Open letter to Hart House Warden Margaret Hancock
Dear Mrs Hancock,
I have read and listened to a lot of contradictory news about Mike, our Hart House Revolver Club member. I, as an alumnus of U of T, Eng. ’65, have always thought of the university as a place of intelligence, diversity, tolerance, and freedom of opinion. I hope to learn the truth as to what has really happened with Mike.
The reason that most of the senior members have not written you is simply that we did not foresee any impact of this situation on the club as a whole.
I, and most of the senior members, started at Hart House in our undergraduate years, and have been members since the late sixties. The Hart House Revolver Club has had an enviable record for training, safety, fun, and shooting excellence since the very beginning.
You do not close a hospital because of one doctor, a university because of one professor, or a range and club because of one member. What about all the rest? Why should all the undergraduate members, alumni and senior members who enjoy the ranges be denied their use because of the possibility (we consider an individual innocent until proven otherwise) of one individual having done something illegal?
I agree with the review of any Hart House club that does not serve some segment of the university population and add to the diversity of university life.
I feel that all the range clubs have done a first class job with providing the undergraduates with a unique experience, comradeship and enjoyment to round out their education. For the alumni and senior members who wish to remain a part of Hart House, the range clubs provide comradeship and recreation.
It would be an unwarranted overreaction and pity to close down a club like the Hart House Revolver Club, which has so much tradition and value, on the basis of the actions of one individual or because of opposition to it from other small and vocal segments of the university who neither value nor understand its attraction to its members.
I consider the club a valuable asset to the diverse extracurricular nature of Hart House, and sincerely feel it would be a mistake to close it and deny future undergraduates of its benefits.
Tony Honig
Gun clubs are symbols of diversity
After recent review of the current situation regarding closure of the Rifle, Revolver, and Archery range at Hart House, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by the naivete and especially the fear being demonstrated by my colleagues at the University of Toronto.
I attend the most diverse university in the country, which not only accommodates but welcomes differences.
Students from around the world choose U of T precisely because it offers such diversity in its cultural, academic and recreational opportunities.
In regard to the range at Hart House and the three clubs that run from it, this is exactly the kind of choice that I’m extremely proud of.
As we are the only civilian university in Ontario that has rifle and revolver clubs, I look at this as an opportunity to experience something that the majority of people are not fortunate enough to have available to them.
It should also be made clear that shooting is an art. It requires a tremendous amount of concentration, thought, and focus, and complete engrossment from every part of your body—especially breathing—before any move is made.
If this sounds familiar it’s because you’ve probably participated in Karate, Kendo, Archery, Aikido, Yoga, Tai Chi…the list continues.
Belonging to the Rifle Club, I can assure that every reasonable safety measure is taken to ensure the safety of all things and people around, and this is reflected in the fact that there has not been a single accident in the 82–year history of the club.
I can also share my experience that my time at the range is the most relaxing part of my week, where I can take time to clear my head and focus on stabilizing and controlling my body and mind.
Now here’s the challenge: let’s see if we can apply these rational techniques to the present situation…
Laura Salamah
Keep the clubs
Ms Hancock,
I am writing you regarding to the closure of the shooting clubs. I am a second year Electrical Engineering student. I am also a member of the Revolver, Rifle, and Archery club. Personally, I really don’t want to see the clubs or the range room get closed. Some individual’s misbehaviour doesn’t mean it’s related to the club. And it shouldn’t affect the club. I am sure that none of the club members are dangerous to anyone, because we have very strict rules which ensure the safety of personnel, ammo and weapons. I think the range and the shooting clubs are very unique to U of T and to Hart House. It’s a great experience for me and a lot of my friends in the range. These featured clubs make Hart House distinct from other places on campus,such as the Athletic Center.
I am asking you to please not close the clubs and the range. Give it a chance. We will prove to you that you’ve made the right decision. We will make U of T and Hart House proud of us.
Yifei Zhang
Educated masculinity? Let me be the first eunuch.
(Re: “Goodbye to educated masculinity,” 12 November 2001.)
I apologize for not making this response to Ms. Lebrun’s article “Goodbye to educated masculinity” pertinent to your discussion of the Revolver Club and Rifle Association.
In my opinion, though, neither was the original article itself about the RCRA, but rather a blatant politicization—complete with inflammatory and misleading rhetoric— of a relatively small, local squabble.
Her submission is really about the so-called War on Terrorism, and her distaste for any sort of protest against what it has become.
Let me begin by saying that if Ms. Lebrun’s idea of “educated masculinity” means enabling a line of thought that accepts notions of violence not so far off from those we’re currently at war with, then let me be the first eunuch.
While there is no doubt that a war is being waged against the United States, let’s make no mistake about what sort of war this is.
The enemy’s tactics are guerilla-based, with deep insight into what makes our society tick (or, in the case of Sept. 11, stop ticking). Our first reactions to retaliate against this ingenious foe, however, involved calling up troops and greasing the wheels of the U.S.’s military machine so that George Bush could begin his campaign of civilian bombing and Western-style terrorism abroad, and facilitate Orwellian lawmaking in the name of a nebulous cause that would have made McCarthy proud.
Forgetting the moral and philosophical implications of these actions, and instead focussing on the pragmatic.
These actions miss their mark because of the Afghanistan they’ve scattered throughout the world, hidden in small Third-World communities and entrenched in First-World metropolitan jungles.
The rousing call to arms Ms. Lebrun hopes to bring about with her words is completely useless, because it misses the point.
The actions taken by the terrorists on board those planes were quick and effective, with brutally swift neutralization of key personnel and a capitalization on weaknesses that our society didn’t even know it had.
No amount of “educated masculinity” could have foreseen or prevented what happened that day.
And even though the governments of Western nations have worked to turn this into the sort of conflict we’re more comfortable fighting and more confident of winning, no amount of “educated masculinity” will prevent the next attacks, because they’ve shown themselves to be more educated than we are where it counts: our intelligence capabilities.
This is the crux of it. What happened on September 11th was first and foremost an intelligence failure.
Looking at Ms. Lebrun’s argument, it would seem that this phenomenon is contagious.
As a side note, one can only hope that her unbalanced ideas of gender relations will be satisfied by some caveman who comes along, knocks her out and drags her back to his cave, so that the rest of us can try to think through this problem with a little more rationality than that which is necessary to worship a gun.
Andrew Musgrave
