NEWS RELEASE
November
5, 2003
For
Immediate Release
DOMESTIC HOMICIDES CONTINUE TO RISE DESPITE BILLION-DOLLAR GUN REGISTRY
“How
many lives could have been saved if the Liberals had spent this money addressing
the
root causes of domestic violence?” asked Breitkreuz
Ottawa
– Today, Garry Breitkreuz, Official Opposition Critic for Firearms and
Property Rights, released another Statistics Canada report that drives another
nail in the gun registry’s coffin. “The Liberal government’s own reports show that family
homicides have increased by 28% in the last three years, and spousal homicides
have increased by 19%. Since 2000,
twenty-one per cent (103) of the 496 victims of domestic homicides were murdered
with firearms. While the sample is
admittedly very small, the number of domestic homicides with registered guns
more than doubled in the last year.” See Statistics Canada tables attached
– Note #1. “In 1995, Justice
Minister Allan Rock promised Parliament: ‘Registration will assist us to
deal with the scourge of domestic violence’, but these new domestic
homicide reports prove Mr. Rock was wrong yet again,” said Breitkreuz.
Statistics Canada reports that of the 103
(21%) domestic violence victims murdered with firearms during this three-year
period:
q
31% were murdered with handguns that the government has been trying to
register since 1934;
q
17% were murdered with a registered firearm;
q
4% were murdered with a completely prohibited sawed-off rifle or shotgun;
q
27% of the murder suspects held a valid firearms license;
q
domestic murders with registered firearms more than doubled in the last
year; and
q
murder suspects holding a federal firearms license more than doubled in
the last three years.
“This
report is only one in a series of statistical set backs for the Liberal’s
billion-dollar gun registry, commented Breitkreuz.
Earlier this year, reports showed the number of suicides increased
annually by 480 between 1991 and 1999. Last
month, Statistics Canada’s homicide report showed that, despite spending a
billion dollars on the gun registry, murders were on the rise and that 66% of
homicides were committed with handguns that were all supposed to be registered.
But after 70 years of mandatory handgun registration, three out of
four recovered handguns were not registered – proving once again that gun
registration is a very expensive and a totally useless way to try and control
the criminal use of guns,” declared Breitkreuz. See Note #2.
“The
government’s own statistics show that 79% of domestic homicides didn’t
involve firearms and further, that registering their guns and licensing the
murderers doesn’t do a thing to stop them.
Canadians can only wonder how many lives would have been saved if the
Liberals had spent a billion dollars addressing the root causes of domestic
violence,” concluded Breitkreuz.
Note
#1:
Statistics Canada – Family Homicides in Canada, 1995-2002
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/DomesticHomicide-Firearms-2003-10-30.xls
Note
#2:
HOMICIDE REPORT SHOWS RIGHT AND WRONG TARGET FOR SAVING LIVES
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/breitkreuzgpress/guns95.htm
-30-
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
William
V. Baker, Commissioner of Firearms testimony before the Standing Committee on
Justice and Human Rights, Thursday, October 23, 2003:
“Also, on some of your questions about the statistics, I don't have the
statistics with me. This is just one example. We do know that in the case of
domestic disputes, long guns are a bigger problem than handguns. As you
know, these disputes occur in fits of emotional turmoil and so on. The people
aren't necessarily criminals at the time or beforehand. They're just people who
temporarily—with drastic consequences—lose their composure and awful things
can happen.”
Breitkreuz’s
Comment: While
Mr. Baker’s statement is factually correct, it makes no difference because, as
this new Statistics Canada report shows, 79% of domestic homicides don’t
involve firearms and registering their guns and licensing the murderers
doesn’t do a thing to stop them.