Gun-death figures called outrageous (Canada Registration)

Globe and Mail ^ | Tuesday, December 10, 2002 | By SHAWN MCCARTHY

[ActionNewsBill]

A prominent criminologist has slammed a claim from Industry Minister Allan Rock that the controversial gun registry will save 1,240 lives in a decade.

Mr. Rock -- who introduced the registry when he was justice minister seven years ago -- spent much of last week defending the program and its billion-dollar cost overrun revealed last week by Auditor-General Sheila Fraser.

At one point, he said the registry had saved 300 lives a year. In Vancouver last Friday, he repeated the claim that the registry has had a direct impact on the number of gun-related deaths in Canada.

"You have to ask yourself, what are 1,240 lives worth?" he said when asked about cost overruns at the federal gun registry. He has consistently argued that, while the program needs to be fixed, the registry must be maintained, a position shared by Justice Minister Martin Cauchon.

But criminologists argue the Mr. Rock's defence of the registry is way off base.

"In the case of 300 lives saved a year, that's a totally outrageous claim," said University of Toronto criminologist Philip Stenning. "It's completely unjustified, insupportable."

Mr. Stenning questioned whether the gun registry has saved any lives or resulted in any drop in gun-related crime.

"There's no evidence at all that gun control has had any impact."

Ottawa-based criminologist Matthew Yeager agreed there is no evidence to support Mr. Rock's contention.

In the House of Commons yesterday, Progressive Conservative Leader Joe Clark asked Canadian Alliance MP John Williams, who is also chairman of the Public Accounts committee, to have his committee investigate the cost overruns to the gun registry. Mr. Clark wants Mr. Rock to appear, as well as Health Minister Anne McLellan, who was justice minister from 1997 to 2000, and former finance minister Paul Martin.

Mr. Williams said he will consult today with the Liberal-dominated committee.

Last week, Mr. Rock insisted the furor over the cost overruns should not cloud the fact that the Liberal gun-control program has saved lives.

He first mentioned 300 lives a year, which reflects the drop in firearm-related deaths since 1992, when the Progressive Conservatives brought in their version of gun control.

He later reduced that estimate to 124 a year -- times the 10 years it will take to get the registry fully implemented at a cost of $1-billion. That figure represents the decline in gun-related deaths from 1996 to 1999.

Kwing Hung, a statistician from the Department of Justice's Canadian Firearm Centre, said the federal gun-control measures are likely one of many factors contributing to the drop in the gun-related deaths.

Even proponents of gun control acknowledge that it is too early to pass judgment on the legislation, though they insist it is having an impact.

Wendy Cuckier of the Coalition for Gun Control said it is "premature" for such talk, noting that crime rates fluctuate.

Mr. Stenning says much of the decline in death rates resulted from a drop in suicides using firearms. "Does it matter that people who are committing suicide are not using guns?," he asked.

Gun-related homicides have declined since the early 1990s from 247 in 1992 to 171 last year, according to Statistics Canada. But most of that reduction occurred between 1992 and 1997, before the gun registry was up and running.

[B4Ranch]

Maybe it needs to be formatted with the discs.

[backhoe]

Maybe it needs to be formatted with the discs.

Yes, sort of... obviously, I got some of it back... reformats didn't work, but fdisk & reformat /s did.

I'm damned if I can figure out what was going on... even after all that, the system gives me info ( like username ) that ought to be gone, utterly. And the CD-ROM is inaccessable and runs constantly for a few minutes after booting.

I may have a newer PC ( or rather, a cannibalized PC ) available- my wife remembered an abandoned unit at work; negotiations are underway...

[B4Ranch]

What O/S do you have?

[Destructor]

The really sad thing is that there is no way back for Canada! For them the Right of citizens to own firearms is lost. Now Canadians are doomed to reap the poison fruits of Liberalism!

[coydog]

Don't write us off just yet. Passing a law and getting butts out on the street and over every square inch of land we have (Canada is a BIIIIIIG country area-wise) to enforce it are two different things. A few years back in Oka, Quebec, a few armed natives who cared absolutely nothing for Canada's gun laws managed to pin down the police and military for weeks. Add to that increasing antagonism between the state and many people and they're pretty much high and dry outside their urban centers of support. If I see or hear my nieghbor owns something um... politically incorrect (not that I actually HAVE, huh-huh), and I know him to be responsible, I'll just develop selective blindness, deafness and amnesia.

[Destructor]

The fact remains that it is almost impossible to regain a Right once you forfeit it to any government! You have a long uphill battle ahead of you, and the odds are against you.

[coydog]

I don't give our government another twenty years, the way it's going and separatist movements sprouting everywhere.

[Destructor]

I agree with you on that point! I think another factor in the equation is the invasion of our country by illegal immigrants from Mexico. Their numbers are now getting to the point that they are straining Social Services available in most Texas cities. How much longer can the American people ignore this problem? How long before we rise up in anger and demand that our politicians send 'em back, and institute tighter controls on the border?