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Handgun ban; Worse than costly registry

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Toronto Mayor David Miller has raised the ire of Canada's Olympians and law-abiding hobby shooters for embracing an ill-considered proposal to ban handguns that would effectively shutter gun ranges and clubs in the city.

Miller might as well ban shooting the breeze or fish in a barrel because a handgun ban, especially one that only applies within municipal limits, will do little to curb crimes committed by thugs and gangs with smuggled handguns. "This is not going to have any impact whatsoever on gun crimes in the city of Toronto. This is about the mayor's need to be seen doing something about gun violence," said Larry Whitmore of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, which has 15,000 members spanning the country. "The vast majority of guns being used by criminals in this city are coming from the United States. They certainly aren't coming from legitimate, law-abiding gun owners."

That sentiment was echoed by Avianna Chao, who will represent Canada this summer at the Beijing Olympics in the 10-metre air pistol and 25-metre sport pistol events. She expressed doubt criminals would even know how to fire the highly sophisticated target pistols and derided the measure as being more about politics than public safety. "It's crazy to think they'd be used for a crime," she said. "This whole thing is just extremely disturbing. They're trying to pass this off as a way to make Toronto safer ... but what they're doing has nothing to do with gun violence whatsoever."

Miller's proposal is predicated on the rather shaky assertion that thugs steal pistols from law abiding sports shooters. A city report recommending the handgun ban maintains that "up to" 40 per cent of gun crimes in Toronto are committed with firearms stolen from their rightful owners. But the RCMP and OPP peg that number closer to 10 per cent.

Whatever the figure, the vast majority of weapons are smuggled across the border and it is there, and not on law abiding hobby shooters and Olympians, that government and police resources need to be directed. Preventing people from firing guns at ranges will do little, if anything, to prevent thugs from using firearms in the commission of crimes. "I hear about a lot of shootings in Toronto, but I haven't heard of any using target pistols," said OPP Insp. Tony Cooper, deputy chief firearms officer with the weapons enforcement centre.

Is it possible a ban might prevent the theft of a legally registered firearm that would subsequently be used in the commission of a crime? Of course it is. But the limited and questionable good a ban might do is easily offset by the harm done to notions of freedom, not to mention the cost of establishing a gun ban bureaucracy.

The costs of gun control always seem to be understated by proponents who exaggerate its benefits and exploit the irrational fear many Canadians have toward firearms.

Remember how Justice Minister Allan Rock told Canadians the firearms registry would come with a net cost of $2 million after expenditures incurred during a five-year implementation period were offset by licensing and registration fees? Remember how the government told Canadians the registry would be self-financing after that?

As tends to be the case with extravagant government undertakings, things didn't turn out exactly as planned. The rifle and long gun registry has now cost more than a billion dollars with scant evidence it has done anything to create safer streets or curb the smuggling of illegal weapons used in the vast majority of crimes in this country. A handgun ban would be just as ineffective.