Vincent J. Curtis
30 Sept 2018
RE: Starting the adult conversation (Hamilton Spectator, 29 Sept 2018)
The Spectator is to be commended for beginning the
“adult conversation” on a gun ban in Canada with the article by Jon Wells.
A new law cannot solve every problem in the world. Since before the days of King Canute, people have believed in the power of government to do nearly anything. Ne ertheless, when politicians are confronted by importunate voters demanding
action on one thing or another, they are inclined to call for a new law to fix
the concern. Such is the belief that
a perceived “crisis” in the criminal use of guns can be solved by the passage
of some law.
The figures show that there is no such crisis of
gun violence, or of any other kind of violence, in Canada.
Wells gave an excellent account of how restrictive
guns laws are at present; and it shows that we are so far down the road of
diminishing returns that an outright ban on gun ownership is all that is left
available to tighten regulate and control lawful use even further.
Now that we have some facts and figures on the
table, it is up to the gun banners to say at what level a crisis in deaths
begins – 150? 200? How does this figure compare with other causes
of death? And given that suicide in now a constitutional right in Canada,
and that 77 percent of all firearms related deaths are suicides, will not a gun
ban violate the constitutional right of Canadians?
A few high profile killings by gang-bangers over
the drug trade is what this “crisis” amounts to. Rather than spend
millions (or billions in the case of a ban) on regulating the law-abiding, why
not spend that money attacking the real problem – the drug gangs?
The reason why they won’t is the fear that they
will be called racists for cracking down on the groups that control the drug
trade.
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Let us have that intelligent, adult discussion about a gun
ban that you call for. We can started by removing all appeals to emotion from the
discussion. For example, paragraph 3, starting with “Year-by-year…”
We can also eliminate underhanded rhetorical tricks, like saying ‘fair-minded
people can all agree there is a crisis’ when even Toronto city authorities say
that the city of 2.5 million people is safe.
We also need to be certain of the facts brought into the
discussion. For example, police don’t know how many lawfully owned guns
are used in crime because Statistics Canada does not keep that data, which has
quite problematic definitions. In addition, London has now surpassed New
York in violent crime with knives and motor vehicles replacing handguns.
On your part, you can explain how this gun “ban” is going to
operate, and then work. There are one million handguns in private
ownership in Canada. How do you get to the banned state? Are you
going to make hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding gun owners into
felons unless they give up their private property? Will they be paid
compensation? How are these guns supposed to get collected, and who is
going to do the collecting? What is going to be done with the collected
guns? Will they be sold into overseas markets?
It is already illegal to own a handgun without a
license. It is illegal to transport, carry, or use a handgun outside a
strict legal regime. It is a five-year felony to store or transport
handguns unsafely. You say that the current laws have become weak and
ineffective, but haven’t said why. Is it due to lack of
enforcement? If the current laws are not being enforced, then what is the
use of another one? Since it is already illegal to own, store, transport,
and use a handgun outside of a strict legal regime, why do you expect criminals
to obey these laws with their illegal handguns? A civilian walking around
with a handgun is already subject to immediate arrest by police whether they
legally own the gun or not. It’s not tricky to distinguish between lawful
and unlawful carry, so banning isn’t going to help. Carry is already
banned.
You admit that the crisis of which you speak is limited to a
few areas of Toronto, so why ban the handgun of a rancher in Alberta, a
forester in British Columbia, or an aboriginal hunter? Charter rights to
equal treatment become involved, and speaking of equal rights, what are you
going to do about the aboriginal community that is simply going to ignore the
gun ban?
It is kind of you to allow target shooters to have their
guns, but there needs to be commerce to support this activity you permit.
Destroying the commerce around other gun activities is going to shrivel the
commercial support for target shooting.
Simply talking about a handgun ban as if it were intuitively
obvious that it would accomplish the stated goal doesn’t amount to an adult
conversation. We need to see that more thought has gone into the
proposal, and addressing some of these concerns in a dispassionate and rational
way would be a start from your side.
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