Je m'en souviens trop...

20 years later and I still feel like crying.

"Au-dela du 6 decembre" is a firsthand doc of the experience, filmed in 1991.

Other coverage:

CTV Montreal has a few good pieces on the anniversary, including a typical "Marc Lepine was crazy (but you can't blame him, can you?)" comment, as enraging now as it was then. I remember many men saying this at the time, or variants of it, in the days after the killings. Many men didn't. 20 years later and that divide is exactly where it was then.

JohnInMtl It's time to put this thing to rest. It's unfortunate that 14 women had to lose their lives to a crazed killer. The gun registry has never deterred a killer and the gun registry will only determine after the fact if the killers had a gun. Harper was fully justified in redirecting $5 million from the administrative budget of Status of Women Canada, closing branch offices and ending funding for women's research and advocacy groups. Do such entities exist for men's rights? Advocacy groups do nothing except to espouse entitlement views. The research group are there to produce unfounded study after study and very often conflicting studies to support the advocacy groups! We already have gender equality legislation and even more in the works!

The Sunday Edition had a great anniversary show in its second hour today. The audio for the show is posted on Monday.

The Globe and Mail on the Conservatives scrapping the gun registry. There are a few doozies there in the comments too, from men and women. Yikes.

Oh, and JohnInMtl?

Fuck off.

Today In Surgery

Dog Blog's shyest member, Carle Steel, sent me a link to this story about North America's first succesful face transplant. (Thanks Carl). The article is interesting mostly as a portrait of the amazing recipient, a woman who lost most of her face after her husband blasted her with a shotgun.

Read the Associated Press story for the feel-good (well, as good as possible) humanity, but maybe do me a favour and remember it the next time you hear some libertarian asshole say there shouldn't be any restrictions on the purchase or ownership of firearms. I'm not opposed to collectors and hobbyists keeping guns, I don't want to take rifles away from farmers and hunters, and I recognize that some of the gun laws in this country might need tweaking. But Jebus Cripes, there are just flat out too many guns out there, and everytime a gun-owning family goes into crisis (a polite way of saying another man goes mental) there's a danger someone will get shot in the face.

And at the risk of sounding like a looney radical, I'm opposed to people being shot in the face.

For people living in cities and suburbs, guns should not be regarded as "household items". They should NEVER be sold in malls, department stores and grocery shops.

Ninety-nine per cent of people have no business owning guns. End of story. Don't shoot the messenger.

Evil Pacifists

Received this press release from the Canadian Firearms Institute today. How can people be so crass as to take advantage of other people's suffering in such a crude and thoughtless way?

Anti Gun Lobbyists Pandering to Public Sympathies

The Canadian Firearms Institute – Institut canadien des armes a feu has dismissed calls by the Anti Gun Lobbyists for yet another round of gun bans in Canada, following the tragic shootings in the United States (MSN) and Germany. (Bild)

Jim Newman, the Institute’s CEO said, “The Anti Gun Lobby should be behaving in a compassionate manner which would reflect genuine sympathy for those affected by this terrible event, instead of once again trying to exploit a tragedy in order to advance their agenda in Canada.”

“Anti-gun lobbyists seem confused about the fact that Canada, the United States, and Germany are very different countries, and this type of pandering to public sympathies only serves to reveal how little they actually understand about current Canadian firearms legislation.”

“Demanding an increase Canadian firearms restrictions in reaction to violence in another country is like saying that when the banks in another country fail, Canada should change its banking system.

The Canadian Firearms Institute is a non-profit member-driven firearms resource and advocacy group that has evolved as a direct result of a defined need for an organization, which can work effectively with and meet the needs of the various facets of the Canadian Firearms Community. http://www.canadianfirearmsinstitute.ca/

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For more information please contact
Jim Newman, CEO
Direct Email: jim@canadianfirearmsinstitute.ca