FIREARMS CONTROL--FROM THE CRIMINAL POINT OF VIEW In order to understand the effects of firearms control laws of various kinds, it's necessary to look at their theoretical effects, then compare them to their actual effects--from a criminal's viewpoint. THEORY 1: GUN CONTROL LAWS REDUCE VIOLENT CRIME: Imagine you are a criminal; you burgle occupied homes by night, or you rob small businesses, or you enter basement apartments to rape women. In the town of Justine, nearly everyone in town belongs to a gun club, has a firearm, knows how to use it, and keeps it in his or her home. Just across the river in the town of Janice, there is a town bylaw which prohibits the storage of any firearm in any private home. Very few people own firearms, and almost all of those who do comply with the town bylaw by leaving their gun locked up at the shooting range over in Justine. Speaking as a burglar, robber, or rapist, which town will you choose as the place to commit your crimes? In Justine, would you choose a place with people in it, or a place with no people in it to commit your crime? The abolishment of the private ownership of firearms is something any violent criminal fully supports. THEORY 2. IF YOU DON'T HAVE GUNS, CRIMINALS WON'T HAVE GUNS: In southern Ontario, the new firearms laws were barely in place before handgun crime levels began increasing rapidly. The Solicitor General, alarmed, funded a massive 9-month police intelligence operation called "Project Gun Runner." It found that 86 per cent of the crime handguns had been smuggled into Canada, an had never been seen or touched by our massive gun control system. The gun control system simply didn't work. If every privately-owned firearm is confiscated, it would apparently reduce the number of firearms available to criminals by 14 per cent--for as long as it takes the smugglers to increase their smuggling by 14 per cent. Is that cost-effective? THEORY 3. WE CAN STOP GUN SMUGGLING AT THE BORDER: Stephen Gooding and David Gill went to Michigan in Dec 1992. They bought three handguns, illegally, and headed back across the bridge into Windsor. 26,000 people a day cross through Customs at that point; they weren't searched. If they had been, the guns took up less room than one carton of cigarettes. They paid US$390 for three guns, and sold them in Toronto for $400 to $600 each. Over the next three months, they made the trip every second weekend, each time bringing in more handguns--total, about 300. Then they were caught. Hooray! Astute Police work! Er, no. They were pulled over for driving with their seat belts undone. When the police checked Gooding, they found he was driving with a suspended license. When they took him out of the car, three handguns fell out of his pants. They found two more in his waistband, and seven under the seat. 28 had already been sold out of their latest shipment of 40. Good police work, eh? The government's proven inability to stop the smuggling of cigarettes--much bulkier and heavier shipments than gun shipments--forced a tax reduction that put many smugglers out of that business. Some of them have turned to gun smuggling. THEORY 4. THE PRESENCE OF A FIREARM IN A HOME CAUSES DOMESTIC HOMICIDES: If the presence of a weapon can cause murder in a normal home, why are there no programs to persuade families never to argue in the kitchen? That room is full of knives. No. Normal people do not kill each other, even when arguing. The term "domestic homicide" is very misleading. If the victim and killer know each other, or are related, it's a "domestic homicide." Actually, a surprisingly high percentage of our very low homicide rate consists of killing of criminal victims by other criminals--who know or are related to each other. Is it really surprising that criminals have acquaintances and relatives? Or that they would also be criminals, killing for reasons related to other crimes such as drug dealing, squabbles over loot, etc.? Over half the killers and nearly half of their victims have criminal records, and they really shouldn't be included in our "domestic homicide" figures. THEORY 5. GUN CONTROL REDUCES THE SUICIDE, HOMICIDE, ROBBERY AND VIOLENT CRIME RATES. Sorry, gun control does none of those things--partly for the reasons given above. A person determined enough to attempt suicide with a firearm is determined enough to use an equally effective method when a firearm isn't available. The before and after graphs of suicide with and without firearms prove that the 1978 law had no such effect. It was supposed to, because the new Firearms Acquisition Certificate was supposed to prevent suicides from buying guns. It didn't work. After the 1978 wave of gun control legislation, our low and variable annual figures for suicide, homicide, robbery and robbery with a firearm went up, and went down, but averaged out about the same as before the law change. The violent crime rate, however, did show a significant effect. In the three years before the new gun laws, it dropped every year. In the 14 years after the new laws were proclaimed, it rose every single year. What else could you expect? The new gun laws merely reduced the risk levels for our violent criminals. OUR GOVERNMENT'S LATEST PROPOSALS: 1. Remove all firearms from all cities immediately --except for those owned by criminals, of course-- they aren't registered, and the criminals are most unlikely to turn them in when asked to do so. 2. Confiscate all $300,000,000 worth of privately-owned handguns--without paying for them--by conversion of all restricted weapons to prohibited weapon status. That will only increase the smuggling problem, and lose any hope of applying an effective control system. Prohibition is not a method of control; it is a way to abandon all hope of control. 3. Convert all rifles and shotguns to restricted weapon status. It currently takes one sergeant, two constables, two clerks, and three rooms of the police station to handle the red tape on handguns. There are 20 times as many rifles and shotguns as handguns. Can we afford to divert an additional 95 police staff and 57 rooms of the police station to the clerical work of recreational equipment ownership? 4. Additional prison for using a gun in a crime. This is the one idea that seems to have a hope--but: Section 85 of the Criminal Code already provides for 1 to 14 years extra and consecutive imprisonment for that offence. That proposal is apparently only the usual politicians' smoke and mirrors act to deceive the public; there can be no intention to make a new law where the law requested already exists. Section 85 isn't used, though; you can go to a hundred trials for armed robbery or other gun crimes and never see it before a judge. It's only used as a chip in the game of plea bargaining. IS IT HOPELESS, THEN? No. A firearms control system is useful, provided you don't have irrational ideas about what it can accomplish. It can deny legal unsupervised access to firearms to those who are malicious, incompetent or untrained in their safe handling and use. It can do this easily and cheaply by using the existing recreational firearms community instructors to screen applicants: 1. Does the applicant know how to use this class of equipment (firearm, in this case) safely for this class of use? 2. Does the applicant know the rules? 3. Is the applicant the kind of person who obeys the rules? Those are the questions you must earn a favorable answer to--from an experienced instructor--in order to get a driver's license, pilot's license, pressure welding ticket, or any other document that allows you legal unsupervised access to dangerous equipment. Only in firearms control are letters from your "dentist" and from your "minister of religion" seen as important safeguards. The Canadian Firearms Safety Training Course is a first step toward a reasonable system, but it is tragically flawed. It attempts to teach every type of firearm and every type of use in an impossibly brief period. It's rather like saying you have to take a course that includes motor scooters, motorcycles, dump trucks, semi-trailer trucks, bulldozers, and Indy cars to get a driver's license so you can drive your Chevrolet. A proper firearms control permit would be laid out in a grid, with types of firearms (there are only 4 needed) down the side and classes of use (possess, basic range, advanced range, field, professional, police) along the top. That one style of permit could replace the 12 types currently in use. The present system is incredibly wasteful. The government has the power to impose its very amateurish firearms control system, and lots of our tax money to pay for it. Once again, the old adage is proved: Giving power and money to a government is rather like giving whiskey and car keys to a teen-age boy. In contrast, every gun club uses the 3-question test to give or deny legal unsupervised access to its shooting range. As a result, any member of any gun club can buy $2,000,000 liability insurance coverage for his or her hunting, bowhunting, target shooting, archery and fishing trips, anywhere in Canada or the continental US--for $4.50 per year.