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The Benefits of Gun Control

Tim Quigley

Westerners deciding to support or oppose Canada’s firearm licensing and registration system need some basic facts on which to base their decision. Recent calls to scrap gun control in Canada and suggestions that the US is safer because of its lack of gun control are not only preposterous but dangerous. A recent ‘study’ by Gary Mauser, for example, actually claims that the United States is safer than countries with strict gun control, such as Canada, Australia, and Great Britain. It has been true for many years that rates of ‘violent crime,’ which includes a wide range of offenses, are comparable among these countries, and that the US does not have the highest rates. However, the significant impact of gun control, pointed out by scholars from around the world, is on the rates of lethal violence, or homicide. In 2001, the US had 10,130 firearm homicides. In comparison Canada had 171, England had 90, Australia had 65—and numbers have declined since then. Claims that countries that have strengthened gun laws are less safe than the US fly in the face of available evidence, as well as common sense.

And there is evidence to support the claim that strengthening gun laws can save lives, particularly among children and youth. The Australian Criminology Institute released a study this month showing that the number of deaths caused by firearms dropped almost 50 percent between 1991 and 2001; the greatest decline came after the introduction of stronger laws following the Port Arthur massacre. In Canada, the trends are equally encouraging. Over the past decade, gun death, injury, and robbery rates are the lowest they have been in 30 years. Particularly noteworthy, and perhaps the strongest validation of the new laws, is that murders with rifles and shotguns, the focus of the 1991 and 1995 legislation, have fallen dramatically (from 131 in 1989 to 32 in 2002). This decline is not offset by an increase in handgun murders. In the same period, robberies with firearms dropped from 6442 to 3882. Firearms deaths (homicide, suicide, accidents) have fallen from 1367 to 1006. While gun control is only one factor, certainly there is evidence that we are moving in the right direction.

All research must be reviewed with a critical eye no matter how pretty the packaging. Using two different scales on a simple graph in Mauser’s report creates the impression that homicide rates in Canada and the US are comparable, but it conceals the reality that overall US homicide rates are three times higher than Canada’s. Guns are one of the biggest factors accounting for this difference. Rates of homicide without guns are comparable. (In 2001, Canada had 383 homicides without guns compared to 4850 in the US.) The big difference between the two countries is in the homicides with firearms, and particularly handguns.

Regulating legal firearms is an important way to reduce diversion of firearms to illegal markets. Registration is intended to help keep legal firearms in the hands of legal firearm owners. Problems of illegal guns in major cities fuelled by smuggling from the US are hardly evidence that gun control does not work. Rather it points to the need for controls in the US, a country with as many guns as people. Canadian leaders seem preoccupied with reassuring Americans that we do not pose a risk to their security (whether cows or terrorists) but, curiously, the issue of American guns killing Canadians (and Mexicans and Jamaicans) never seems to be raised.

Gun control is not a panacea. And it has not been cheap. While not excusing mismanagement or cost overruns, even the ‘billion-dollar registry’ is really a misnomer. ‘Registry’ has become short for our entire system of gun control—the licensing of all gun owners and registration of all guns. Most of the money has not been spent on registering guns but on screening and licensing owners. Police use it about 2000 times a day and have reported many, many examples of how the system has been used to aid investigations across the country and to remove guns from potentially risky situations.

And remember the old gun-control system was not free. It cost $30 million a year, and six separate inquests (including the inquiry into the Vernon massacre) said it was flawed. In fact, one study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggested the costs of gun death and injury in Canada were a staggering $6.6 billion per year. The new system may not be cheap, but even at $70 million a year, injury prevention and safety experts from organizations such as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Public Health Association, the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, and many others, have continued to insist it is a good investment.

Calls to scrap the system, now that it is implemented—with 90 percent of gun owners licensed and more than 85 percent of guns registered—seem irrational. What would be put in its place? How much would that cost? How would it address the flaws in the old system? Crime, like disease, requires a multi-faceted approach. Primary prevention strikes at the roots of crime but gun control reduces the ease with which some crimes can be committed and the severity of their consequences. There is no question that Canada, the US, the United Kingdom, and Australia may be equally violent, but the absence of effective controls on firearms in the US has tragic consequences. For Canadians, the experience of the US should provide a sobering reminder of where the talk of dismantling gun control in Canada will lead.

Tim Quigley is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Saskatchewan. This article originally appeared in the Vancouver Sun on January 31. It is reprinted with permission from the author.

Pull Quotes:

Recent suggestions that the US is safer because of its lack of gun control are not only preposterous but dangerous.

Regulating legal firearms is an important way to reduce diversion of firearms to illegal markets.