Evidence does not support call for gun bans

[IronNoggin]

Opinion: The evidence simply doesn't support calls for gun bans in Canada

According to gun control advocates’ logic, Australia’s buyback should have been followed by a sudden drop in firearm homicides and suicides. After all, access to legal guns ought to have been greatly diminished


John R. Lott, Jr. and Gary Mauser


It seems obvious: ban guns and there won’t be any gun crime.

After two people were killed and 13 injured in a July shooting in Toronto’s Greektown neighbourhood, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered his government to assess the idea of “a full ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada.” They are scheduled to finish the assignment by the end of the year.


Here is a simple question for Canada to answer: has a single place, anywhere in the world, ever seen its murder rate decline after banning all handguns or all guns?

We can’t find such a place. Every single time that guns have been banned, murder rates have gone up — often several-fold.


Handgun homicides continued to rise after Canada’s 1995 ban on more than half of all legally registered handguns. Americans tried to completely ban handguns in Chicago and Washington D.C., and saw murder and violent crime soar. Gun control advocates argued that these aren’t fair test cases because criminals could bring in guns purchased outside of city limits. But that argument can’t account for why rates of violence exploded in both places.


Murder rates have increased even when all guns or all handguns are banned in entire countries, even entire island nations. Murder rates more than tripled after Ireland’s 1972 ban. In Jamaica, they went up six-fold after a 1975 ban.

The reason is simple. When guns are banned, it is law-abiding citizens rather than criminals who turn in their firearms. And criminals can continue buying arms from drug gangs. If governments can’t enforce drug bans, there’s no reason to think that they can enforce gun bans.


Australia is a favourite example of gun control advocates, but guns weren’t banned there. The country’s buyback program caused more than 700,000 firearms to be handed in and destroyed, reducing the number of legally owned guns from 3.2 to 2.5 million between 1996 and 1997. But since then, the increase in privately-owned guns has outpaced population growth by a factor of three. The number now stands at 5.8 million.


According to gun control advocates’ logic, Australia’s buyback should have been followed by a sudden drop in firearm homicides and suicides. After all, access to legal guns ought to have been greatly diminished. Gun control advocates would then have predicted a slow increase in firearm deaths as the ownership rate increased again. No such thing occurred. Firearm homicides and suicides were falling for 15 years prior to the buyback, and fell more slowly after the buyback. So there is no evidence that the buyback actually caused the fall, but it may look that way in the absence of historical context. Armed robbery rates rose after the buyback, and then slowly fell back down to pre-buyback levels as gun ownership increased. This is the exact opposite of what gun control advocates predicted.


The evidence for gun control is no more hopeful when it comes to preventing mass public shootings.

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation defines a mass public shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot to death in a public place, excluding gang fights and guerilla warfare. The murders also cannot have occurred in the commission of another crime such as robbery.


Compared to the average country, Canada has been pretty safe from these attacks. Canada has just half a percent of the world population, but it has had an even much smaller share of the world’s mass public shooting deaths. From 1998 to 2012, it had just 0.03 per cent of such fatalities. The same numbers for the U.S. were 4.6 per cent of the population and 1.1 per cent of the mass shootings, so it is also much safer than the average country.


Whether we look at all countries or only at developed ones, we find that nations where gun ownership is more common tend to have lower homicide rates and lower rates of death from mass public shootings. That’s because armed citizens are able to defend themselves and stop attacks in crowded, public places. Every single mass public shooting on record in Canada has occurred in areas with gun prohibitions. In the United States, that’s true of 98 per cent of attacks. It’s no wonder, since many mass killers intentionally pick targets where people can’t defend themselves.


Police are important in the fight against crime, but they almost always arrive after the crime has occurred. Depriving law-abiding citizens of firearms leaves us all more vulnerable to attacks.


National Post

John R. Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author most recently of “The War on Guns.” Gary Mauser is professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University.


https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opi...bans-in-canada

[Scott N]

Too bad common sense and actual facts won't make the Libs back off on their goal for civilian disarmament. Good article though.

[silver]

Evidence and logic have no place in a discussion about firearms.

[bat119]

Originally Posted by silver

Evidence and logic have no place in a discussion about firearms.

Exactly

[ReconWilly]

Use your guns to shoot your TVs.

Problem solved.

Your welcome.

[IronNoggin]

The buzz on Parliament Hill over the past couple of weeks (to the extent there has been any buzz other than the Liberals’ SNC-Lavalin scandal) has been that the federal government now believes an all-out handgun ban might be too expensive.

Since last summer’s tragic shooting in Toronto’s Danforth district, the Trudeau government has been searching for some dramatic gesture to symbolize how much they care.

One thing hasn’t changed, though. The Liberals’ justification for new gun controls is still the assertion that the main source of crime guns in Canada is legit owners – people who have licences and buy guns legally, but then “illegally divert” guns to the black market for thieves or drug runners.

Perhaps most troubling, there are more than 420,000 Canadians who are banned from owning guns, typically because of previous criminal convictions. But Goodale had to admit recently, the federal firearms computers “do not capture information concerning the illegal acquisition of firearms by prohibited persons.”

The Liberals are about to impose more restrictions on legit owners to win votes in Liberal cities and to claim they are taking action to reduce crime.

Yet they have no clue – none – how many convicted criminals possess guns or where they got them.

Talk about cynical, ineffective policy.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/colum...icies-continue

Nog

[elkhunter11]

Firearms regulations in Canada have never been about public safety, they have always been about politics. And when you involve the RCMP, all common sense goes by the wayside.

[Bushleague]

Originally Posted by silver

Evidence and logic have no place in a discussion about firearms.

Evidence and logic are not even welcome in the room whenever "safety" of any type is under discussion, true story.

IMO industrial safety, unions, and the Liberal government all suffer from the same flaw... they all need to be fighting a battle to continue to flourish as profitable entity. Therefore neither will ever be able to admit that a practical balance has ever been achieved, that the fight has been won, and by extension that they are no longer needed in the same capacity as they once were.


As a result, increasingly mundane issues are attacked head on and personal freedom is steadily chipped away at, until the would-be champions increasingly become the oppressors... which is precisely where we now sit. The really scary thought IMO, is once they've wrapped up this imaginary battle against evil, what will be the next BS excuse for their continued existence? Because if there's one thing I've come to understand... this never, ever stops. Not even when the guns are all gone.

[Twisted Canuck]

Originally Posted by Bushleague

Evidence and logic are not even welcome in the room whenever "safety" of any type is under discussion, true story.

IMO industrial safety, unions, and the Liberal government all suffer from the same flaw... they all need to be fighting a battle to continue to flourish as profitable entity. Therefore neither will ever be able to admit that a practical balance has ever been achieved, that the fight has been won, and by extension that they are no longer needed in the same capacity as they once were.


As a result, increasingly mundane issues are attacked head on and personal freedom is steadily chipped away at, until the would-be champions increasingly become the oppressors... which is precisely where we now sit. The really scary thought IMO, is once they've wrapped up this imaginary battle against evil, what will be the next BS excuse for their continued existence? Because if there's one thing I've come to understand... this never, ever stops. Not even when the guns are all gone.

Yes. Very well put, succinct, logical and exactly right. Bravo. It's all about having a 'cause' to validate those superior social engineers and their reason for being. Which is to not only tell other people how to live, but legally force them to comply, AND make them pay for the whole program with more and more onerous taxes. Because really, you don't really know how to be responsible for your life, and can't make decisions very well, so just go to work, we will take your hard earned money and leave you just a little bit...maybe give you back a rebate now and then so you can feel good about how we really care about and look after you...and don't rock the boat, because there will be consequences to opposing the New Better Way.

FML....

[Big Grey Wolf]

Guys, could be some major changes coming for our handguns etc. Doctors in Ontario complaining to many cases of people coming to emergency rooms with gun shots. Doctor interviewed on news this weekend stated most are suicides. It will be a tough fight when it is both police forces and medical doctors proposing more gun control, supporting libs in Ottawa.

[Twisted Canuck]

Doctors kill more people than guns in Canada, with misdiagnosis and wrong meds prescribed...

[Twisted Canuck]

Originally Posted by Big Grey Wolf

Guys, could be some major changes coming for our handguns etc. Doctors in Ontario complaining to many cases of people coming to emergency rooms with gun shots. Doctor interviewed on news this weekend stated most are suicides. It will be a tough fight when it is both police forces and medical doctors proposing more gun control, supporting libs in Ottawa.

So much available info on medical malpractice and deaths in Canada.

https://nationalpost.com/health/insi...ot-of-cover-up

[58thecat]

Nothing supports gun bans unless your on the other side of the fence....then your just an idiot.

[IronNoggin]

What will make you safer is targeting the smugglers who supply gangs with illegal guns from the U.S. and hunting down those who use them in crimes.

Blair made a good announcement on Tuesday in giving money to Ontario to fight gangs and guns. Let’s hope he doesn’t ruin it by attacking duck hunters and sports shooters because they are easier targets than gangsters.

https://www.kenoradailyminerandnews....c-a08162e8a38e

[bat119]

It’s ironic that the Liberal government is using the same tactics for gun control,
Inaccurate statistics for handguns and gun incidents no distinction between rifles, shotguns, pellet guns, BB guns, paintball guns, restricted or prohibited all are dumped onto one heading to muddy the waters.
CBC promotes the antigun movement instead of being non-biased supporting all Canadians.
Bill Blair’s public information sessions by invitation only, stacking the deck ?
The online handgun inquiry to be completed by anyone on planet earth as many times as they want.
Using victims of crime and their families to promote the Liberal antigun agenda, just grave dancing .
We are up against the most deceitful government ever assembled we need them gone in October.

[IronNoggin]

'Experts' ignore facts when it comes to gun control in Canada

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, Bill Blair, the minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continue to hint at a ban on handguns and further restrictions on rifles and shotguns before this fall’s general election.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/colum...trol-in-canada

[58thecat]

Evidence supports that we are a knee jerk society that doesn't really attempt to understand why just be reactive not proactive.....ban this, ban that, one sided studies by so called credible people

[Big Grey Wolf]

Sad story of deaths in New Zealand. However as usual going after the gun not the idiot that shot all those innocent people. This could give our libs the story they need to do their dirty deed and go after guns in Canada.

[Rastus]

You are forgetting one thing. You know and I know that banning guns will not help, BUT GET VOTES and that is what the average politictian wants. Pi____s on the non voters. He, or She, is after the votes and their pension, that is what it is all about.

[IronNoggin]

Senator McPhedran spreads false claims about law-abiding firearms owners. It is revealing that some Liberal appointed Senators, like Senator Marilou McPhedran, feel they must falsify evidence to support Bill C-71. Perhaps they realize there is no real evidence to support Bill C-71?

https://justiceforgunowners.ca/senat...-false-claims/

[6.5 shooter]

And yet many here on this very forum will vote once again for the Lieberal's then cry.....don't take my guns....

[Flo@CA]

all this problem of gun control is all about controlling people , guess what ...how you can think if you bad guns masive killing will stop....is a big joke when all this terrorists are killing ppl i never hear from all the attakers they got how many guns was ligaly buyed or who was the real owner??
all i want to see is when our big joke" Justin Trudeau" will go away many thinks will come to normal.

[IronNoggin]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2019

Gun Ban Ruled Out – For Now

OSHAWA, ON – Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair’s long-awaited engagement report – Reducing Violent Crime: A Dialogue on Handguns and Assault-Style Firearms – has been released and the outcome of that discourse is somewhat encouraging for Canada’s two-million-plus lawful firearm owners who feared a possible gun ban.

“Those 134,917 participants in the government's online questionnaire overwhelmingly believe that a ban on handguns and so-called “assault-style” firearms targets the wrong people. Law-abiding firearm owners are not the problem, violent criminals possessing illicit guns are,” said Tony Bernardo, Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. “Our organization is not surprised by this conclusion and we said as much during the Minister’s in-person roundtable held in Toronto last fall."

CSSA representatives attended the Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal consultations.

At that roundtable, the CSSA also noted that there is no statistical evidence that the banning of civilian firearms would have an impact on the criminal misuse of guns. The only data that was available came from the Toronto Police Service, and it showed that politicians had been grossly misrepresenting the proportion of firearms that originated from our community.

“We agree that a multi-faceted approach (such as more community-based programs, enhanced law enforcement and border services, and harsher punishments and penalties for gun-related crime) is key if we are to reduce the illicit use of firearms. Imposing a gun ban ‘in isolation’ as the Minister noted, is useless,” said Mr. Bernardo.

“Our organization would welcome the opportunity to confer with Ministers Goodale and Blair and the Firearms Advisory Committee to help develop some real solutions to these serious firearm issues,” said Mr. Bernardo. The CSSA was a long-standing member of the federal government’s Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee, the purpose of which, among other things, is to provide the Public Safety Minister with advice on matters relating to Canada’s firearms policies, laws and regulations.

The Engagement Report will now be used to assist the federal government in developing any future changes it may wish to apply to firearm laws… “while not impeding the lawful use of firearms by Canadians,” as stated in the report.

"While it appears there will be no gun ban in our immediate future, the CSSA will continue its efforts to ensure the government of Canada understands and respects our Canadian firearm traditions and the rights of responsible Canadians to have lawful access to their firearms.
– 30 –

The full text of the report is here.

For further information, please contact:
Tony Bernardo, Executive Director
1-888-873-4339

[bat119]

Wendy Clucker and the rest of the old witches will be crying around the Calderon tonight

[ShortsideK]

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to give my opinion since it does not agree with the views of those on this thread.

[LuckilyWhelp]

Guns are as Canadian as maple syrup. People outside cities use them often for protection. Sport shooting is very popular.

There is no debate. There is no need for a ban. Cities such as Toronto have skyrocketing crime rate and hate of guns didn’t help them at all. If the current federal government wants to have a debate I am sure they add one more nail to their coffin.