La Loche needs healing, answers not ideologies
Before the full scale of the horror that happened in La Loche on Friday, the gun nuts – both for and against, were going at it all over social media.
As the afternoon turned to evening, we learned the truth of the situation – four dead, more injured, Imprimer a small Dene community devastated and a province and a nation left with far more questions than answers.
Those answers will come in the coming weeks and months, but while those answers might help to explain exactly what happened today, it will likely leave even more questions as to why.
This isn’t the first time La Loche has been prominent in the news. For much of the last decade, the community has Babeczki been known for one very ominous reason – suicide. The suicide rate in the community has been at devastating levels, with the largest demographic of victims being the young people there.
This time, there appear to me more La Loche and area youth that are dead, this time at the hands of what appears to be another La Loche area youth. Is an incident like this related to the suicide epidemic there? It is too early to answer that question.
Is it an indication that there are significant social issues in this community, and in a larger context the northern Saskatchewan community, that need to be addressed — urgently. It is pretty safe to say the answer to that question is yes.
But throughout it all one debate that will arrive with sound and fury will be gun control. The anti-gun control zealots will point to this incident as an example that gun control is pointless and doesn’t work, because Canada has gun control.
The pro-gun control zealots will scream out that this could have been prevented with more gun control because Canada doesn’t have enough.
Guns remain a necessary part of the culture for many in this region, where hunting is still used by many as one avenue of feeding the family. That isn’t likely to change any time soon, nor should it.
More gun control likely wouldn’t have prevented Friday’s tragedy, but Friday’s tragedy also doesn’t mean that sensible gun control Εναρκτ?ρια limits aren’t worthwhile either.
So zealots on both sides, please sit 押さえておくべき建物の基本5構造｜無災害住宅ガイド this one out. Right now, the community of La Loche, this province and this nation need to support each other, heal and find a way to move forward. We also need to find a better way forward so that tragedy comes calling far less often in La Loche than it has in the last decade or so.
So, for now, let us mourn with that entire community. The ideological and often petty debates won’t do anything for that process and only get in the way.
Prince Albert Daily Herald
