NEWS RELEASE

March 3, 2005                                                For Immediate Release

LIBERALS’ TOTAL FOCUS ON GUNS IS MISGUIDED

“Violent crimes involving firearms result in fewer injuries (and less serious injuries) than do violent crimes involving other kinds of weapons.”

Yorkton – Today, Saskatchewan M.P., Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative Firearms Critic, released an amazing analysis of Statistics Canada tables showing that the Liberal government’s preoccupation with firearms crime instead of all weapons crime is not supported by the available data.  “The Liberals have spent a decade and two billion dollars on a firearms program that ignored the statistical facts sitting right in front of their collective noses.  Only an anti-gun ideology would justify such a colossal oversight by the bureaucrats in so many departments and the politicians directing them,” exclaimed Breitkreuz. 

Breitkreuz was referring to an analysis of four Statistic Canada tables sent to him this week by Professor Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia .  Mauser stated: To summarize, violent crimes involving firearms result in fewer injuries (and less serious injuries) than do violent crimes involving other kinds of weapons. This pattern is the same for armed robberies and for armed assaults.

  • Table 1 shows that 48% of assaults involving firearms result in the victims being injured, while 53% of assaults involving knives result in injuries, and 76% of assaults involving clubs or other blunt weapons result in injuries.
  • Table 2 shows that 12% of robberies involving firearms result in a victim being injured, while 17% of robberies involving knives result in injuries, and 47% of robberies involving clubs result in injuries.

Breitkreuz agreed with Professor Mauser’s conclusions that these results have important implications for public policy:

  • First, they offer further support to the argument that the firearm registry is misguided.  Firearm violence is not qualitatively worse than criminal violence involving other weapons. Even if we grant that firearm laws might have reduced criminal violence involving firearms, that has not reduced violent crime, nor has it caused fewer injuries to victims. The essential problem is criminal violence, not firearm violence.
  • Second, there would appear to be little reason to push for harsher penalties for violent crimes involving firearms. Other types of weapons are more likely than firearms to cause injuries and to cause more serious injuries to victims than do firearms.  It would seem more reasonable for Parliament to impose harsher penalties for assailants who uses any kind of weapon, not just a firearm, in committing a violent crime.

In December 2002, the Auditor General reported that the firearms program partners believed that: the use of firearms is in itself a "questionable activity" that required strong controls.  “This analysis and the waste of a hundred million a year on the Canada Firearms Centre proves that the government is overlooking the truth about weapons crime in Canada and ignoring the Auditor General’s recommendation in the process,” concluded Breitkreuz.

Professor Gary Mauser’s Letter and Tables:

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/Article552.htm

-30-