AVERTISSEMENT
Point de Bascule n’endosse pas le contenu de ce document. Il est archivé sur ce site uniquement à des fins de référence.
WARNING
Point de Bascule does not endorse the content of this document. It is archived on this website strictly for reference purposes.
Hussein Hamdani: Let’s ban handguns in Canada
Original address: http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/2192945-let-s-ban-handguns-in-canada/
Web Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20131206012143/http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/2192945-let-s-ban-handguns-in-canada/
Two years ago, I shot a Glock 9-mm semi-automatic pistol, with then Chief of Police Brian Mullan, at the Hamilton police firing range. I was stunned at how powerful I felt with the gun in my hand. There is a certain rush one gets when one is holding such a weapon. The ability to pull a trigger that unleashes a bullet that can easily take the life of another can empower even the most fearful coward. A split-second decision can have lasting and profound consequences.
For this and other reasons, I believe that all handguns should be banned in Canada.
There is no good or justifiable reason to not ban handguns. The impact of firearms on Canada and Canadians is devastating and costly. Canadian police services reported 8,105 victims of violent gun crimes, ranging from assault to robbery and homicide in 2006 — a rate of almost one person per hour victimized by violent gun crime. Locally, we have seen a rash of cab drivers and store owners robbed at gunpoint.
On average, more than 1,200 Canadians are killed with firearms each year and hundreds injured, leaving an untold number of broken dreams and shattered families.
The economic costs of gun deaths are over $6 billion per year, according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Firearm deaths are the third leading cause of deaths among youth between 15-24. According to another study, among 26 industrialized countries, Canada ranks 5th in the rate of firearm fatalities among children under the age of 14.
Gun violence is also a serious public-health issue. Firearms are the agents of many injuries and deaths, including unintentional injuries (eg. accidental discharge of firearms), suicide, suicide attempts and domestic spousal abuse.
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, more people visit emergency rooms in Ontario with unintentional firearm injuries — in which the person discharging the firearm does not intend to hit anyone — than intentional injuries such as assault. This demonstrates that the public safety threat from firearms does not depend on the intent of the user, but is related to the presence of the firearm itself. It is not criminals being evil, but guns being dangerous.
The solution is simple: no guns, no gun-death funerals.
Criminal Intelligence Service Canada reports that the major sources of illegal firearms in Canada are smuggled firearms and theft from domestic sources. Approximately 60 to 66 per cent of guns seized by Toronto Police Service enter Canada illegally via the U.S. border, and about a third are from domestic sources. Shockingly, in Ontario, there are 215,000 registered handguns – and each of them is a target for theft.
In the U.S., about 5,500 new handguns are sold each day; there are more than 81,000 federally licensed dealers and pawnshop owners (three times the number of McDonald franchises) and 238 active gun manufacturers making 160 guns per hour.
Jared Loughner used a Glock gun, the same type of gun I shot in the firing range, to kill six people and injure more than a dozen on Jan. 8 in Arizona. Unfortunately, after his massacre, there was a major jump in handgun sales, according to U.S. law enforcement data — a 60 per cent rise in gun sales (year over year) in Arizona, a 65 per cent rise in Ohio, 38 per cent rise in Illinois and 33 per cent in New York (perhaps this is the most disturbing since Ontario shares a long border with New York). Arizona gun dealers say that the Glock was their bestseller. What does that say about our society that people are purchasing this weapon of destruction?
Canadians need to beef up border crossings with more explosive-sniffing dogs and to clamp down on smugglers bringing in firearms. We must ban all handguns, at least in urban settings. There is no good reason for anyone living in Burlington or Hamilton (or Toronto, London, St. Catharines or Windsor, etc.) to own a gun.
Guns empower cowards and criminals, cost us dearly in lives and in money and bring us neither peace nor security, but rather regret and tears.
