What's Really Killing Canadians
Source: Causes of Death 1994 (Ministry of Industry, Science and
Technology, Statistics Canada, Health Statistics Division, June 1996);
and, Homicide Survey, Table 13; Distribution of Homicide Victims by Gender
and Method Used to Commit Homicide (Ministry of Industry, Science and
Technology, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics,
Aug. 1994)]
WOMEN MEN TOTAL CAUSE OF DEATH
----------------------------------------------------------------------
38688 39885 78573 Circulatory system diseases
26815 31496 58311 All Cancer
8255 10087 18342 Respiratory system diseases
3767 3912 7679 Digestive system diseases
4995 Breast Cancer [note 1]
2710 1963 4673 Mental disorders
780 2969 3749 Suicide, all methods
985 2478 3463 Drug/Alcohol Abuse [note 2]
949 2238 3188 Motor vehicle collisions
721 2053 2774 Suicide, non-firearm
1292 1055 2347 Falls
139 1489 1628 HIV
59 916 975 Suicide, with firearm
235 629 868 Accidental poisoning
222 507 729 Drowning/suffocation/choking
199 396 596 Homicide, all methods
160 239 400 Homicide, non-firearm
115 130 246 Homicide, no gun; no knife
102 110 212 Surgical/medical misadventures
39 157 196 Homicide, with firearm
45 109 154 Homicide, with cutting/piercing instrument
3 35 38 Fatal Gun Accidents
----------------------------------------------------------------------
101 1108 1209 Total deaths involving firearms in 1994
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1: The federal government spends roughly $3,000,000.00
per year on breast cancer research. In it's first year the federal
budget for firearms registration was $118,000,000.00. A yearly
maintainance cost is not available yet. This does not include the cost
to the provinces to implement firearms registration.
Note 2: This figure excludes deaths from cancer, circulatory/
respiratory diseases, motor vehicle collisions, falls, fires, drowning,
suicide and homicide that are indirectly due to drug/alcohol abuse.
In 1994, an esimated 17,228 deaths, one every 32 min., were alcohol-
related (Single, Eric. Canadian Profile: Alcohol, Tobacco & Other Drugs
1994. Ottawa ON; Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse, 1994, p.79)]
What is Gun Control?
Gun control really isn't about guns, it's about control. Many politicians
and the media think that if someone owns or wants to use a firearm then
something must be wrong with them. Oddly enough they don't have a problem
with the military using "evil assault rifles" or the police re-equipping
themselves with "fully automatic handguns". Instead the mentality seems
to be that if you legislate a problem it will go away. If nothing happens
then you haven't legislated it enough. The huge majority of shooting
deaths are due to suicides (80%). How do you legislate against suicide?
The remaining deaths by firearms pale in comparison to auto vehical
fatalities (there are ten times as many auto deaths per year than
murder/accidental deaths by firearm). It's also strange that gun owners
are all painted with the same brush as soon as another Fabrikant or
Lepine hits the news, yet the same distinction isn't made between drunk
drivers and the rest of the motoring public. There seems to be an
argument that a gun is only made to kill people. My father owns several
firearms, so did his father, and his father before them. None of these
have killed a human being. Are they defective?
Allan Rock, Minister of "Justice", is in the process of forcing a universal
registration system on all Canadian firearm owners, or so he says. Natives
have stated for the record they will refuse to recognize it. I don't think
criminals will be lining up for this either. What exactly will this be used
for? His cost, as stated for the record in parliament, was $85,000,000.00.
"The system" has already been given $118,900,000.00 for the 1996/97 fiscal
year, and that's just for set-up. I wonder how many extra police officers
could be hired and women's shelters built for that much?
The O.P.P., the R.C.M.P. in Saskatchewan and Alberta, as well as the
Saskatchewan Police Assoc. have not supported, or have removed support of this
so called bill on "crime control".
Effectiveness of Current Handgun Registration:
Source: Hansard: 1996 May 08 -- page 2486
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and
Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.):
"The statistics requested respecting the number of crimes that have been
solved by tracing the firearm back to the registered owner are not kept
at this time and are therefore not available. The National Tracing
Centre of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Firearms Registration and
Administration Sections (FRAS) which was implemented in January 1995
received 131 trace requests from Canadian police agencies up to
December 1995. Of these traces, 64 firearms were traceable to either a
dealer or an owner. However, these traces involved unregistered
firearms.
The funds expended by the government to operate the restricted weapon
registration system and FRAS are as follows:
95/96 904,528.72
94/95 1,488,376.96
93/94 1,442,963.32
92/93 1,379,251.41
91/92 1,244,858.45
90/91 1,237,759.89
89/90 1,021,127.62
88/89 916,559.88
87/88 947,322.38
86/87 923,422.24
85/86 726,194.71
84/85 614,634.51
83/84 585,661.15
82/83 546,206.50
81/82 528,265.50
80/81 531,091.39
89/80 415,654.21
78/79 1,108,151.33
Total: $16,562,030.17"
Will's comments: Hmmmmmm, so just last year we spent almost
$1,000,000.00 to trace 64 firearms (less than a 50% hit rate) that
actually weren't even registered. And Canadians wonder why we
have a deficeit.
The NFA has a free 4-page handout that can be used to learn how to teach
your own kids -- or a class of kids -- basic firearms safety. It is a
complete course, ready to be taught -- or ready to teach you how to
teach it.
Has it occurred to you that every six-year old in Canada with access to a
TV knows how to load and fire a revolver, a rifle, a shotgun and a
semi-auto handgun? True, they are not very skilled -- but anyone who has
watched demonstrations on TV for a year knows roughly how to do those
things.
Most kids start out by watching a lot of TV cartoons. Have you ever
noticed that they teach kids this:
Think about it. TV has trained our children. If we do not re-train
them, they are stuck at the knowledge level that TV gave them -- and that
is bloody dangerous.
Good firearms training has powerful effects on a child's character and
understanding of the real world. Get the handout and read it.
Canadian Firearms Home Page
National Firearms Association
Department of Justice Canada, Canadian
Firearms Centre
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