I used to have video of bookmarked before a certain someone tried to partition my hard drive and failed spectacularly, the primary candidates were asked several unusual questions. One was where they'd rather live if they couldn't live in the US. Clinton, she was just such an American kid, she couldn't answer it. Joe, he had no hesitation. Among us, of course! Hmm, maybe annexation would appeal to him then ...
We decided against taking the Turks and Caicos in. Maybe you could consider that.
My little brother took my mum on a boat tour around Montreal Island a few years ago. Their table-mates were a retired couple from south of the border wearing matching NRA caps. My brother, who lived in Montreal, gave them and my mum the local's guided tour of the sights as they went along, and they all chatted about this and that. He also figured he may as well have some fun. Bill Clinton's book had just come out, and he congratulated the couple on their president's literary success, and spoke highly of him at some length (which might actually have been a bit hard for him, him being an actual lefty and all). They were a little non-plussed, but accepted it graciously.
