.:Computer Defense:.

There were fatal shootings again in Toronto, a shame for those involved and the after math could affect everyone. As a result of the weekend occurrences, there is once again talk of following the path of banning handguns. Now, I'm not a big gun fan... I'm not like our neighbours to the south in that I don't believe everyone should have a gun under their pillow, and I don't think that the Canadian gun laws are too strict... although I also don't think they're too lenient. Basically I think things are good how they are... banning handguns is like banning prescription drugs because too many people O.D. on heroin.

There are people that say "Guns Kill"... sure they do... but so does insulin. Should we ban insulin and keep it away from diabetics in case they use it to poison others? We can call these people close-minded.
Then you have the people that argue there's no reason to own a handgun. These are the same people that have a 42" Plasma screen, an XBox 360 and a backyard swimming pool. They don't grasp the concept of entertainment unless it's a form of entertainment they are interested in. We can call these people close-minded.
Lastly, you have the people, like Attorney General Michael Bryant, who say:

"There's 215,000 handguns legally owned in Ontario and they are all targets for theft and can end up on the streets of this province. It's not all of the guns that end up in the illegal gun trade, but it's about a third to a half of those guns, and we need to do everything we can to choke off the supply."

Again, we can call these people close-minded... It's the combination of the "close-mindedness" and Mr. Bryant's comments that should concern IT Professionals. Let's think about this for a second... most people don't "get" IT/IS... this leads to a sort of "close-mindedness" and then we have that comment above... That very scary comment. Let's ban the legal use because that will eliminate the 'illegal use'. I love how many people apply this logic and fail to see the problems in it. The people that are illegally acquiring guns will still illegally acquire guns... be it through theft, trunk sales or smuggling. It won't stop it... this will just stop the law abiding people from having access to handguns.

So now you're asking why this is of a concern to IT/IS professionals. Well let's look at France and their restrictions on encryption... or Germany and their "banning of hacking tools". In both of these cases the logic was, "Let's make it illegal and then people will stop using it illegally" WRONG! You are taking tools away from legitimate users, or making legitimate users criminals when they still use the tools and since those using the tools illegally are doing so to break a law... they won't stop. This flawed logic has to stop, it's just a downward spiral that's going to get worse and worse. Why does it seem that no one in positions of authority ever possesses common sense?

So here's how I see it happening:

1. Ontario Bans Handguns
2. Ontario Bans "hacking tools"
3. Ontario Bans personal vehicles, allowing only public transit (after all, cars can be used to kill)
4. Ontario requires all residents to be implanted with microchips for constant tracking (after all, if you're being monitored constantly it's harder to commit a crime)

I hope I'm not the only one that sees the problems with this and the problems with our Attorney General's logic... hopefully this can be stopped before we proceed down the slippery slope.

UPDATE:

I just visited the Ministry of the Attorney General's Contact Page and I was surprised to learn that we're already starting down the slippery slope. In order to provide a comment that will be read you *MUST* provide your name, email address and mailing address. Sure you could provide false information, but we "require" that information? Our government won't allow us to provide feedback and thoughts anonymously? Do they hunt down and kill those that they don't agree with? That's really the only possible reason for requiring that information.