On gun safety and cartoons...

As you may or may not be aware, the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, was involved in a hunting accident. While hunting quail, he shot a man in the upper chest and face.

Now, I'm no fan of Dick Cheney. I don't like the man or his politics.

But what happened, as far as I have seen and heard, was an accident. An accident that could happen to anyone at any time.

Guns, whether they be handguns, rifles, shotguns, or any kind of firearm, have three things in common.

1. They are very powerful instruments that can kill humans as well as animals.
2. They don't care much about who is pulling the trigger.
3. They don't have a clue about what they are shooting at.

And so, an accident happened. My gun instructor, Art Desormeau, taught us that we were never to pull the trigger unless we were absolutely sure that we knew what our target was. If we even suspected that our target wasn't clear, we were to immediately put the safety back on and lower the firearm. What happened in this case is not entirely clear.

As I said, I'm no fan of Dick Cheney. But this sounds like it was an accident.

What wasn't an accident was the publication of anti-Muslim cartoons by the Western Standard. Ezra Levant decided that we here in Canada needed to see what all the fuss was about. This is irresponsible journalism at its worst and I think Levant wasn't thinking about freedom of the press, but how many more papers could he sell by publishing such cartoons. I'm taking a guess here, but I have a feeling people here are not going to be impressed by such a tactic. Levant is the type of "journalist" we're seeing more of lately: not concerned with the truth as much as the bottom line. These cartoons should have never seen the light of day in the first place.

I don't think Levant cares.

Maybe he will if there's a boycott of his paper. Or if his offices get torched.

Either way, I won't be surprised.