[BRIEF NOTE] On the Wawra affair, or American violence in a Canadian city

[rfmcdonald]

james_nicoll linked to a rather remarkable letter sent to the Calgary Herald by Walt Wawra, a Kalamazoo, Michigan police officer who had a very unsettling experience in Calgary while visiting that Albertan city with his wife, one that made him regret Canada's restrictive firearms legislation.

I recently visited Calgary from Michigan. As a police officer for 20 years, it feels strange not to carry my off-duty hand-gun. Many would say I have no need to carry one in Canada.

Yet the police cannot protect everyone all the time. A man should be al-lowed to protect himself if the need arises. The need arose in a theatre in Aurora, Colo., as well as a college campus in Canada.

Recently, while out for a walk in Nose Hill Park, in broad daylight on a paved trail, two young men approached my wife and me. The men stepped in front of us, then said in a very aggressive tone: "Been to the Stampede yet?"

We ignored them. The two moved closer, repeating: "Hey, you been to the Stampede yet?"

I quickly moved between these two and my wife, replying, "Gentle-men, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye." They looked bewildered, and we then walked past them.

I speculate they did not have good intentions when they approached in such an aggressive, disrespectful and menacing manner. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort, but rather concluded it was in their best interest to leave us alone.

Would we not expect a uniformed officer to pull his or her weapon to intercede in a life-or-death encounter to protect self, or another? Why then should the expectation be lower for a citizen of Canada or a visitor? Wait, I know - it's because in Canada, only the criminals and the police carry handguns.

This letter has triggered huge response online. Some commenters have suggested that the two men may have been just trying to make friendly conversation about Calgary's signature cultural event, that they might even have been giving tickets away. Most have responded to the apparent belief of Wawra that being asked a question by strangers is motivation enough to want to carry firearms, and by extension, enough to make shooting someone seem ethical. Gawker's "American Becomes Laughingstock of Canada After Letter to Editor Lamenting Lack of Handgun During Mild Confrontation" isn't an atypical reaction, as is Naomi Lakritz's reply in the Calgary Herald to the letter--a real one, she assures us--is typical.

Wawra wrote that he speculated the men did not have good intentions. He claims the men spoke in an “aggressive, disrespectful and menacing manner.” Menacing? A question about the Stampede is construed as a menace? Or, as someone commented on the Herald’s website: “... for asking if you had been to the Stampede? Since when is that grounds to be dead?” Another commenter wrote: “I can see why they were frightened. If you rearrange the letters in ‘been to Stampede yet?’ you get “a beset potted enemy’.”

Most likely, the men noticed something about the Wawras that indicated they were tourists, and were trying to make conversation. Maybe they themselves were enjoying the Stampede’s centennial celebration and wanted to let these tourists know that their visit to Calgary wouldn’t be complete without a day at the Stampede. The fact that the young men looked bewildered by Wawra’s response indicates that their intentions were indeed friendly ones and that they were quite puzzled at being rebuffed.

Wawra did not return my call requesting an interview Tuesday afternoon. Too bad. I would have liked to ask him why an American visitor to Calgary would treat a friendly encounter in a city park here as if it were a midnight stroll through a drug-dealer infested alley on the south side of Chicago. One can only stand open-mouthed at the knee-jerk mindset of suspicion, fear and loathing on the mean streets — which is so ingrained in Americans that they can’t leave it at home when they visit another country.

Americans argue that they need to carry guns, because having a concealed weapon makes them feel safe. Their thinking seems to be that at any given moment, they could be under attack from the very next person they meet on the street, and they’ll need to shoot in self-defence. Whereas, when you walk down a street in Canada, you don’t assume that you’re at risk of being suddenly assaulted or killed. You just see ordinary people going about their day and you give their motives no further thought.

Wawra's hometown newspaper has also noticed the fuss

All that I can add is that all this reminds me of Kieran Healy's post of the 20th of last month showing how the United States easily has by far one of the highest rates of violent death of in any OECD country, far exceeding Canada. Not to say that Canada doesn't have its issues, but Wawra's response isn't intuitively comprehensible to me.

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