ASSAULT RIFLE, NOT MARIJUANA, THE CULPRIT

To the Editor,

A crazed man opens fire on Mounties on his rural property in northern
Alberta, killing four police officers before turning the gun on himself,
and all of a sudden Canada needs to get tougher on marijuana grow operations?

Make no mistake: the tragedy in Alberta is about a mentally unstable man
with a known hatred of police armed with a high-powered weapon and a thirst
for destruction.

It is not about marijuana grow operations. It probably doesn't matter if
there were marijuana plants growing on his property, or tulips and roses.
It just happens that, in this instance, it is the illegality of marijuana
that sent Mounties to the property in the first place.

In this instance, the law deeming marijuana as contraband prompted police
to investigate and enforce - and led to their deaths.

Based on what has emerged, James Roszko would likely have shot and killed a
police officer for walking onto his property to enforce a speeding ticket fine.

Those four police officers died because Roszko decided to kill them. They
did not die because of marijuana grow operations, which makes the ensuing
rush to call for a major crackdown on grow operations - from Abbotsford
Police Det. Don Mckenzie as president of the B.C. Federation of Police
Officers, to Solicitor General Rich Coleman, to RCMP Commissioner RCMP
commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli - all the more ridiculous.

Stiffer penalties for growing marijuana would not have prevented the
deaths. Repercussions are an afterthought to a man mad enough to murder
four other men before killing himself.

The more salient question that needs answering is how and why a man with a
history of being charged with weapons offences and well-known in the
community as being dangerous had in his possession a rapid-fire auto
carbine assault-style rifle.

Christopher Foulds, via e-mail