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LETTER: Why can’t Surrey be more like its neighbours?

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more absurd, mayor and council ban handguns and ammunition from B.C. Rod and Gun Show.
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The B.C. Rod and Gun Show is the wrong place to start if you want to clean up Surrey

The Editor,

Re: “Green light for gun show – with a catch,” the Now, April 14.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more absurd in Surrey, our mayor and council ban handguns and ammunition from B.C. Rod and Gun Show.

Mayor Linda Hepner and her Surrey First councillors have again succeeded in making a bad situation worse. The decision to ban handguns and ammunition from an established event hosted and attended by law-abiding taxpayers makes no sense and will have no impact on skyrocketing crime in Surrey.

SEE ALSO: Surrey gives green light to gun show - but not ammo or handgun sales

Moreover, comments by Coun. Dave Woods as to why this decision was made are, in a word, laughable.

Woods, who had a 40-year career as a police officer and owns guns himself, told the Province he asked for the restriction on ammunition when council was first discussing the show’s permit because “for me, where there are firearms and ammunition, there’s danger.”

Regardless of your feelings towards firearms, are you prepared to live in a world according to Woods?

OUR VIEW: City of Surrey misfires big time with BC Rod and Gun Show gaffe

I would suggest we consider banning automobile ownership and use in Surrey. The lives and money saved by this initiative would be enormous. We might even get a public transportation system to be proud of. Of course, Woods would be exempt as his car and his firearms are not a danger to anyone.

Law-abiding taxpayers everywhere should be duly concerned by the convenient logic elected officials employ to increasingly limit or deny the rights and freedoms we are entitled to.

Neighbouring municipalities of White Rock, Delta, New Westminster and Langley seem to manage their crime rates without suppressing the rights and opinions of citizens.

I am still waiting for this to happen in Surrey.

M. Proskow, Surrey