Sharon Gregson

"I find it curious that, as a woman, as a visitor into the United States, I'd be allowed to carry a weapon — a concealed firearm to protect myself and my children — but that I don't have that same right in Canada."

Sharon Gregson was a Vancouver, British Columbia school trustee and longtime daycare activist and New Democratic Party (NDP) supporter who aroused the ire of anti-gun elements across Canada in late 2006, after she posed for the cover of the NFA's Canadian Firearms Journal holding a handgun and wrote a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking that he consider legislative changes that would allow law-abiding Canadians more freedom to carry concealed weapons.

She also competes in the IPSC and has claimed to be "the most tattooed elected official in Canada."

The statements

Sharon Gregson on the cover of the Canadian Firearms Journal

"I don't think we should be embarrassed or ashamed of the fact that we're legal gun owners who enjoy a sport and want to talk about protection issues particularly if they apply to women. What I'm advocating for is, at least, a discussion in Canada about where we want to be in the long term around guns, so that we are formulating our public policy based on research and experience, not on an automatic knee-jerk reaction that guns are bad."

Such assertions shocked her associates in the NDP, but Gregson didn't stop here. Gregson had recently been granted a CCW in the state of Utah, and committed the Ultimate Canadian Gun Control Heresy when she suggested that were such permits available, the Montreal massacre, in which 14 women were shot to death at the Ecole Polytechnique, might have been a very different story. The Montreal massacre was the single biggest driving political factor behind the Liberal government of the day's Bill C-68 and has long been used by Canadian gun grabbers as a justification for... well, just about everything.

Backlash

Gregson was quickly thrown to the wolves by her former compatriots in the Canadian political Left:

	Sharon Gregson is just what the NDP did not need; a rogue politician not only advocating that Canadian citizens should have the right to carry concealed weapons but also posing with her Colt 45 on the front of the latest edition of the Canadian Firearms Journal"
— theleftcoast.ca

	Until this week, Sharon Gregson was known as a Vancouver school trustee, a passionate New Democrat and an advocate for publicly funded daycare. All of that changed when she appeared on the cover of the Canadian Firearms Journal, a publication of the National Firearms Association, with a .45-calibre Colt pistol in one hand.
— Vancouver Sun staff

	There are lots of good people out there working hard every day to keep our community safe. When we've got a rogue school trustee with views that are way out of whack I think we should all be saying and suggesting in the strongest possible terms that her views are irresponsible."
— Mike Farnworth, the NDP critic for the Solicitor-General's Ministry

Then-current B.C. Solicitor General, John Les, also blasted Gregson:

Gregson has crossed the line by advocating that she and other Canadians be allowed to carry concealed guns, as can be done in many U.S. states, says B.C. Solicitor General John Les. "I don't care whether it's in a U.S. state or a Canadian province. I just don't think it's necessary to be carrying a concealed handgun. Full stop, period." Les also took aim at Gregson's contention that she has the right to carry a handgun to defend herself. "Go talk to your average policeman. That is not how we promote safe socieities. It's completely irresponsible, particularly coming from someone who is a school trustee."

Naturally, Wendy Cukier, the president of the Coalition for Gun Control, had to duly register (to everyone who would listen) her shock and appall at Gregson's decision to become the firearms association's cover girl, claiming that Gregson was sending out a dangerous message by advocating putting guns into the hands of more women.

There is no evidence whatsoever that arming women makes them safer," Cukier said. "In fact, the evidence is quite the contrary, that more guns results in more deaths and injuries."

Apparently, Ms. Cukier has never noticed how few massacres there are at shooting ranges and gun shows.