February 28, 2005
Garry Breitkreuz, MP
House of Commons
K1A 0A6
Dear Mr. Breitkreuz:
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to analyze the Statistics
Canada tables on Victims of Robberies, Robbery by Type of Weapon Present,
Victims of Assaults with a Weapon, and Assault Level II by Type of Weapon
Present provided to you by the Library of Parliament.
I now have had a chance to analyze these four reports for 2003. Two
of the reports deal with armed robberies, and two with armed assault. For each
type of crime, one of the reports analyzed incidents and the other examined
victims. By coordinating the reports of incidents with the victims for both
armed robberies and armed assaults, I was able uncover some interesting results.
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.
Armed assaults
Table 1 (See link below) 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. More
importantly, only 6% of assaults involving firearms result in a victim receiving
a serious injury, as opposed to 11% and 14% of assaults involving knives or
clubs.
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/injuriesinassault2003.xls
Armed robberies
Table 2 (See link below) 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. As with assaults, serious
injuries are fewer as well when firearms are involved. Only 2% of robberies
involving firearms result in serious injuries, while 3% of robberies involving
knives, and 9% of robberies involving clubs or other blunt instruments.
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/injuriesinrobbery2003.xls
I’d speculate that the primary reason firearms cause fewer
injuries is that both assailants and victims alike see firearms as more
frightening. Thus, victims comply more readily when threatened with a firearm,
and assailants expect them to comply more readily, than when other types weapons
are used. Assailants appear to feel that they must injure their victims in order
to ensure compliance when weapons other than firearms are involved. Thus, the
ready compliance of victims when threatened with firearms means that criminal
violence involving firearms causes fewer injuries.
Ironically, if we could somehow magically remove firearms entirely
from criminals, thereby forcing assailants to use other types of weapons
instead, we would only increase the number of victims and even increase the
number of serious injuries they receive.
As I’m certain you will agree, 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.
It is important to note that these reports from Statistics Canada
only include injuries, no deaths. By definition, attacks or robberies that
resulted in homicides are excluded. Thus, strictly speaking, we do not know if
attacks or robberies involving firearms resulted in more or fewer deaths than
did attacks with other types of weapons. However, given that firearm violence
resulted in fewer serious injuries than did violence involving other weapons, it
would appear unlikely that firearm violence would produce more deaths.
To answer this question, I am conducting further analysis of weapon use
in violent crime including homicide and attempted homicide. Additional tables
have been requested from Statistics Canada.
Respectfully yours,
[Original signed by]
Gary A. Mauser, Ph D
Professor
Institute for Urban Canadian Research Studies
Faculty of Business Administration
Simon Fraser University
Voice: 604-291-3652
Fax: 604-936-9141