phote Paul McGrath

NORTH VANCOUVER gun enthusiast Mike MacNeal, shown here at the local Pacific Shooters Association shooting range, is one of hundreds of local shooters unhappy with federal gun control

legislation changes.

Friday, July 19, 1991 - North Shore News - 3

Gun owners take aim at oun bill

Proposed controls ineffective, too extreme, owners charge

A LOCAL gun enthusiast charges that proposed federal gun controls go too far and penalize the wrong people.

But North Vancouver MP Chuck Cook believes Bill C-17 will come under fire in the House of Commons this fall. Gun con- trol advocates and gun enthusiasis are equally unhappy with the bill.

And said Cook, ‘‘Whether it will get through the House of Commons or not is another ques- tion because there is a substantial amount of resistance to the bill within the Conservative party as | suspect with the other parties as well. Kim (Justice Minister Kim Campbell) has got a tough one there.”

But said Mike MacNeal, a charter member of the Pacific Shooters Association and an ex- ecutive member of the North Shore Skeet Club, ‘‘We're easy to pick on, that's the way I look at it. You get all these youth gang members and they catch them with machine guns and sawed-off shotguns and they've all been stolen. They take the guns away and they don’t even charge them.

“If | shot somebody, they’d throw me in jail so deep God wouldn't find me. So what do you do?" he asked.

Among the measures included ni the proposed gun bill is a ban on large capacity cartridge maga- tines for semi-automatic firearms.

Said MacNeal, ‘‘What they’re guing co do is work on it so that ycu can get 10 shots in your gun

Pulp mill pollution disputed

Environmenialists, mills wrangle over Howe Sound pollution levels

A HOWE Sound pulp mill and a Sunshine Coast en-

vironmentalist are locked

Sound pollution.

Last month, Environmental Watch founder Terry Jacks began distributing 15,000 leaf- lets in the Horseshoe Bay and Howe Sound areas informing people about, what Jacks claims, is the continuing dam- age being done to Howe Sound from pulp mill pollution.

But earlier this month, Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Ltd., one of the mills targeted in the leaflet, took out a full-page ad in the News slamming Jacks’ leaflet.

The ad accused both En- vironmental Watch and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee of making ‘‘damag- ing and misleading statements about our environmental per- formance.”’

Environmental Watch's Howe Sound Pulp Mills, Proud Partners in Pollution leaflet states that ‘‘we can’t be fooled by their (pulp mill industries’) extravagant P.R. campaigns and the big lie: ‘We made

in a battle over Howe

By Surj Rattan News Reporter

mistakes in the past but we've changed.’ ””

The leaflet accuses both Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Ltd. and the Woodfibre pulp mill, owned by Western Forest Products Ltd., of continuing to release dangerous levels of pollution from their mills.

But a report released this week by the provincial en- vironment ministry lists Howe Sound Pulp and Paper’s mill as one of the five best pulp mills in B.C.

Ministry spokesman Alan Dolan said Thursday that Howe Sound Pulp aad Paper is complying with all provincial government guidelines for con- troling pollution, while the Woodfibre pulp mill is on its way to meeting those guidelines.

In their ad, Howe Sound

Pulp and Paper said neither Environmental Watch nor the Western Canada Wilderness Committee have offered any facts to back up their allega- tions.

“You accuse us of poisoning people and say we have lied but offer no proof to support these outrageous charges. Simi- larly, you offer no proof for your claim that we have ‘dras- tically increased emissions of cancer-causing dioxiu< and furans’ from burning sludge. In fact, burning sludge is one of the methods of disposal ap- proved by the B.C. Ministry of Environment.

“You claim that Environ- ment Canada has stated that northern Howe Sound has the highest levels of acid rain in western Canada when, in fact, they have made no such state- ment,’’ the ad says.

But Jacks, in responding to the ad, said he has ‘‘got facts on everything’ contained in the leaflet.

“The Environmental Protec- tion Agency in the U.S. said that (burning sludge) is not the

route to g9. As for acid rain, Doug Sandberg, formerly of the B.C. environment ministry, called Howe Sound the acid capital,’’ said Jacks.

In an interview with the News, Sandberg, 10w a Rich- mond alderman, said he work- ed for the environment ministry for 20 years and was in charge of testing areas in B.C. for acid rain.

Sandberg said that unlike other provinces, the rain in the atmosphere in B.C. is very sen- sitive to any pollutants. Sand- berg, who quit his. job in November 1988, said when he was testing for acid rain, Squamish was the worst area in B.C.

“Squamish had the lowest pH (a hydrogen/ion mixture) levels reached anywhere in B.C. When you have low pH levels you have very, very high acidity levels in the rain,’’ said Sandberg. ‘‘Our readings along the B.C. coast certainly had some of the highest levels of acidity in western Canada.”’

Sandberg said the air in B.C. is very pristine because it moves in off the Pacific ocean.

The Howe Sound Pulp and Paper ad goes on to say that the company has ‘‘an outstand- ing environmental performance compared to any kraft pulp mill world-wide?’

By Michael Becker News Reporter

or something like that. But by order in council your gun can be taken away because you can con- vert it back to nigh capacity by stuffing another clip in it. You can have all the five-round clips you want — you’re always able to get after-market 20-round, 30- round clips. It’s a band-aid ap- proach that makes them look like they are doing something.”’

Fully automatic firearms that have been converted to semi- automatics will join the prohibited weapons category under the revis- ed bill.

“‘E have one that's a sniper rifle from Vietnam, it’s a big heavy thing, it’s worth about $1,500. Do you think [I'm going to give that to someone to torch it in half? Not likely,’ said MacNeal.

Ard the gun owner dismisses the belief that a proliferation of guns necesssarily leads to an in- creased use of the weapons, especially in domestic disputes.

‘‘In Calgary a year ago, hand- guns were probably even with frying pans. It’s a false argument as far as I’m concerned,”’ he said.

MacNeal, an avid North Van- couver gun collector who also operates a gun shop in Burnaby, has been shooting guns since age eight. He is one of hundreds of recreational shooters active on the North Shore.

He supports the National Firearms Association (NFA) cam- paign to counter the Conservative party’s “hostility to recreational firearms owners.”’

The NFA is urging the coun- try’s estimated six million gun owners to join the Reform Party in protest and also advises them to send a copy of the membership application to local MPs and to Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazankowski in Ottawa.

Meanwhile North Vancouver Conservative MP Cook says his local office has received no Reform Party memberships from disgruntled gun owners.

“I doubt if they are going to send them here somehow. You see, if they do that, then we can sick people on them to persuade them of the error of their ways,’’ he said.

Cook is also critical of the pro- posed gun control legislation.

Said Cook, ‘‘I think the key factor of the thing is the use of guns in violence. Anybody who uses a gun in violence should almost have a life sentence — put the real emphasis and the penalties extremely heavy on anyone who has got a gun for less than legiti- mate purposes. That’s still not go- ing to stop the guy who has a gun at home and wants to shoot his wife, but there's nothing that will stop that.

“*And as far as the nuts like the Montreal situation, it’s very doubtful that any kind of gun control is going to handle that ei- ther. It’s a great idea to take guns out of the hands of the public. But in Canada the public don’t have guns in their hands.