ACTUAL VERSUS THEORETICAL STATISTICS AND EFFECTS Canada, 1991: 67 per cent of accused murderers had a previous criminal record, including charges dismissed or plea bargained away. Source: "Homicide in Canada 1991," Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS, a government office), Oct 92, p 15. Canada, 1991: 45 per cent of homicide victims had a previous criminal record, including charges dismissed or plea bargained away. Obviously, a lot of our homicides are disputes between criminals, criminal revenge, or drug-related robberies. Source: "Homicide in Canada, 1991," CCJS, Oct 92, p 15. Interpretation: Most Canadian murders are part of the criminal subculture. They are unlikely to be affected by gun control laws, which, by their nature, affect only the law-abiding. Canada, 1988-91: 94.9 per cent of all violent crime was non-firearm; it was sharp or blunt instruments, hands or feet. Source: CCJS England/Wales 1991: 97.0 per cent of all violent crime was non-firearm; it was sharp or blunt instruments, hands or feet. Source: "Information on the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales," p 9. Interpretation: Attacks on the criminal use of firearms cannot have cost-effective effects on our violent crime rates. At every point where the word "firearm" is used in legislative attacks on violent crime, the word should have been "weapon." US robberies, 1991: 40.0 per cent involved firearms; 60.0 per cent did not. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Canadian robberies, 1988-1991: 28.8 per cent involved firearms; 71.2 per cent did not. Source: CCJS. Canadian robberies, 1976-1992: 30.6 per cent involved firearms; 69.4 per cent did not. There were 416,786, an average of 26,174 per year. Source: CCJS. Canadian robberies, 1988-1991: 94.6 per cent of robbery victim injuries or deaths were caused by sharp or blunt instruments, hands or feet. 5.5 per cent were caused by firearms. Source: "Weapons and Violent Crime," CCJS 1991, p 12. Interpretation: Victims are about five times less likely to be injured or killed in a robbery when the robber is using a firearm. Therefore, to the extent that legislative attacks on the use of firearms in robberies are successful, the result will be a five-fold increase in the number of injured or dead victims. Dr. Kleck reports the same phenomenon in the US. Why? Obviously, use of almost any other weapon requires the criminal to be within arm's reach of his victim for the threat to be real. If anything disturbs the criminal--resistance, alarm sounding, another customer entering, etc.--the victim is immediately injured or killed. If the criminal has a firearm, he controls his victim at a distance, and has a better chance of controlling two or more people at once. He has more time for thought, and knows that firing the firearm will attract unwanted attention. Those two factors account for the low injury/death rates in firearms robberies. True, the firearm is more lethal; but the likelihood of it being actually used on the victim is so much lower that it is unintelligent to attack its use by criminals. Canada, 1961-90: 15,097 homicides, average 520 per year. Of those, 62.8 per cent (9481) were non-firearm; 15.2 per cent (2295) were by no-registration-required rifles; 5.8 per cent (876) were by no-registration-required shotguns; 13.1 per cent (1978) were by registration-required firearms, but their registration status was not determined; 0.7 per cent (106) were by registration-required firearms whose status was determined as being registered (although they may have been stolen from the registered owner years before), and 2.4 per cent (362) were by firearm of unrecorded type. Source: CCJS Interpretation: At only about 200 firearms homicides per year, the Canadian homicide numbers are too low for meaningful statistics to be calculated other than by grouping several years worth of data into a single data set. In Canada, most homicides fall into two categories: Homicide by a criminal, often with a criminal victim, as part of criminal activities (drug transfer disputes, etc.) and domestic homicide involving alcohol and/or drugs in situations of poverty and despair, mostly on Indian reservations, where firearms, daily necessities used in hunting for food, cannot be removed. Canada 1992, Alcohol/Drug abuse by accused murderers: 52.0 per cent (331) had abused alcohol or drugs; 27.4 per cent (174) had not; and 20.6 per cent (131) were unrecorded. Canada 1992, Alcohol/Drug abuse by murder victims: 40.2 per cent (294) had abused alcohol or drugs; 38.3 per cent (280) had not; and 21.6 per cent (158) were unrecorded. Interpretation: Alcohol and drug abuse are factors which cause murders, but firearms are only instruments for committing the minor percentage of murders in which firearms are used. Firearms do not cause murders; they are simply neutral tools chosen by a person, often drunk or stoned, who decides to murder. The decision to murder necessarily comes earlier than the decision as to the tool or instrument to be used for the murder.