PUBLICATION:
The
Edmonton Sun
DATE:
2004.10.01
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Editorial/Opinion
PAGE:
10
COLUMN:
Editorial
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DON'T
CREDIT THE GRITS
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Statistics
Canada reported some good news this week, saying that the national homicide rate
has fallen by seven per cent and is now at its lowest level since 1967.
And
we're certainly not going to dismiss that bit of information as insignificant or
irrelevant.
But
it doesn't mean we're going to jump on the same bandwagon as many other people
and give the Liberals credit for the dropping homicide rate and praise the
national firearms registry.
Steve
Sullivan, president of the Canadian Recourse Centre for Victims of Crime, said,
"Opponents of the registry always say criminals don't use rifles and
shotguns, but we know people who kill in their own house do. I think the fact
that those numbers are down is encouraging."
Sullivan
was referring to the fact that while guns are the murder choice of weapons in
this country, the use of rifles and shotguns in committing the most heinous of
crimes has fallen by half - from 40% to 20% - over the past decade.
But
that hardly proves that registering guns is effective in preventing crimes. Conservative
MP Garry Breitkreuz, Canada's most effective critic of the gun registry, noted
yesterday that handguns have been registered in Canada for 70 years, but the
number of handgun-related murders continues to climb, even as the number of
rifle and shotgun murders drops.
According
to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, in 1974 27% of firearm homicides
were committed with a handgun, while a rifle or shotgun was used in 64% of the
cases.
By
2002, however, the numbers had essentially been reversed, with handguns being
responsible for 66% of firearm homicides versus 25% for rifles and shotguns.
Breitkreuz
points out that Statistics Canada reported last year that 72% of the handguns
recovered from murder scenes since 1997 were not registered. In the other 28% of
the cases, he notes dryly, the registration paper didn't prevent the crime.
Says
Breitkreuz: "The sad fact is that the Liberal government's firearms program
only tracks two million law-abiding, licensed gun owners - not violent
criminals, not the 131,000 convicted criminals that have been prohibited from
owning firearms by the courts, not the 34,000 persons with restraining orders
against them, and not the 13,000 persons that have had their firearms licences
refused or revoked."
And,
of course, while shootings were the most common method of killing someone,
accounting for 29% of all homicides, knife-related homicides were a close second
at 26%. Beatings were third at 22%.
Let's
hope the federal Liberals never notice that, lest we end up with registries for
knives and fists that are about as useful as the ones we have for handguns and
long guns.
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Statistics Canada: Homicides in Canada, 1974-2003 http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/HomicidesInvolvingFirearms1974-2003.pdf