And this is why

We don’t let New York, Los Angeles and Chicago run the country

Call for handgun ban passes overwhelmingly

Toronto – A lopsided city council vote of 39-3 calling for a federal ban on handgun ownership came as little surprise yesterday. What proved revealing was how two right-wing councillors, seen by some as future mayoral candidates, came down on opposite sides of the vote.

Councillor Michael Thompson (Ward 37, Scarborough Centre), one of three who opposed the mayor’s call for a federal ban, described the effort as “political junk food.”

After pointed questions to Mayor David Miller, who made the request for the ban his key item for the council session that opened yesterday, Mr. Thompson said “to suggest that a ban is the solution today, we are providing a false sense of security.

“It is an empty gesture,” he scoffed.

And that gesture could be described as simply a single finger pointed upwards at the citizens who wish to account for their own defense.

Notice that Britons aren’t saying these things about Canadian cities

America’s “Safety Catch”

Despite the fact there are more than 200 million guns in circulation, there is a certain tranquility and civility about American life.

And then after a couple dozen paragraphs about a guy being stupid with a gun, the NYT vs. Montana Governor Schweitzer, Virginia Tech and then DC Vs. Heller, they actually take the time to talk to Britons about America. You know, like the opening paragraph of the piece implied.

Why is it then that so many Americans – and foreigners who come here – feel that the place is so, well, safe?

A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, “a gentler environment for bringing the kids up.”

This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.

Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.

I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.

“It seems so nice here,” they quaver.

Well, it is!

Ten or 20 years ago, it was a different story, but things have changed.

And this is Manhattan.

Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.

Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.

They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.

It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquility and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.

Because they voted for people who chose gun control as the solution to the problem. Hmm, sounds like Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC, and most of California: The national leaders in murder rates.

Something to ponder here.