NEWS RELEASE

February 25, 2004                                                                                         For Immediate Release

BREITKREUZ RELEASES DRAFT PLAN TO REGISTER CRIMINALS – NOT DUCK HUNTERS

“Statistics Canada data proves that criminals are the problem – not law-abiding gun owners.”

Ottawa – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, Deputy House Leader and Official Opposition Justice Critic for Gun Control, released the first draft of his plan to register criminals – not duck hunters (See link at bottom of the page).  “Contrary to what the Liberals have been promising for the last decade, Statistics Canada data and information provided to the media by Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino proves conclusively that the soon-to-be-two-billion-dollar gun registry does not improve public safety or save lives.  Homicides are up including domestic homicides, violent crime is up, suicides are up and the number of Criminal Code incidents per police officer has more than doubled since 1962.  Based on such overwhelming evidence, any sane person can only conclude that federal gun control laws should be totally focused on keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.  That is the objective of my plan,” said Breitkreuz.

Breitkreuz provided the following Statistics Canada data to show how 70 years of registering handguns has failed to keep handguns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them:

• 66% of firearm homicides were committed with a handgun in 2002.  This is up from 27% in 1974;

• 72% of the handguns recovered from murder scenes since 1997 were not registered; and

• 66% of those accused of murder had a criminal record, and 73% of those had a previous conviction for a violent offence including eight individuals who had been previously convicted for murder.

Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino provided these recent statistics to the media:

• 84% of the people we arrest for gun-related offences are all career criminals;

• None of the guns we know to have been used were registered, although we believe that more than half of them were smuggled into Canada from the United States;

• Since the Guns and Gangs Task Force began conducting compliance checks on residents freed on bail after being charged in a gun-related crime, almost 50% were breaching their conditions; and
• We have an on going gun crisis including firearms-related homicides lately in Toronto, and a law registering firearms has neither deterred these crimes nor helped us solve any of them.

“This is a first draft of my plan and I am inviting comments from all Canadians.  The Conservative Party is not going to ram an expensive, unworkable system down the throats of taxpayers, provinces and the police,” promised Breitkreuz.  “The Liberals have been doing that for ten years.  It’s time to stop the madness.”

BREITKREUZ’S DRAFT PLAN TO REGISTER CRIMINALS – NOT DUCK HUNTERS

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/draft1.htm

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