Families of gun-violence victims speak out

TORONTO (CP) - Four mothers and a sister of victims of gun violence were in Toronto on Friday to plead for the protection of the national gun registry - a topic of heated debate during the federal election campaign.

"We don't want to punish gun owners but want to protect women and children from being threatened and killed with guns," said Karen Vanscoy, whose 14-year-old daughter Jasmine was shot to death by a young offender.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper intends to do away with the gun registry if his party is elected to power in Monday's election. The other three parties are in favour of keeping it, though the Liberals want to put a $25-million cap on the administration costs.

Vanscoy was joined at Friday's news conference by gun-control activist Priscilla de Villiers, whose teenage daughter Nina was kidnapped and killed in 1991.

Vanscoy said the election has focused too heavily on the rights and complaints of gun users, and that the voices of victims have to be heard.

"This law is about creating a culture of safety and awareness around guns, and so far, all we have done is argue about whether we should be allowed to register them or not," she said.

"The voices of the victims, the concerns of the victims, and beyond that, the concerns of the public, to attain the maximum safety in the presence of a growing gun threat in this country has been noticeably absent."

De Villiers started lobbying for gun control in 1991 after her daughter was murdered. She and some of her fellow panelists have spoken before numerous parliamentary committees and watched Canadian gun deaths over the next decade slowly decline as the laws were tightened.

In 1991, there were 1,444 gun deaths in the country. By 2001, the number was down to 842. Firearm robberies decreased from 8,995 to 3,474 and recently domestic homicides involving firearms have shown a reduction.

Perhaps the most emotional statement of the day came from Nastaran Yadollahi, whose brother Soroush, 26, was found murdered in a parking lot at Centennial College in Toronto.

Yadollahi held back tears as she described her brother's successful life as an engineer at the Pickering power plant just east of Toronto, and his plans to marry next month.

"We still don't know the reason, who did it, or where the gun came from," she said, as family members wept in the crowd.

"All we know is that we lost a young man with a bright future and our lives are irreparably damaged."

The plea came days after a man with three registered guns and 6,000 rounds of ammunition drove from New Brunswick to Toronto, where police said he told them he had intended to go on a killing rampage, but changed his mind. A suspect is in custody, facing weapons-related charges, and a judge has ordered that he undergo psychiatric evaluation later this month.

"They must support strong (gun) control in Canada, help keep our borders strong and work internationally for better controls. Our family is committed to working to prevent others from suffering as we have."

Lorne Nystrom
Member of Parliament for Regina-Qu'Appelle(NDP)
Link

"Many people have asked me about my position—and the federal New Democratic Party’s position—on the federal gun registration system.

It is important to understand that the issue here is gun registration, not gun control. Over the years, New Democrats have supported a number of bills aimed at gun control. For example, we supported the current system of Firearms Acquisition Certificates when these measures were brought before the House in the aftermath of the tragic events in Montreal on December 6, 1989. This bill sought to ensure that persons with a pre-disposition to firearms-related violence – for example, persons with a history of domestic violence – were prevented from obtaining a license to own a gun.

We have supported prohibitions on the private ownership of military-style weapons and the registration of handguns (something which has been required under Canadian law for decades)......

....The principled opposition to C-68 is based on a number of factors. For example:

-Registering the guns of law-abiding citizens does nothing to tackle the root causes of violent crime like drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness or family violence. It diverts resources from meaningful investments in reducing crime and thereby enhancing public safety over the longer term.

-C-68 simply doesn’t work. It has failed, for example, in its promise to stop the illegal smuggling and trafficking of weapons, long and short, in the streets of Canadian cities (The recent Toronto shootings confirm this fact). It has become a bit of a cliché to say so, but criminals don’t register their weapons. Statistics Canada reports that 80% of persons accused of gun-related homicide do not have firearms licenses and 75% of the handguns used in those homicides are not registered.

-$60,000 in federal funding for SAFE (the Saskatchewan Association for Firearms Education), a firearms safety training program, has been squeezed out by the swelling costs of this registration system. If we are really concerned about preventing firearms-related deaths, training gun owners on the responsible and safe use of firearms is more likely to achieve this goal than registering the guns of law-abiding citizens.

-The legislation violates the treaty hunting rights of First Nations people."

More recently (you folks will luvvve this) Jack Layton leader of the NDP had this to say....

""What we are focusing on is the increasing evidence that the biggest problem is illegal guns coming in from the U.S.," Layton told reporters.

"We're proposing going across the border to the U.S. and actively engaging in lobbying to have gun-control laws in the U.S. strengthened" link

Hope you give him a fitting reception ; ~)

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