Harper really needs to ditch the Republican line

Y'know, I don't think you'll hear too many people putting up too much of an argument over the idea that the perpetrators of organized gang violence should be the subjects of stiffer sentencing.

Some might put up some reasons why it won't work and to be honest, they're worth listening to. You never really know who has a better idea - or what it is.

So, when the Conservatives put forth legislation which will make gang hits first degree murder and those convicted of drive-by shootings subject to four to 14 years in prison, the reaction of the political opposition is about where it should be:

A. They support it;
B. It's a good first step, but it's not enough.

Enter Steve Harper:

"The truth of the matter is, those who say that the tougher penalties on perpetrators will not work don’t want them to work because they don’t believe in his kind of approach," he told reporters.

"We know that we’re going to hear these critics, and we know that we’re going to hear the opposition parrot some of these critics because they all believe in soft-on-crime policies."

The little prick just couldn't resist, could he? That's an impetuous little pre-emptive strike from a minority government leader and it is reminiscent of:

Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.

Whereupon Bush the Younger, Harper's hero, proceeded on a path which resulted in the leader of the group which actually attacked the United States remaining at large to this day. Not to mention invading another country based on shoddily manufactured intelligence, razing it to the ground, failing to rebuild it and then shrugging when people asked why it had all gone to hell in a handbasket.

So, Steve, it must really irk that your political opposition didn't come out railing against a policy that even the (gasp!) NDP intends to support.

That's called stepping on your own dink. You must really miss your role model.

Killed, wounded and living in fear

I know what you think you're going to read. Put that aside. This is not about some grubby hole 10,000 miles from where you sit. This could be next door. It might even be where you live.

Compare the raw numbers. In the same seven-year period when 4,588 U.S. soldiers and police officers were killed by hostiles or by accident, more than 8,000 women – nearly twice as many – were shot, stabbed, strangled, or beaten to death by the intimate males in their lives. In Canada, compared to the 101 Canadian soldiers and police officers killed, more than 500 women – nearly five times as many – met the same fate.

Those are the deaths. Then there are the wounded. In the same period, about 24,000 U.S. military were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, while about 80 Canadians were wounded in Afghanistan.

In the United States, it's conservatively estimated that in addition to the 1,200 to 1,300 women killed each year by intimate partners, another 5.3 million, age 18 and older, are victims of non-lethal domestic abuse.

Based on those numbers, the violence costs the country more than $5.8 billion annually – nearly $4.1 billion in direct medical and mental health care, and $1.8 billion in lost productivity and lost earnings due to homicide.

These numbers are believed to underestimate the problem for several reasons, and additional efforts are needed to determine more accurately the full cost of intimate-partner victimization of women in the United States.

In Canada, the federal government estimates the annual cost of violence against women at $1.1 billion in direct medical costs alone. That figure rises to more than $4 billion a year when social services, lost productivity, lost earnings, and police, court, and prison costs are factored in.

Wars usually produce large numbers of refugees: witness the United Nations camps scattered around the world. And the War on Women has its own refugee camps, in the form of the 2,500 or so shelters for battered women and their children across North America.

In the United States, more than 300,000 women and children seek safety in shelters each year. In Canada, the number is between 90,000 and 100,000.

That is an excerpt from the book The War on Women: Elly Armour, Jane Hurshman, and Criminal Violence in Canadian Homes, by Brian Vallée.

Antonia has more. A lot more. Go read.