Pubdate: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB) Copyright: 2005 Winnipeg Free Press Contact: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502 Author: Tom Oleson Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Rochfort+Bridge (Rochfort Bridge) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) SPARE US THE FINGER-POINTING MORE than $1 billion worth of gun control was not enough to save the lives of four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in Alberta on Thursday. This was despite the fact the killer had served time in jail, was known to possess guns, known to have a violent nature, known to have fired warning shots at visitors to at trespassers on his property. In 1999 he was charged with firing a shotgun at two people who had intruded on his property, charges that were dropped four years later when the Crown failed to produce evidence. Even another billion dollars worth of gun control would not have prevented this horror from happening. Stronger courts -- if there was ever a Canadian who should not own guns, James Roszko was one -- or sharper Crown prosecutors might have helped prevent it, but there isn't a finger that can honestly be pointed in blame today at any third party. Perhaps down the road when all the facts are in and the details have been sorted out, someone may have a useful suggestion of how this might have been prevented or how something similar can be avoided in the future, but the fact is that horrible things just happen sometimes with a kind of cosmic inevitability. Bad people do bad things and they cannot always be stopped. That does not stop gun control advocates from arguing that these shootings show that gun control efforts must be redoubled. Doing more of what doesn't work seems to be the Canadian answer to almost everything. So the anti-gun lobby says we need more gun control while the gun lobby says we need less. Every Canadian seems to have some kind of agenda. Because the shootings occurred at what the police believed to be a marijuana growing operation, and because the killer was, according to his father, a long-time marijuana user, the bright lights in Ottawa, including Justice Minister Anne McLellan, argue that we need tougher penalties for growing and trafficking in marijuana. There is a certain backward logic to this argument. Trafficking in marijuana is a hugely profitable business. Police across the country find more and more grow-ops as more and more people turn to growing and trafficking, and then turn to violence to protect their investment. People charged with simple possession of marijuana rarely go to jail these days; even people charged with growing it don't often go to jail. It is possible, as some Canadians argue and as Ms McLellan appears to think, that stiffer sentences would deter people from getting involved in the illegal marijuana business, although that flies in the face of what the federal department of justice and provincial departments of justice appear to believe. If the prospect of being hanged in the morning does not deter one from murder, why would six months or so in jail deter one from an extremely lucrative criminal business? We can spend another billion dollars on gun control, but that will not bring four brave policemen back to life. Neither is it likely to prevent the death of another policeman in the future. We can send marijuana dealers to jail but that will not bring four brave policemen back to life either. Greater gun control and tougher drug laws will accomplish little more other giving us the satisfaction of being seen to have done something. There is no subtle, no political, no profound lesson to be learned from the enormity of what happened in Alberta on Thursday. If there is a lesson, it is pretty obvious, in fact. Perhaps the police can learn something from the forensic analysis of what happened that will help them with their procedures, help them to be better prepared for such an eventuality in the future. But it is an inescapable fact of life that terrible things and evil things do happen and they can happen to the best and bravest of people -- 40 peace officers in Canada have died by accident or murder in the last five years. What happened in Alberta says nothing really about gun control or drug enforcement. It does, however, remind us that the next billion dollars destined for gun control might be better spent on resources and better training and more manpower for the police. It might remind us that marijuana use, like the use of alcohol and tobacco, is largely a victimless crime. It reminds us that if marijuana were legalized it would free up huge amounts of money and police time to deal with crimes that do have victims, it would take drug money out of the pockets of criminals and put it into the pockets of the public. And it would take peace officers out of harm's way in at least one part of their dangerous work. Those are things that need to be done, or at least need to be seriously debated. But the doing and debating, as urgent as it might be, is for another time. Today is a time for remembering -- remembering that as long as there are evil people to do evil things, there can be no prouder word in the English language than this short and simple one -- cop. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake