Great Lakes Machine Guns Raise Ire in Canada [View All]

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

//The Globe and Mail, Canada Posted at 12:20 PM EDT on 28/09/06

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060928.wlakes28/BNStory/National/home



GREAT LAKES MACHINE GUNS RAISE IRE IN CANADA

U.S. Coast Guard conducting live-ammunition training drills



Margaret Philp



The United States Coast Guard has started to patrol the Great Lakes with machine guns mounted on their vessels and is conducting live-ammunition training drills on the U.S. side to prepare officers to combat terrorists flooding across the border from Canada by boat.



The automatic-weapon drills started earlier this year but came to light only in the past two weeks after information about the Coast Guard's move to create 34 permanent live-fire training zones in the Great Lakes was published in the U.S. federal register.



Since the beginning of the year, the Coast Guard have conducted 24 drills, each time firing about 3,000 rounds of lead bullets about a third of the size of a fishing-line sinker from light-weight machine guns in waters at least eight kilometres from the Canadian border and U.S. shores. Two more target practices are scheduled for this year.


SNIP

“The longest undefended border in the world is gone. It's passé. And this is an example of it.”

Toronto Mayor David Miller chairs a coalition of U.S. and Canadian mayors working to restore and protect the lakes.



He said the target practice violates a treaty signed after the War of 1812 that outlaws military weapons on the Great Lakes, tampering with two centuries of peaceful history.



“This is very much the wrong direction, to militarize the border between these two countries,” he said in an interview. “It's symbolically important and practically important that the border remain open and doesn't become militarized.”




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