FIREARMS FACTS - UPDATE

RCMP CAN’T PRODUCE STATISTICS ON CRIMES

 COMMITTED WITH REGISTERED HANDGUNS

BREITKREUZ’S ATI REQUEST TO RCMP – FEBRUARY 10, 2004

For the period from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2003, please provide copies of reports showing:

(1)    The total number of crimes committed by persons with a registered handgun, and

(2)   The number of times the handgun was registered to the accused in these crimes.

ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE RESPONSE – MAY 3, 2004

The data to answer these two requests is simply not readily available.  The total number of crimes committed by persons with a registered handgun is not reported by the RCMP, nor other major police departments to Stats Canada.  Furthermore, it is not available from Stats Canada, Canadian Firearms Registry, nor NWEST.  The information may be contained in individual police/crime reports, but this data is not collected and centrally registered in any way.  This, then, makes it labour intensive to search for an answer to the second request as well.  This particular search could translate to an estimated 1200 hours of search time by 5 NWEST investigators to view the 7000 records held by them.  This would be the equivalent to approx. $12,000 in search fees.

STATISTICS CANADA DOESN’T KNOW EITHER

March 9, 2004: Despite 70 years of registering handguns and despite spending a billion dollars on a new gun registry, Statistics Canada finally admitted that it can’t provide an answer to Breitkreuz’s simple questions: What are the total number of crimes committed by persons with a registered handgun, and the number of times the handgun was registered to the accused?  “This is outrageous.  How is Parliament ever going to determine if gun registration is worth two billion dollars if the Liberals aren’t even collecting the data to prove whether or not it works?” asked Breitkreuz

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/breitkreuzgpress/guns117.htm