BY GILBERT TAYLOR

I’m a hunter, not a criminal, or a terrorist or a gang member.

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I’m not the reason for gun crime.

I’m an ordinary, law-abiding citizen, who has owned guns since I was a teenager.

At the age of 15, my parents placed a 12-gauge shotgun under the Christmas tree.

It remains one of my best presents ever.

When I was a kid, we lived in Oshawa, a couple of houses away from a dusty road that marked the town limits.

North of our place, juicy, green, cabbage fields stretched to the edge of a beckoning bush we called Grierson’s Wood.

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It was a time when little attention was paid to a young lad strolling down the road with a gun under his arm, or walking home with a couple of cottontails hanging from his belt.

That sight would fail to turn a single head. But times change.

Gun ownership and hunting are not for everyone, and that’s where the conflict begins.

Gun abolitionists say: “I don’t need a gun so there is no good reason for you to have one, either.”

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It matters little that the banning of legal guns will have no effect on the problem of gun violence.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair knows this. He lived with guns throughout his respected career as Toronto’s police chief.

He knows where the real problem lies and it’s not with legal gun owners.

Take this business of banning rifles that “look like” assault weapons.

Functionally, they are no different from semi-automatic hunting rifles and shotguns that have been around — and legal — causing no problem for decades.

Long guns have never been the problem in Canada.

The federal Liberals would force all legal owners of these assault weapon lookalikes to sell them to the government for $600 million, by their estimate.

Having lived through the budgeting madness of the gun registry, it’s a pretty sure bet that could rise as high as $1 billion, and it will do nothing to solve gun violence.

I implore the government to put that money into fighting criminal gangs and the flood of illegal guns coming across our border.

How about fully enforcing laws that already exist?

If someone points a gun in the commission of a crime or is found to possess illegal guns, there should be no plea-bargaining, maybe no parole. Do the time. All of it.

Police need reasonable rules of engagement, allowing them to properly carry out their investigations.

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Politicians know street checks are a crucial part of policing.

Without them officers are greatly disadvantaged.

When street checks were stopped, gun violence increased.

Bringing them back will make all of us safer.

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Lawmakers need to stop feeding the public’s fear of guns to win votes.

They need to tell the truth about legal gun possession and educate Canadians about the real ways to end gun violence by attacking the problem where it really lives.

Legal gun owners like me don’t object to safety improvements and rigorous background checks. We’ve been complying with them for decades.

Nobody wants to see fully automatic weapons on the streets.

Handguns have been stringently controlled and registered since the mid-1930s.

Big surprise, criminals don’t register their weapons.

I would never try to force anyone to hunt. But I don’t want that privilege taken from me.

Responsible hunters don’t break the rules.

We’re not poachers or trespassers. We pour more of our hard-earned dollars into conservation and species preservation than many other taxpayers.

We’ll continue to support reasonable gun legislation and do our part to ensure the flocks and herds of today continue to flourish tomorrow.

— Taylor, HCol. retired, is the immediate past president of the Royal Canadian Military Institute and Ontario Branch of the Last Post Fund, and a long-time hunter.