A vote in the Canadian parliament to repeal the registry of long guns (rifles) has set our northern neighbors into a cultural and geographic squabble that we thought could only happen in the States. The vote was 164 to 137 to remove the requirement that rifles be registered. (Hand guns would continue to be registered.) The vote out of the biggest cities was in favor of registry. In the rest of Canada, no way.

The vote created a "hysterical overreaction of urban newspaper columnists and editorial boards against rural Canadians," according to columnist Lorne Gunter. He continues: "Apparently, if my fellow commentators at other outlets are any gauge, this country’s urban elites believe that beyond the boundaries of their megalopolises there reside only people too stupid to move into more sophisticated boroughs. People who live outside Canada’s three biggest cities have been routinely portrayed in the past week as unthinking, knuckle-dragging, cousin-marrying rubes whose voices should not be heard in national debates, whose opinions should not be counted — unless, of course, they agree with their enlightened urban superiors." 

Sound familiar? The latest news from up north, however, is that most Canadians agree with the knuckle draggers. A Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll released Thursday found that 46% of Canadians believe abolishing the registry of long guns to be a good idea.  Gunter continues: "Here’s a flash for all the sneering, snotty urbanites: Maybe those people you so derisively call “rural” are right. Maybe because they have direct experience with guns, they know more about how to control them effectively than urbanites who know little about guns." These people could be U.S. citizens!!

85% of the House Democrats who voted against the party's health reform plan came from Congressional districts more rural than the nation as a whole.

The big telecommunications companies and Sen. John McCain on one side, technology pioneers and Sen. Al Franken on the other, the Federal Communications Commission voted to establish rules enforcing equal access to the Internet.

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