The Gun Registry: Such a Big Deal?

                Say what I will about the Harper Government, it’s fulfilling election promises. The Wheat Board is getting axed, arts and culture funding will dry to a dribble, the CBC could be on the outs, a brutal crime bill has been slapped down—why, the only thing Stephen and his acolytes won’t address is abortion, and a lot of folks voted for he and some of his formerReformers on that and that alone. He’s doing every nasty thing he said he would. Can’t fault the guy for honesty, at least. I just wonder if his ultra-right supporters will be happy with the next 4.5 years seeing as he’s blown his political wad in the first sitting. Of course, one of Harper’s biggest annoyances has been the Long Gun Registry, and now that he’s got his majority, it’s finally on the way out.

                http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/10/25/pol-gun-registry.html

                Only a matter of time, I guess. What’s more, now that old Stevie can ram whatever he wants through the house, well sir, he’s not stopping at eliminating the Registry—despite the pleas of law enforcement officers—he’s going to delete all existing data on those registered already—despite same. The more vocal gun owners are saying he should relax restrictions on hand guns, submachine guns, bazookas, thermal detonators (depending on the hue of the neck).

                My question: Was it really such a big deal, registering guns?

                Let me say that I see the criticism of the Long Gun Registry. Yes, it’s been expensive registering what were mostly law-abiding citizens. Yes, that cash could have been better spent on enforcement chasing down the baddies who don’t register their guns anyway. But why the great outcry against it? Harper’s wasted more money beating protestors and buying shiny jets than was wasted on the Gun Registry.               

                What was the hubbub? Was it all just a Charleton Heston “cold dead hands” sort of thing? “The government ain’t got no rights in our bedrooms or near our gun racks.” Was that all? I’ve never heard a better argument than that.

                My Dad has a few guns. He registered them. I helped. It was in 1996 or so. Didn’t seem like a big deal, and we were ventilating our weight in gophers later that day. Responsible gun owner followed the law, life went on. Far as I know, no satellite was trained on our house after that.

                My feeling has always been that you can own a tiger, you can cage a tiger, and you can keep diligent surveillance on the tiger. But it’s still a tiger. If every failsafe you have in place somehow falls, it’s a loose tiger, and a loose tiger is a scary thing—always.

                You could be safe, your guns could be safe (ish), your guns could only be used for sport (I struggle with that concept), and they could safely be locked away. They’re still guns, though. They still have only one purpose. I think where I’ve always differed from law-abiding gun owners who decried the Registry is that I’ve thought, even if these aren’t the guns killing people, there’s nothing wrong with limiting guns. They’re for killing. Fewer of them, and more control of them always felt like the right thing to do to me.

                In the US, gun crime is common. I’ve discussed this before. http://vikingpaul.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

                More guns means the potential—potential—for more violence. Nobody would be comfortable with a dozen caged tigers on their block. I’d rather they were gone. Limiting the potential of violence is a no-brainer.

                You need to register your car. It’s dangerous even if you’re the most responsible driver in the world, and a car has more than one purpose. A gun does not.

                Regardless, I think the LGR was an expensive failure. I do think the basic intent (this is not praise for the Chretien Government) was sound. However, we should limit crime through prevention and education, not through brutalizing petty criminals and allowing the populace to arm itself with all the ease of a Texas wedding. I’ve never understood the rabid opposition to it, though, despite the cost, when law enforcement officials—the people who are the experts on firearms usage—say it has helped them.

                Has it really only been about making someone sign a piece of paper saying they own a shotgun?

Top Ten Reasons Pearl Jam's Greatness Ensures Some Folks Will Remain Haters

My favorite band turned twenty this month, and it was celebrated through a tour, a documentary film, and the announcement of a new album. Yet, there are some that feel the need to hate, and to always hate, what anyone else likes. Sometimes valid points are made, but sometimes good journalists sound like that jerk in the back of Chem class who just targeted what the rest of us dug and hated it:
http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/music/music-previews/backspacing-alt-rocks-deletion-8069/

It may be true that you should never write about someone you love or someone you hate, but then most opinions would be tepid and dull. Here, then, is a top ten list with a ridiculously long title.

10. Ten. It must suck to be permanently judged for something you did in your early twenties. But never mind the new Conservative crime bill. Ten was and remains a great album, one of the best and most important of the 1990s. The grunge faction (whoever the hell they were) felt it was too commercial. Because playing solos and having more than simple chord progressions is considered "commercial"? 'Scuse me, Mr. Cobain? Did you actually watch the video to "Heart Shaped Box?" I don't feel this is the best album of the band's career, but it is the decider. If you define them by Ten, no matter that it sold a gazillion copies, then you don't know much about them as a band.

9. They've stayed together and no one has died. If Kurt Cobain and Layne Stayley were alive today, their bands would likely not be together anymore. Nirvana and Alice in Chains were built around too simple a formula, and even some of the greater ones like Soundgarden eventually toppled. Yes, AiC has a new singer and Soundgarden is sort of back together (when Pearl Jam will loan Matt Cameron on drums), but these are reunions. The original magic is over.
     Bands built around young men's angst don't have anywhere to go when young men become older men with their own kids. Pearl Jam was built to last from step "Once." As with the other greats, they evolved, they played what suited them--and still do--in the period of life they were living.
     Aside from Andy Wood, the original singer of Mother Love Bone (the ur-Pearl Jam), they have been exceptional among the bands of their time and place for the lack of stupid death surrounding them. And further to that . . .

8. None of them has been in rehab. That's not entirely true. They've had their issues. Mike McCready  apparently got addicted to painkillers (when he was in actual pain), and Eddie smokes and also consumes gallons of wine on stage every night. They've got their addictions, but at no point in their twenty years have they had that Aerosmith stage that they barely survived. Jeff Ament was straight-edged for a while, and in the Crowe documentary, Jeff says that he wishes he could show anyone starting heroin a picture of Andy Wood as he died. Heroin use defined the Seattle movement, as acid defined the 60s, and cocaine the 80s, but these guys haven't got that particular monkey. There's no scary "I kicked it" story. Lack of drugs is boring in music, I guess.

7. Music videos? They famously quit doing them after "Jeremy." Then in '98 they released the animated "Do the Evolution." In the last years of the era where music videos still actually mattered, they steered clear of the medium. Then, they started releasing a whole bunch of basic band-playing-in-front-of-camera-or-crowd videos after 2002's Riot Act, after the music video ship had long since sailed. They are much more like their 1970s idols than their peers, for their success has come from steady albums, strong support from and of their fan base, constant touring, and radio circulation, rather than singles and videos.

6. Their philanthropy. I'll never be a big U2 fan, but I love what they do outside of music. I once was a Metallica fan, but I hate who they are offstage. Being a good citizen doesn't make your music better, but if I love your music, it's sweeter to know that you work endlessly for charities and constantly thumb your nose at conservatives and capitalists.

5. Your mom doesn't hate them. They rock, but they also have ballads. They drink and curse, and they play charity concerts. Their average set list sees covers of CCR, Neil Young, The Who and Iggy and the Stooges. Even at my age, far too many people I know base the value of what they listen to by whom it pisses off. (That's somewhat hypocritical. If Stephen Harper declared ire for any band I'd buy their catalogue tomorrow.) They're a nice band. They love their fans, do everything they can at live shows to make it live up to our expectations. My mom thinks they're pretty swell for it.

4. Their music isn't all that woeful. Oh sure, in their youth they had reams of songs about dead dads and abusive childhoods, but their most meaningfully negative vibes like "Betterman," "Bu$hleaguer" and "Even Flow" tend to be more ethically and politically motivated than mopey. They want us to be better people.
     Most music reviewers and many music fans have issues with happy bands. YES has always struggled with credibility because their lyrics are as positive as their moniker. There's no room for positivity in rock music! Pearl Jam are nice guys who love their fans, they're proactive and they write songs like "The Fixer," "Down" and "Wishlist" that are about all things good, and most rock critics just hate goodness.

3. They weren't really all that grunge. I've been skirting this one, but I hate the term "grunge." I hate the Seattle Underground myth. I hate that--for many fans of the sound of that time--the bands were only good before they hit, and Pearl Jam was a corporate (?!) creation no better than a hair band and terribly inferior to its predecessors Green River and Mother Love Bone. I hate that there was a feud between Cobain and Vedder because Cobain criticized them for not being grunge enough. Apparently, "grunge enough" ends with a shotgun blast, so who needs it?
     Grunge is a New York Times name for a rock movement. Pearl Jam was and is a rock band that once wore flannel and Doc Martins. They got big. Success is negatively correlated to popularity in the underground, to being truly grunge-y. Nirvana's survival as a grunge band came, ironically, through suicide.
     Pearl Jam wasn't all that grunge because grunge is impossible to define and remains a stupid term to use to try to encapsulate a musical culture. Pearl Jam was successful, rock, from Seattle (basically), and not willing to be a part of the corporate music machine. Take whatever grunge you will from that.

2. They haven't had a hit single in years, but they still sell. "World Wide Suicide" hit Number 1 on the US Modern Rock charts in 2006, and they've had a lot of #1s and #2s on those hair-split charts (Post Modern Easy Listening Rock Chart), but I think it's fair to say that their last big hit was the 1999, tongue-in-cheek cover of "Last Kiss." Yet they still play to packed stadiums. This is tied to my ultimate point, in that they have a staying power that few bands do. They are a slow-burning fire. They write albums and they tour non-stop. They aren't heavily concerned with singles, but they receive a lot of radio play, even of the recent entries to their catalogue.

1. Greatest Band Ever. Oh, sit down. It's a discussion, not a declaration. It's the stupidest argument in the universe. Want to keep it short? Fine: the Beatles, with Zeppelin a close second.
     Of the bands still going, it's still a long and pointless debate. U2, the Beastie Boys, Neil Young, Aerosmith, Metallica, the Who, Radiohead, the Eagles, CSN--the "old reliables" list goes on and on, and music is far too subjective and personal for a winner to ever be crowned. Pearl Jam, though, is on the list of considerables. They're steady, have never gone away, and many of those who don't love them admit a grudging respect.
     Let's just say, in a very tepid and nice way, that Pearl Jam is one of  the greatest bands ever.