Posted on 10/07/2005 11:30:57 AM PDT by neverdem
Most murder guns in Canada are never registered with the Canadian Firearms Centre, according to a new Statistics Canada report.
The new Juristat study - a version of which reported over the summer that Canada's murder rate jumped 12% in 2004 after a three-decade slide - says that registration information on murder guns was "unknown" to police in more than half of homicides reported between 1997 and 2004 where the gun was recovered.
Gun registry opponents say that proves the registry - two years and more than a billion tax dollars later - is a failure.
"First, 65% of firearms homicides involve handguns. We've had a handgun registry for decades, so obviously it didn't work either," said Dennis Young, a researcher in the office of Conservative MP and registry critic Garry Breitkreuz.
"But look at who's actually committing murders. Two-thirds of murderers - and half of their adult victims - already had criminal histories. The federal government decided with the registry to go after law-abiding gun owners, when the people doing the killing are overwhelmingly criminals who'd never think to register their guns. What a waste."
But gun control advocates say the figures actually prove the opposite - that the registry may be driving down murder categories that tend to involve long-barrelled weapons, like spousal homicides.
"There's been a huge drop in domestic violence (since the registry was introduced)," said Wendy Cukier, president of the Toronto-based Coalition for Gun Control.
Spousal homicides did drop for the third consecutive year in 2004; there were 74. But family-related homicides rose from 141 victims to 160 nationwide.
On the other hand, the report says that rifles and shotguns accounted for most firearm homicides before 1990; in 2004, handguns were used in 65% of gun murders.
And the weapon of choice for most murders is still the humble knife. Stabbings accounted for one-third of all killings in 2004 - 205 murders, 63 more than in 2003 and the highest number of stabbing homicides in over a decade. Guns dispatched only a quarter of all homicide victims.
Cukier pointed out that the majority of handguns used to kill in Canada are smuggled up from the States - something the registry wasn't designed to address.
"It's the reason why we need to establish better international protocols on gun trafficking," she said.
Canada reported 622 homicides in 2004, 73 more than the year previous. Edmonton did more than its share to boost that number, racking up 34 murder victims in 2004 to just 22 in 2003.
The West is bucking the national trend away from gang-related murders. The number of gang-related homicides in Alberta almost doubled to 15 in 2004 over 2003.
But nationally, just 71 people died as a result of gang activity across Canada in 2004, down 13 from the year before.
Ban knives. It's for the public good...
They need better border security.
What does that mean? Isn't already illegal to take guns across the border? What they need to do is enforce their existing laws.
What's going to happen when the weapon of choice becomes baseball bats?
Gee, y'think? Maybe the thing to do is register the criminals' guns first.
What's this? Registering the firearms of law-abiding people DOESN'T effect people that break the law? I feel that sharp, stabbing pain that comes from a blinding flash of the obvious. There's tax dollars down the tube...
What debate? The facts are on one side, and the emotion-drenched rhetoric is on the other.
The 'two solitudes' of Canada are becoming more clear every day, and they really have nothing to say to each other except 'Good-bye'.
your timing in posting this proved serendipitous: it provided me with another nail in the coffin for an argument elsewhere on the net. Thanks.
What the hell is a "murder gun"?
Or, at least, do what the "enlightened" Brits are doing...
Ban all knives with icky, scary, sharp POINTS.
Ah, the wonder of the all powerful, all knowing NANNY STATE.
whats the difference, soon canada & mexico will be annexed
with the u.s. & the un will be in control...
wake up, wake up ron...phew, i just had a bad daydream
Cukier ... might that be pronounced koo-key-er?
the stolen guns from here in Murderapolis , MN.??
paging Michael Moore. your 10 pound crow pie is ready.
Series, is it that bad in Minneapolis? My wife is from St. Paul.
not as bad as in 1998. I think that's the year MPLS got that national nickname. "Boy mayor" Rybak hasn't helped much with the situation,neither has the moonbat city council there. Too busy writing resolutions declaring Iraq an "unjust war" ,banning legal,local, city-licensed businesses from having concealed handguns and other important things.St.Paul will end up being the same gelatinous turd if/when Chris Coleman becomes mayor there.
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