PUBLICATION:
The
StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
DATE:
2003.10.03
EDITION: Final
SECTION:
Forum
PAGE:
A12
SOURCE:
The StarPhoenix
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Statistics
abused
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Only
the most warped sense of logic can lead anyone to cite Canada's latest homicide
statistics as a sign that Ottawa's billion-dollar gun registry is doing an
effective job.
The
fact that the number of homicides reported by police across Canada actually rose
by 29 to reach the 582-mark, even though the number of gun-related deaths
declined, only underlines what opponents of the registry long have maintained:
As
long as the underlying causes that lead to deadly violence remain unaddressed,
forcing Canadians to register their long guns under threat of criminal
prosecution isn't going to fix the problem.
It
really doesn't matter to the 582 dead persons whether they met their untimely
end as a result of being shot (149), stabbed (182), beaten (124), strangled (64)
or burned (eight).
Dead
is dead, and for gun control advocates to proclaim victory in the face of rising
homicide rates and numbers, frankly, is absurd.
Given the data, an equally nutty argument could be forwarded that, rather than
register long guns, the homicide rate could be lowered by threatening citizens
with imprisonment unless they register their hands and have their mental
stability certified before acquiring knives and matches.
Leave
aside the fact that almost three-quarters of the 582 homicides in 2002 were not
gun-related and look at the details of the shooting deaths.
Statistics Canada reports that, of the 149 shooting
murders last year, two-thirds (98) involved handguns, the vast majority of them
unregistered. Canada has required registration of handguns since 1934, yet the
toll from these guns, mostly illegally owned, has remained nearly constant for
at least a decade.
As
well, 2002 marks the second year that gang-related homicides (mostly in Quebec)
have declined greatly, the 45 murders representing a drop of 27 from the peak in
2000.
With
gang-related murders twice as likely to involve firearms than other homicides,
the declining gun death rate thus is more likely due to a crackdown on gangs by
police agencies and mergers among biker groups than Ottawa forcing rural
Canadians to register their hunting rifles and shotguns.
Yet,
despite these facts being more than clear in the Statistics Canada figures
released this week, the headlines and newscasts across Canada dwelt on the
decline in gun-related killings, not on the hike in the murder numbers.
"The
numbers look encouraging," suggested Wendy Cukier of the Coalition for Gun
Control. "It's still a bit soon to attribute it to the most recent
gun-control law but certainly the trend in Canada of strengthening controls over
firearms does appear to be having an effect."
Of such delusions are public policy disasters made and
otherwise law-abiding citizens turned into criminals in Canada.
The
reality, and it's an ugly reality, is that 67 of the 84 people killed by their
spouses last year in Canada were women. While the rate of spousal murder slowly
has been declining since the mid-1970s for both genders, the horrible fact is
that 44 per cent of all female
murder victims, compared to only eight per cent of all male victims, were killed
by someone with whom they'd had a prior relationship.
There's
no way to gauge with certainty what the impact on murder statistics would have
been had the resources expended on setting up an ineffective gun registry
instead been used to enforce restraining orders, provide mental health help to
embittered spouses, create spaces at women's shelters or even hire a few more
police. But it's a safe assumption that it would have prevented more deaths than
a billion-dollar registry rife with errors that's of no use to too many law
enforcement agencies.
Rather than shore up the case of gun control advocates, the homicide statistics do the exact opposite.