Dear Editor,
I feel that The letter writer in ‘Should terrify any thinking person’, dated June 16, 2022 the 22,000 Canadians of Japanese descent giving up their firearms before they were rounded up, interred in camps and all of their property was stolen.
As a student of history for over 50 years and teaching experience, I know that one reason the Japanese were removed from the west coast is that Prime Minister Mackenzie King feared a repeat of Vancouver race riots that could have consequences for Canadian POWs captured in Hong Kong, etc. according to The Canadian Encyclopedia.
This type of mass riots had already occurred from Sept. 7 to 9, 1907, first against the Chinese and moving to attack the Japanese. It’s interesting that they actually started in Bellingham two days earlier and were directed against East Indians – another negative fallout from the USA, according to Wikipedia.
To suggest the should have kept their guns and possibly used them is crazy. They would have been massacred by mobs.
On another note, did the Brits really collect and dump their firearms in the ocean after WWII? I have never heard this. If it’s true, it is brilliant. Imagine how many lives were saved by not having guns fall into the wrong hands! I think both Canada and the USA could learn a lesson from this.
David Parrish
Trochu, Alta.
