Guns will be guns
It's sad to see The Globe twist itself into a pretzel in order to defend its stand against the firearms registry (A Registry That Doesn't Register - editorial, Sept. 4). While the RCMP has evaluated the cost of maintaining the registry at $4-million a year, you still trot out the mythical "billions" that were never spent on its implementation (it was $1-billion, over 10 years, and most was spent on licensing).
You argue that the registry didn't prevent registered guns from being used to kill. Well, sometimes registered dogs bite children. Sometimes registered cars are used by drunk drivers. Should we toss out dog registration? Licence plates on cars? Even registered handguns kill - but you never mention deregistering handguns.
If you don't believe the evidence that owner accountability reduces the misuse of guns, then how about a little common sense? How many more people would park their cars illegally, fail to return a library book or lend their hunting rifle to an unlicensed cousin if there were no way of identifying those responsible?
Heidi Rathjen, Montreal
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What are guns for, anyway? Killing people and animals. What if we just got rid of guns? Frankly, I'm willing to toss the concerns of the "law-abiding duck hunters and farmers" who are so close to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's heart. The rest of us don't need guns unless we're up to nefarious deeds. And let's forget the argument of "self-defence" so beloved of our American neighbours: Guns are more likely to be used in accidental death or spousal abuse than self-defence.
Margo McCutcheon, Gabriola, B.C.
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There can be little doubt that your editorial would cause the late Charlton Heston (he of "from my cold, dead hands") to smile in his grave - his cold, dead lips notwithstanding.
Phillip S. Utting, Uxbridge, Ont.
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I get it. It's a test. Every now and then, you write an editorial as ill-conceived and logically faulty as the one on the long-gun registry just to see if we're paying attention. We are. Now go back to using your brain.
Nicholas Read, Vancouver
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Having been a collector and user of the ultimate sporting shotguns English side by sides and over and unders by Purdey, Boss and Holland & Holland and high-grade American by Parker, Ansley Fox and L.C Smith, and a long-time subscriber to your great newspaper, I was delighted to read your editorial on why the long-gun registry should be ended. You hit the bull's eye!
At 75, I'm still harvesting wild pheasant, woodcock, ruffed grouse, ducks and Canada geese in the beautiful fields and coverts of Nova Scotia. I shoot for my Brittany Spaniels, for the table and the challenge, adhering strictly to the sporting arm and game laws of our country. Given the respect and credibility your editorials enjoy, you should have no trouble in educating your ill-informed detractors.
George M. Cunningham, Halifax
Why we miss Chrétien
Letter writer Mark Collins (The Canada-Iraq Myth - Sept. 4) doesn't get it when he says Canada said "no" to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq because there was no United Nations Security Council resolution. Lack of a UN resolution, after all, didn't prevent Canada's shameful participation in the 1999 bombing of Serbia.
Jean Chrétien knew very well the UN was never going to authorize an invasion of Iraq based on the flimsy and dishonest evidence presented by the Bush administration. Asking for a UN resolution before giving an answer was simply a polite way of saying "no" to George Bush. As Jeffrey Simpson reminds us (We're Glad We Missed The Ottawa-Baghdad Train - Sept. 3), Mr. Chrétien's answer was given against the advice of much of the Canadian media.
Mr. Chrétien's refusal to take part in the Iraq fiasco was one of the high points of his years in office. In light of those who came after him, I can only say we miss him.
Stylianos Perrakis, Ottawa
Why we need marine pilots
Re Uncharted Waters (letter, Sept. 4): A good step toward showing who's in charge of our Arctic waters would be to legislate that all foreign ships passing through our Far North require the onboard presence of a licensed Canadian marine pilot - as we do for every other navigable water in Canada, and as every other maritime nation requires in their waters. Reliable charts are lacking in the Arctic, which is all the more reason to use highly trained professionals with local knowledge.
Ed Lien, B.C. coast pilot, Victoria
Bankable lesson
How wonderful to read about banks that serve the people (Africa's Outcasts Follow A New Path Out Of Poverty - Sept. 4) instead of the usual North American model where people serve the banks.
Alison Dennis, Peterborough, Ont.
Fighting words
The B.C. prison was right to deny an inmate's request to buy a thesaurus (In Other Words, A Victory: Prisoner Wins Right To Thesaurus - Sept. 4). As every high-school student knows, you only use a thesaurus to look up synonyms for unseen body parts so you can write them on the school wall. Unspeakable but erudite suggestions about the warden could appear on the cell wall, and that's no kickin' the bobo.
Charles Cook, Toronto
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In the halcyon days of education, my then-Grade 8 brother was given a choice between the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus. As a Calgarian, he chose "the one about the guy and his dinosaur!"
Cairine MacDonald, Victoria
Leap of faith
While I'm also a big proponent of the liberal arts and critical thinking in education (and, yes, philosophy, too), and for many of the reasons cited by John Allemang (Can The Liberal Arts Cure Jihadists? - Focus, Sept. 4), surely he overestimates their capacity to inculcate empathy. And, indeed, perhaps we should expect some, whether jihadists or Sarah Palin voters, to reject such Enlightenment virtues.
After all, they also tend to make life more complex and nuanced, and some will recoil from that, seeking simpler "answers." As, perhaps, we are tempted to do in "explaining" homegrown, or any, jihadists/terrorists?
David Checkland, Department of Philosophy, Ryerson University
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John Allemang says schooling young Muslims in literature and philosophy, instead of technology, may be our best chance of keeping them away from the path of violence. Such action, of course, also offers the best chance of keeping them away from the path of employment, too.
David Morgan, Moncton
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John Allemang has hit on a fascinating diagnosis for the scourge of homegrown terrorism in the West. Unfortunately, given today's winner-take-all culture, I suspect that any practical application of this idea would be shot down before it leaves the gate. One is reminded of Bertrand Russell's observation: "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."
Michael Lennick, Bala, Ont.
You are how you write
Re The Pen Speaks Louder Than The Spin (Globe T.O. - Sept. 4): The dictionary defines "pseudo" as false, so you're way off the mark calling graphology a "pseudo-science." Just like medicine or many of the social sciences, some elements of graphology have completely satisfied the scientific model, some are going through the process, and some have been rejected. Anyways, what's so great about science? Isn't that the authority that once proclaimed the Earth to be flat?
The U.S. Library of Congress, by the way, has classified graphology as a branch of applied psychology.
Peter Dennis, certified handwriting analyst, Richmond Hill, Ont.
Cartoon corner
One of life's pleasures is starting the day with an editorial cartoon by Brian Gable. His Sept. 2 Bonnie and Clyde (Canadian version) cuts through all the rhetoric to reveal the gun-registry nonsense.
Peter Ashby, Peterborough, Ont.
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Would that Anthony Jenkins's poignant Sept. 4 cartoon on Saskatchewan's provincial bird force McGill University neurology professor Michael Rasminsky (In The End - letter, Sept. 4) to reflect on why arguing funding priorities means nothing to people living with MS. For sufferers of this viciously arbitrary disease and their families, faint hope is better than none.
Mark Slone, Toronto
Modern history
It would be good if Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had a plan to restore our democracy (Lawrence Martin's Where Is Ignatieff's Plan To Restore Our Democracy? - Sept. 2). It would be even better if Prime Minister Stephen Harper had one.
Hendrik Boom, Montreal
Ancient history
Stephen Marche (The Battle Is Over. Trouble Begins - Focus, Sept. 4) tells us that "even the defeated Trojans, after years of wandering under the leadership of Aeneas, found Rome." Is there any way of knowing how long Rome had been lost?
Frederick Sweet, Toronto