Steve Janke of Angry in the Great White North reports from the Canadian election campaign front:

Liberal candidate to veteran: Get out of Canada!

At the Pembroke Outdoor Sportsman’s Club, Liberal candidate Don Lindsay revealed a portion of the Liberal platform related to compensation for gun owners should their legally owned weapons be confiscated. Essentially, if you think you are owed something, think again.

To be even more precise, if you think the Liberals owe you something, you should hit the road:

Don Lindsay’s self destruction continued when club member and Canadian Veteran George Tompkins stood to ask the candidates his question. “If the handgun ban goes forward. What plan would your party offer to compensate those of us who legally own the guns that would be confiscated?” To which Lindsay replied “Sir America is our neighbor not our nation, if you elect a society that talks about that kind of perspective I suggest that perhaps you go there!”

Maybe Lindsay thought grabbing [Conservative] Paul Martin’s line from the leader’s debate would work for him.

Of course, Linday’s comments don’t even make much sense. If the majority of voters do elect a government with that sort of policy, then wouldn’t it make sense that Lindsay be the one looking for somewhere else to live? I don’t think he needs to. He is welcome to stay, of course.

I don’t think people should leave for holding different opinions, and voting based on those opinions.

Too bad he couldn’t extend that courtesy to a man who fought for this country.

It’s moments like these that a Conservative candidate lives for.

Hat tip to PJM.

The Boston Globe is reporting that democrats, especially those seeking office in rural & Western states, are trying to disconnect from support of Gun Control, an issue which has functioned like the bug-zapper at the local Dairy Queen on many democrat hopes:

WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party, long identified with gun control, is rethinking its approach to the gun debate, seeking to improve the chances of its candidates in Western states where hunters have been wary of casting votes for a party with a national reputation of being against guns.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, who had been a critic of some forms of gun control during his tenure as governor of Vermont, has urged candidates to view gun control laws as state issues, allowing those in rural states to reflect the values of hunters and others hostile to gun control, while supporting restrictions in urban areas with serious crime problems.

”On gun rights, we’ve allowed the Republicans to paint us in a way that just doesn’t represent our values,” said Damien LaVera, a Dean spokesman, noting that Republicans have repeatedly portrayed Democrats as hostile to the Western way of life.

If there was ever the slightest doubt in anybody’s mind that gun registration leads to gun confiscation, well, here you are. It’s happening in Canada, and it can happen here. To prevent it, JOIN THE NRA.

ShrinkWrapped (who was on duty when John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, was brought in) remembers that night (hat tip to Baron Bodissey):

John Lennon was shot to death 25 years ago today. His killer was an undistinguished and indistinguishable man named Mark David Chapman. He was arrested, brought to Central booking, and arraigned the next day, at which point he was remanded to the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital Prison Ward for Psychiatric observation and evaluation. As it happened, I was on-call the night he was admitted… I had grown up with the Beatles and was saddened, though not surprised, when they broke up. They have left us some of the most memorable music from an era that produced an exceptional flowering of pop music in all its myriad forms. Their music will be with us for a long time.

I remember feeling sorrow for John Lennon myself, and thinking that his unfortunate death marked the end of a period of rock music history coinciding with my own generation’s youth. By that time, of course, John Lennon had developed the relationship with Yoko Ono, which seemed to bring him happiness, but which unhappily also led to the break-up of the Beatles, and which was leading Lennon into further and further depths of intellectual banality and embarassing displays of vanity.

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The Solid Surfer speculates that John might have straightened out, given time, and that had he lived, he’d be a Republican today. Could be. I personally think Taxman on Revolver may well represent a better picture of John Lennon’s natural politics than Imagine. Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

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Bolshevik David Corn blames gun ownership by private citizens, and the National Rifle Association‘s defense of Individual Rights, for a madman’s act, and today, as then, believes more Gun Control is the answer to crime. I don’t recall Mark David Chapman having a New York pistol permit, which suggests that gun control laws don’t necessarily deter persons willing to break one law from breaking a second as well.

Mr. Corn will blame insufficiently strict laws in other US states (since Chapman purchased the gun in Hawaii), but no law would ever have prevented Chapman from buying an illegal gun, anymore than any law ever kept Chapman, Lennon, or millions of the rest of us back then from buying marijuana and other illegal substances. And the banning of firearms owned by tens of millions law-abiding Amerrican hunters, target shooters, and collectors, and ordinary people wanting a means of self defense would do nothing whatsoever to prevent crime. In fact, gun control increases crime by eliminating criminals’ fear of potentially armed victims. Not long after John Lennon’s murder, Bernard Goetz shot some assailants in the NYC subway, and in the period when the unknown subway gunman had not yet given himself up, street crime temporarily vanished.

Comrade Corn’s twaddle is worth a look, however, because the conniving Mr. Corn reveals how all he had to do was invent an imaginary organization, the so-called Citizens against Gun Violence, an “ad hoc citizens group” consisting of Mr. Corn, period; and a few photocopied fliers and some calls to the MSM later, he had a full-fledged moonbat rally of his own, and 15 seconds of fame.

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Since unfortunately they did not hang him:

On-line Petition Opposing Parole for Mark David Chapman

Even a Hippie Chick Journalist needs a gun.

Steve Zorn, a 22 year old rap performing resident of St. Paris, Ohio was drinking in celebration of an expected record deal (I celebrate my own expected record deals of an evening pretty frequently too), and finding his pen gun not working, naturally put the gun this head and triggered it, assuming this was perfectly safe. His equally-swift mother, Lisa McCoy-Horn, is reported to be lobbying lawmakers to outlaw pen guns, i.e. already pretty-universally-illegal small-caliber, single-shot weapons that resemble pens.

The irrepressible FrankJ posts an amusing collection of “Amazing Beliefs” about Guns, compiled by Michael Z. Williamson :

(excerpt)

That incidents where people shoot criminals in self defense are very rare, and shouldn’t be used as excuses to own guns, just as incidents where presidential press secretaries are shot are very rare, and shouldn’t be used as excuses to ban guns.

That guns are the real cause of crime, but we will blame and jail the owner of said gun for the crime, even if the owner wasn’t the person involved.

That a mugger will kill you in the half-second it takes to draw from the holster, but won’t harm you while you dial 911 on your cell phone, talk to the dispatcher and wait half an hour for the cops to arrive.

That gun control works, which is why there are no illegal weapons in Northern Ireland or Beirut.

That the Second Amendment only applies to flintlocks, just as the First Amendment only applies to quills and lead type.