BCIFV home > Media Releases > March 2, 2000

For Immediate Release
Contact: Penny Bain, ED, (604) 669-7055
March 2, 2000

Shooting Underlines Need For Gun Control

When guns are difficult to obtain, lives are saved

The BC Institute Against Family Violence supports the new gun control legislation in Canada for the very reasons illustrated by the tragic situation in the United States of a six-year-old shooting a grade-one classmate on purpose with a weapon that was all too easy for him to find and use.

When we raise children in an atmosphere where their role models for conflict resolution are violent, and when we make guns readily available, a certain number of needless deaths will arise.

When guns are easy to obtain and to stored carelessly, more of them will find their way into hands they should not be in, and more people will be injured and killed.

These are truths we can count on.

This is not a difficult concept. It's a simple equation. But completing it correctly requires a willingness to live responsible lives. Are we ready for that -- or are we stuck in some romantic but distorted remembrance of the Old West when men were men, right and wrong was cut and dried, and anybody who wanted could get a gun?

Our suggestion to gun-control opponents is to obtain a full-colour picture of the young girl killed in this most recent and horrific tragedy, blow it up to poster size, and put it on their fridges where it will serve as a frequent reminder of a kind of world we want to move away from, not toward.

For more information please contact Penny Bain, Executive Director of the BC Institute Against Family Violence, at (604) 669-7055 or visit our website at www.bcifv.org.