Scientia est potentia

Dear Ms. Mandelman:

Throughout your brief tenure in Canada, you have chosen to accomplish your stated ideological goals of civilian disarmament through a combination of outright lies, misrepresentation and selective use of statistics, and fallacious appeals to authority. When selectively quoting statistics failed you, you turned to interviewing fellow gun control advocates under the bizarre impression than your unsupported opinion is more valuble when someone else says it.  You have regulated debate on your blog with an iron fist, deciding arbitrarily which comments are appropriate for posting. You have routinely deleted entire civil discussions with commenters after the fact, for no reason other than the realization you were losing the debate.

Anyone who wishes to talk politics should expect disagreement, and anyone who uses your methods should expect to be called on their deceitful tactics. When you or your colleagues make assertions that are patently false, that should and will be pointed out.

Many of the comments you have received are heated, but few are insulting. The existance of a handful of insulting comments in not a reason to discount the vast majority which are civil. Some commenters have unearthed small mountains of statistics, none of which you have countered or discredited in any way. One commenter summed up your failures nicely:

Ms. Mandelman,

It might have been an honest mistake on my part, my apologies.

However, I do not see you trying to address the points I raised in that particular comment, such as:

- Historical uses of gun control and their consequences (ie: Nazi Germany, Balkans, Rwanda, Stalinist Russia, post-Katrina New Orleans, Saddam Hussein’s 2002 election with 100% of the votes, etc);
- Veracity of the claims regarding Mrs. Carrick’s marital life;
- Failure to provide hard evidence to disprove the facts raised by members of the firearms community;
- Failure to put statistics in context;
- Explain how you can claim you are not out to insult gun owners, soldiers and men in general when you liken us to murderers, wife-beaters, gang members, rapists and war criminals;
- Why do you constantly ignore the use of weapons other than guns quoting that “guns are more lethal”;
- Constantly ignoring the MALE victims of domestic abuse, insinuating that it is not a human rights issue when they are the victims.

And those are only the ones I can easily list.

Should you start answering the points that myself and other bloggers consistently raise, it would go a long way towards earning the respect you demand we accord you for no reason other than your status as a fellow associated with IANSA and your post-graduate studies.

And as usual, it will be sent to various recipients in order to maximize the amount of light shed on this issue.

Instead you respond to comments which raise legitimate, factual points with replies like this:

Everyone is entitled to there [sic] opinion, and to open and respectful debate. That is not what has happened here. That is not what the pro gun community chooses to engage in. Trying to “stomp all over” those who disagree with and wear them down emotionally by calling names and attacking personal characteristics is not intellectual. “Stomp all over” are the words of gunnnutz.com, not my own. Try as you may to make someone backdown just for having an opinion. It obviously doesn’t work, as Wendy Cukier has been an advocate of gun control for many years, and you haven’t been able to “stomp” her out yet, have you?

The signal-to-noise ratio here is rather poor. The fact is that you have nothing to say. All you can do is make vague references to “open discussion and debate” (something you have not permitted on your blog). To you this means that only your opinion and the opinions of those that agree with you are presented. You accuse the “pro gun community” of “harassing” you. If perpetually providing a logical and well-supported counterpoint to your opinion is harassment, then I suppose we are harassing you – with the truth.

I challenge you to provide examples of this so-called harassment, complete with names and IP addresses. Let me remind you of the definition of harassment, from the Criminal Code of Canada:

Engaging in the conduct referred to below that causes the other person reasonably, in all the circumstances, to fear for their safety or the safety of anyone known to them:

(a) repeatedly following from place to place the other person or anyone known to them;

(b) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, the other person or anyone known to them;

(c) besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or

(d) engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.

You have tried to paint a picture of gun owners as violent and crude people, for example by stating that you would not post your email dialogue with a member of CanadianGunNutz.com for fear that he would be harassed (as you supposedly are). Unknown to you, he was posting the entire dialogue on CGN with absolutely no harassment.

It is you who avoid open discussion, because you have no arguments to present. You state, without basis, that you will not meet any members of the firearms community because you fear for your own safety. In this regard the onus is on you – the one who always talks about open discussion and debate – to explain why you refuse to say anything outside of the well-controlled cocoon of your own blog.

I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Rishi Maharaj