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Missing the target

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Whenever there is a high-profile robbery or murder involving a handgun in Canada, some editorialist somewhere will call for a ban on pistols. Such a ban is irrational from the outset: It makes no sense that forbidding target shooters and collectors from pursuing their hobbies would stop drug-gang members from using handguns to commit their crimes.

We have laws on the books banning gangsters from selling drugs and laundering money, too, yet they do both with impunity. Through what miracle of legislation do banners think criminals will obey a complete prohibition on handguns any more than they obey existing prohibitions on the sale of narcotics?

Sure, a few gangster guns may be acquired through thefts of legal handguns from private Canadian homes. But an all out ban here will not stop gangbangers from getting the small, powerful, concealable weapons they desire. If there were suddenly no handguns left to steal in Canada, the smuggling trade would pick up the slack in a matter of hours.

Just look at the numbers.

The Toronto Star, which is as obsessed as any outlet in the country with taking away lawful guns from ordinary citizens, claims one-third of guns confiscated by Toronto police have Canadian origins. They are not smuggled.

This, the Star reasons in its own misty, convoluted way, justifies taking away all legally acquired pistols and revolvers from the 300,000 or so Canadians who own one or more.

Never mind that the "one-third" stat employed by Toronto police is higher than the percentage claimed by either the Ontario Provincial Police or the RCMP, both of which estimate that 90% or more of crime guns used in Canada come from the United States, or that the one-third number includes rifles and shotguns, as well as handguns. And since so-called "long guns" are easier to come by in Canada -- not easy, but easier -- most of the third of guns that are domestic are more likely long guns rather than handguns.

In its own reporting, the Star concedes that only about 40 guns a year are reported stolen in Toronto, and of those only about five are handguns. So even if one accepts the paper's own wonky statistical reasoning, no more than five of the thousands of illegal handguns in the Toronto area come from break-ins.

Which means we could take away the 600,000 to one million legal handguns from their rightful owners and prevent, at most, a dozen or so guns, countrywide, from falling into criminal hands. One extra van with handguns from Detroit stuffed in the door panels would make up that shortfall in an afternoon.

And while we're at it, let's follow the same logic to ban the private ownership of automobiles because without cars there could be no drive-by shootings or means for bank robbers to make their getaways.

Just think of all the crime we could cut down on if no one could own a car, not to mention how crime's carbon footprint would be reduced. Banning cars would be good for public safety and good for the environment.

Of course, millions of law-abiding drivers would be punished for the crimes of a few gangbangers --just as law-abiding handgun owners would be punished by a handgun ban -- still, that's a small price to pay for the important signal a car ban would send to criminals.

(Yeah, just like a handgun ban, a car ban would tell criminals that, as a culture, we are too clueless to crack down on the real problem.)

Gary Breitkreuz, a Saskatchewan Tory MP, has a better idea. His private member's bill-- C-301-- would do away with the long gun registry and streamline the layers and layers of paperwork created by the previous Liberal government in licensing owners. He would then use the savings to combat gun smuggling and the use of guns by drug dealers and gangs.

Mr. Breitkreuz would retain the legal requirement that all lawful gun owners be licensed and complete a safety course before acquiring a firearm. And people without the mental disposition to own and use a firearm safely would be identified and prevented from buying a gun.

But all the expensive (up to $50-million a year) and largely symbolic activity of the gun registry would be diverted to real crime prevention.

It makes perfect sense. The banners would hate it.