Many of you may be familiar with "The Armed Citizen" column in the American Rifleman, a magazine published monthly by the NRA. Each issue relates several short accounts of how armed citizens have driven off, captured, or killed, assorted rapists, robbers and would be murderers.

Of course, The Armed Citizen is intended for an American audience, where most States still recognize the legitimacy of armed self defense. This is Canada, where you can get ten years in jail for possession of a can of mace. Accordingly, we have decided to offer the Canadian version of the Armed Citizen: The Disarmed Canadian.

The Disarmed Canadian details accounts of people who have been assaulted, raped, robbed, or killed because their government has made it illegal for them to defend themselves. We also provide a counterexample, where a similar situation in the USA or Israel resulted in an outcome more favorable to the intended victim.

All of the Liberal and Conservative MP's and Senators who voted for C-51, C-17, and C-68 have blood on their hands, the blood of those people they forced to stand naked before armed criminal predators. In a very real sense, they are accessories to all of the crimes listed below.

Condensed from Canadian Access to Firearms, October 1996
An 89 year old Winnipeg man was attacked in his bedroom and terrorized for two hours Wednesday, the fourth time in just over a week that criminals have targeted elderly Winnipeg victims in their homes. Police said two men wearing stockings over their heads crawled through a second story attic window of a home at about 2:30 AM. The terrified man was forced to sit in a chair while the men tore his house apart and demanded he tell them where he had hidden his money. Police say the men were looking for a hidden stash of cash but in the end found only about thirty dollars in the man's wallet.

From The American Rifleman, December 1995
Ninety-two year old Conrad Schwarzkopf had been sleeping in his Long Island, New York, home when a punk four times his junior barged into his bedroom and began beating him up. Schwarzkopf tried to fight back, but was just no match for the younger man, and wound up being tossed into a closet. There, as the man ransacked the house searching for money, Schwarzkopf found the semi-automatic pistol he kept in the closet and emerged from its darkness firing, striking his assailant in the hand and chest. The injured criminal immediately ran to a nearby payphone where he called police and confessed to robbing a house and being shot by the homeowner.

From Canadian Access to Firearms, August 1996
A woman died in Kluane Park yesterday in the heart of beautiful Yukon. She did not have to. Christine Courtney and her husband were hiking what must be one of the most gorgeous countries in the world. They had followed all of the rules, taken all of the precautions, carrying their food in bear proof packaging, equipped with a bell, etc.. When confronted by a young, healthy, aggressive grizzly, they behaved exactly as told and followed the recommended procedure in a text book execution. The bear did not. He first mauled Christine who was laying still in the fetal position. When her husband attempted twice to chase the bear away with his bare hands, he was mauled in turn, and barely escaped to run for help six kilometers away to a Ranger station. An hour or more later, the Park personnel reached the scene in a helicopter. The bear, who was described as "still on" his victim, a politically correct way of saying he was feeding, was shot immediately, but too late for Christine, who could not be revived. As you may have guessed, no firearm is allowed in the Park.

From the American Rifleman, September 1992
Walking through the woods in a state park in Wenatchee Washington, Michael Vanney was horrified to see a cougar pounce on his five year old daughter Jessica. Armed only with a hunting knife, Vanney yelled for his wife to bring a handgun, then jumped on the cat, knocking it off the girl. When his wife arrived with the gun, Vanney fired two shots, treeing the cat, which was later captured and held in quarantine. Jessica suffered only minor scrapes in the attack.

From the St. Catharines Standard, October 18, 1996
A teenaged boy involved in a botched taxi robbery that lead to the deaths of two people was jailed for six years Thursday. Jeremiah McLennan, now 17 will remain in a juvenile hall until his 18th birthday when he will be transferred to an adult penitentiary. McLennan pleaded guilty in September to manslaughter in the April 1995 killing of 62 year old cabby Trevor O'Dell. He was shot in the back of the head by Jonathan Duffy, McLennan's 15 year old co-accused. After O'Dell was shot with a .45 calibre semi-automatic handgun, his lifeless body slumped over the steering wheel and the cab sped up. The boys bailed out and ran off. The runaway cab continued on for about four blocks and slammed into the side of a car driven by Alexia Lema 58, who died of massive head injuries. Duffy, now 17, received an automatic life sentence (Editor's note: 15 years) for second degree murder in September.

The following story aired on WWL-TV Channel 4, New Orleans, July 14, 1994.
A 68 year old driver for the White Fleet cab company picked up Vitago Lewis and another person at the 2500 block of Laurel St. in New Orleans last night. Lewis pulled a gun on the driver and fired but missed. The driver then shot Lewis in the chest, but his accomplice escaped, and is still at large. The "alleged" perpetrator is in stable condition in a New Orleans hospital, and will be charged with attempted armed robbery and attempted murder.

Condensed from Canadian Access to Firearms, April 1995, as told by Mrs. Deborah Ure
On the weekend of June 29, 1992, my son Wes Young and his best buddy, Santo Michelin were at a cottage near Baysville visiting friends. On the way home that Sunday night, being the nice kids that they were, they stopped to offer their help at a single car accident on Highway 117. Both of the boys were repaid for their kindness with a .38 calibre bullet in the head. Their bodies were left in the middle of the road. Wes Young and Santo Michelin had just turned 19. The two murderers were apprehended later that day in Hamilton.

From the American Rifleman, November 1992
Stopped at a highway rest stop, Ray Cage of Justine Tex., was returning to his truck when he was approached by two men. When one flashed a gun and ordered him out of the truck, Cage instead came up with his own gun and exchanged shots with the duo. Even though he was wounded in the hip, Cage drove his attackers off. Two suspects were later apprehended.

Condensed from the 1995 Canadian Police Association Yearbook
On July 14, 1995, Ida Rudy was viciously murdered. Two youths, aged 17 and 19, were charged. The suspects broke into Mrs. Rudy's home. They crushed her skull with a hammer and lead pipe while she was asleep in her bed. Is this the way anyone should die? This was a premeditated act of murder, since at least one of the assailants knew their victim and they had planned to kill her when they entered through a locked window. Ida Rudy was an 82 year old widow who walked with a cane and who suffered from various illnesses. Her frail heart was being regulated by a pacemaker. She was not a threat to anyone when the suspects decided to murder one ailing senior citizen. Ida Rudy was a gentle, private lady who was just getting back on her feet after losing her husband only six months earlier.

From the American Rifleman, February 1994.
Bessie Jones is 92 and confined to a wheelchair, hardly able to defend herself from the human predators that inhabit her Chicago neighborhood. What makes Jones their match, however, is her handgun. After a young thug broke in and wheeled her from room to room looking for valuables, Jones managed to get her gun and warned the teenager off. When he ignored her, Jones fired and killed him.

From the Western Report, March 18, 1996
At 11:30 PM on March 4, a 72 year old woman woke up to the sound of her miniature poodle barking at the back door of her north-east Edmonton home. Thinking that perhaps one of her two foster sons had come home, she got up and walked to the door, grabbing a glass pot lid just in case. When she unlocked the door, a tall black man and a short white male, both wearing stocking masks, threw it open. The big one thrust a gun in her face. "Get back!" he yelled, knocking the lid out of her hand so hard it shattered and cut her arm. Then her 66 year old husband walked into the hallway, pushing an oxygen tank (he suffers from emphysema). The bigger man threw him against the wall, stuck a gun in his face and said "This is a real gun, and if you guys don't do anything you won't get hurt." The big man's five foot four inch partner grabbed the husband's wallet, pulled out $140 in cash and threw it aside. Then the pair fled, less than two minutes after they had forced their way in.

From the American Rifleman, April 1992
Even though ill and wearing an oxygen mask, a homebreaker found that 74 year old Lena Mae Pate of Oroville, California, was no pushover. When the man broke into her home and, despite repeated warnings, continued to advance, Pate fired at him with her .38 revolver, putting him to flight. A wounded suspect, who had once worked for Pate, was arrested after seeking treatment.

From the Western Report, March 18, 1996
The slaying of Edmonton resident Barb Danelesko two years ago illustrates the willingness of Canadian burglars to enter occupied homes. Three teenagers wandering around suburban Millwoods weren't put off by obvious signs that the Danelesko family were home, such as the family's vehicle parked in the driveway. They broke in through a window and began looking around. Mrs. Danelesko was awakened by what she thought were the sounds of one of her three children wandering outside of her bedroom. When she got up to investigate, she was stabbed to death by one of the thieves. Two of the accused robbers still await trial on murder charges; the third pleaded guilty in youth court and was sentenced to three years in a juvenile facility.

From the American Rifleman, May 1995
Anchorage, Alaska resident Kellie Duff is considered a hero by her neighbors. Arriving home one evening with her three young daughters in tow, Duff surprised three teenaged burglars exiting the front door of her home. They tried to get in their car and leave, but Duff blocked their escape with her truck. She then held them at bay with a .30-06 as her oldest daughter ran to call the police.

From the Toronto Sun June 27, 1994
A Toronto grandmother found murdered in her bedroom during what appears to have been a burglary died from trauma to the head. Margaret Carol McDonald, 80, known as Peggy, died of massive head wounds, but Metro homicide Det. Mike Davis won't say how she suffered the injuries. Nor would he comment on reports the woman's throat had been slashed. An undisclosed murder weapon was found at the scene of the Friday slaying. Davis said although "there's nothing at the scene suggesting it happened," forensic tests are continuing to determine whether the victim, who was deaf, had been sexually assaulted. She had been a widow for more than 20 years. Davis said cupboards, drawers and closets were ransacked, with clothing strewn about. The killer or killers were "definitely looking for something, obviously looking for money and jewelry," he said.

From the American Rifleman, September 1994
It was a hot night in Sacramento, so 80 year old Lillian Carlson left her porch door open when she went to bed. This provided easy access for an intruder , who appeared in the bedroom. Carlson reached for the gun she has kept in her night stand for 50 years, aimed it at her unwelcome guest, and said, "You can live or die. Which is it going to be?" The culprit walked out then walked back in. Two shots from Carlson's antique revolver convinced him to leave for good. Police arrested a wounded suspect the next morning.

Condensed from the Toronto Sun February 22, 1995
A 63 year old woman who felt lucky when she immigrated to Canada now lives in "shame" after being raped twice in her home, a jury heard yesterday. She said she was raped twice in twenty minutes. She is the seventh witness alleged to have been attacked by Orville Thompson. The woman said she took transit home on Oct. 16, 1992 and was followed on the elevator by a man who then shoved his way into her apartment. Court was told the woman contracted a sexually transmitted disease from the brutal attack.

From the American Rifleman, October 1995
Roughed up, blindfolded, tied to her bed and fearful of being raped by two robbers, a Spanaway, Washington, grandmother managed to work her hands free and retrieve her .22 cal. revolver. When one of the men started to return upstairs, 69 year old Wilma Roberts shot twice, wounding him in the arm. Roberts then chased the two from her house, firing additional shots as they fled in her van. Police recovered the van just miles away from Robert's home and arrests were expected.

Condensed from the Toronto Sun, September 16, 1994
Rodger Pardy, 43, was slain in his Gagnon Sports outlet Wednesday night. The gunmen, who wounded three others, used a getaway car belonging to a Pickering man reported missing the same day. (Editors note: the car's owner, Kenneth Thomas was found later, dead.) When the gunmen stormed the shop, Pardy was on the phone with a friend, said a longtime acquaintance who requested anonymity. "He told the friend: 'Gotta go, we're being robbed' and that was the last thing he ever said." Nick Koutsakis, 22, a customer, watched in horror as the pair unleashed a barrage of bullets. Employee Randy Jenkins, 40, was shot in the arm and remains in satisfactory condition in the hospital. A 32 year old customer was grazed on the head by a bullet, treated at hospital and released. Another customer, identified as Dave Spicer, 46, was hit in the chest and neck and is in serious condition at St. Michael's Hospital. The gunmen smashed a display case, filled two gym bags with handguns and fled.

From The American Rifleman, October 1993
NRA certified shooting instructor Greg Ferris drew from the lessons he usually teaches when three armed gang members invaded his San Antonio, Texas, gunshop. Ferris was at his workbench when the gangsters entered and charged the counter. Ferris grabbed his .38 Super target pistol and opened up when one missed him with a shotgun blast. In the ensuing battle, which also involved shop employee, Mike Falcon, one robber was killed and another wounded. Ferris, a former policeman, said "We cannot ask police to provide individualized personal protection. We have to rely on our own resources to defend ourselves."

Condensed from the Toronto Sun, October 8, 1994
A Scarboro teen was charged yesterday in the Monday murder of an Ajax gunshop employee. Store clerk Norman Chow, 27, of Scarboro, was shot to death in the robbery, Durham's second lethal gunshop raid in a month. Chow had been shot at least five times, twice in the chest, after buzzing a visitor into the Ajax facility through a locked security door. His body was discovered about 3 p.m. Monday when the owner, George Koumbis, called a locksmith friend to enter the locked building and check on Chow.

From The American Rifleman, February 1995
Portland, Wisconsin, gun shop owner William Ripley was suspicious about the two youths in his store asking "silly questions". When one announced a holdup and pulled a gun, Ripley drew his own .22 pistol and fired. "We both fired at the same time," says Ripley. "I dodged, and he missed by about six inches. I have powder burns on my face." Ripley's shot went through the robber's cheek and lodged in his neck. Police nabbed the wounded robber and a second suspect and later found the stolen car they were driving.

Condensed from the Toronto Star, April 7, 1994
It stole more than the hope and beauty of Georgina Leimonis' young life; as if that loss were not ghastly enough. For some people in Metro it took another piece of their faith in this city. Leimonis - ViVi to her large family and many friends - was sitting in the popular dessert restaurant, "Just Desserts", near the corner of Davenport and Bedford Roads. Like about 20 others in the cafe, the 23 year old East York woman was there to converse with companions over cakes and coffee when three men burst through the door and ordered patrons and staff to the back of the room at gunpoint. The three thieves - a fourth waited outside in a car - began to work their way roughly through the crowd demanding money and wallets, when things went horribly wrong. The gunman, who according to witnesses was visibly nervous and possibly drugged, suddenly pulled the trigger of his sawed off shotgun. About seven feet away, Leimonis took the full blast, suffering mortal wounds to the left upper chest from two simultaneous bursts. The pellets ripped into her heart and lungs, damaging several arteries, organs and her arms and wrist. She died three hours after the shooting, while undergoing emergency surgery in which she was given 14 units of blood in a bid to save her life.

From "Guns, Crime and Freedom" by Wayne LaPierre, pages 29 and 30
In December 1991, Thomas Terry was in Shoney's restaurant in Anniston, Alabama, when three armed robbers entered the restaurant. As the gunmen were herding the nearly two dozen restaurant patrons and employees into a walk in freezer, Terry hid from the armed bandits. Attempting to escape the building to summon police by opening a locked door, he triggered an audible alarm. Alerted to his presence, one gunman ran out of the restaurant and the remaining two went after Terry who was legally carrying a .45 calibre handgun tucked under his sweater in the small of his back. In the ensuing battle, Terry sustained a graze wound to his hip but killed one gunman and severely wounded the other. None of the patrons or employees was injured.

Condensed from the Toronto Star, December 7, 1989
The gunman who massacred 14 women students at the University of Montreal and then killed himself, left a three page letter expressing hatred of feminists, police said today. Witnesses to the mass murder said the gunman, dressed in a hunting outfit, seemed inhumanly calm as he carried out the slaughter in the university's polytechnical institute in the late afternoon. When it was over, 14 women were dead. Thirteen other students - nine women and four men - were being treated for bullet wounds in three hospitals early today. Two were in critical condition. In a second floor classroom, the gunman ordered the male students out into the corridor then opened fire on the women. One witness said he heard the killer say in French "I want the women." Another student in the class, Francois Lamarre, 22, told The Star's Deborah McNorgan that at first he thought the gun was loaded with blanks. Then a shot rang out. "I was terrified. I told myself it made no sense for him to separate the men and the women. The men wanted to help, but what could we do, he was armed." (Editor's note: Exactly. The lunatic was armed and the other men were not. The massacre at Ecole Polytechnique did not occur because a madman had a gun, a circumstance which it is unlikely any amount of gun control could have prevented. It happened because the madman was the only one who had a gun.)

From "GUNS, WHO SHOULD HAVE THEM?" Edited by David B. Kopel. Page 255.
American massacres, in which dozens of unarmed victims are mowed down before police can arrive, astound Israelis, who note what occurred at a Jerusalem crowd spot some weeks before the 1984 California MacDonalds massacre: three terrorists who attempted to machine-gun the throng managed to kill only one victim before being shot down by handgun-carrying Israelis. Interviewed by the press the next day, the surviving terrorist complained that his group had not realized that Israeli civilians were armed. The terrorists had planned to machine-gun a succession of crowd spots, thinking that they would be able to escape before the police or army could arrive to deal with them.

From the Toronto Sun, November 14, 1996
Metro Police are hunting a savage rapist who broke into a North York home and sexually assaulted a woman while holding a hunting knife to her throat. Det. Wendy Leaver said yesterday the brutal attack happened at about midnight Tuesday in the Keele St. - Wilson Ave. area. Leaver said a 34 year old woman was alone in her house waiting for her husband when a man entered by smashing a basement window. "She heard some noise on one side of the house," Leaver said. "When she opened her bedroom door, a man was there with a knife. The man held a large hunting knife to the woman's throat while sexually assaulting her in an attack which lasted for about half an hour in her bedroom, she said. "The woman is very, very scared," Leaver said. "She was traumatized and very frightened." She was treated at Women's College Hospital and released.

From the Gun Rights Fact Book, Allan M. Gottlieb
Atlanta, Georgia. Kathy Key fought four long minutes against a rapist, trying to get his throat, trying to kick him in the groin. There seemed to be nothing she could do. Suddenly, surprising even herself, Kathy realized she was clutching her shoulder bag. For a moment, she freed herself and fled for the kitchen as her assailant attempted to pull up his pants to pursue. She pulled her tiny derringer from her shoulder bag, and as Michael Narvaez put his arms around her again, she brought the derringer to his side. The only sound he made was a whisper. Two words: "Oh God." And then he was dead.

Condensed from the Toronto Star, December 13, 1996
The first person to be tried before a jury in Ontario under the protection of the Young Offender's Act has been found guilty of first degree murder. The Ontario court jury took only four hours before convicting the now 20 year old man of killing Bernard Bimbi, 62, whose body was found in his Spotlight Service Centre on Strachan Ave, on Sept. 2, 1993. Under the Act, the murderer cannot be identified. He is to be sentenced on Jan 23. The maximum sentence is three years in closed custody and two years less one day supervised in the community. The crown said Bimbi was lured into a locked garage area to give an estimate on the cost of repairing Mohamed Kamaludeen's car. Once there the Holocaust survivor was stabbed nine times in the neck by the youth and his $30,000 ring was almost sliced off his finger, evidence showed. Kamaludeen, 35, is still being sought by police under a Canada wide warrant.

From the American Rifleman, March 1992
Two handgun toting teenagers probably got the shocks of their lives when they attempted to rob a gas station in Richmond, Indiana - the clerk pulled his own gun and shot at them. Patrick Harding gave the duo money from the cash register, but when one of the youths threatened to shoot him, Harding pulled his own pistol and fired a single shot, which sent them running.

Every year the Canadian justice system routinely releases thousands of violent criminals after they have served only one third of their already ridiculously lenient sentences. Our leaders then pass legislation making it illegal for us to possess the means to defend ourselves from these predatory beasts they have loosed upon society. On the surface, these actions, by those who are charged with protecting us, appear bizarre and inexplicable, nothing less than the actions of madmen. Some conspiracy theorists have speculated this is being done intentionally, to increase the crime rate, and keep the public clamoring for ever more and more severe gun control. While this idea has some merit, there is a somewhat more mundane, although not necessarily more comforting, explanation.

Chretien and Rock are social engineers, determined to reshape society to match their vision of socialist utopia. Like Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, and other great social engineers, they take a Machiavellian view of politics. "The end justifies the means", best describes their thinking. No doubt, unarmed people will be killed, assaulted, robbed, and raped by criminals on parole, but this is only a transition phase. Ultimately, we will all be living in a perfectly harmonious, peaceful society. Criminal behavior will be rare, and docile, contented workers will quietly tend to their chores, watched over by armed agents of the state.

R.J. Rummel, in his book, Death by Government, describes this thinking as it applied to Stalinist Russia. "The living were to be sacrificed for the unborn. The living were objects, like mortar and bricks, lumber and nails, to be used, manipulated, piled on each other, to create the new social structure. Personal interest and desires, pain or pleasure, were of little moment - insignificant in the light of the new world to be created."

It should be clear to anyone with the IQ of a maple tree that the presence of armed citizens in the school would have prevented the massacre at Ecole Polytechnique. Yet this solution is rejected outright, even ridiculed, because it would result in an "American style society". Better to sacrifice a few lives now than to become Americanized, and lose forever our chance at socialist utopia.

During the cold war there was a popular saying in the US: Better dead than red. Ironically, gun prohibitionist Liberals have now adopted the antithetical position: Better dead than American. The difference, of course, is that those Americans who claimed they would choose death before communism were making a personal choice, whereas our leaders have forced their decision upon us. Personally, being American looks much better than being dead to me. In fact, more and more, it looks much better than being Canadian.

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