PUBLICATION:
National Post
DATE:
2003.12.03
EDITION:
National
SECTION: Comment
PAGE:
A18
BYLINE:
Barry Cooper
SOURCE:
Calgary Herald
NOTE:
Barry Cooper is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary.
Column also appeared in The Calgary Herald
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The
perverse policy of the gun registry
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Every
time the Canada Firearms Centre is in the news, its credibility diminishes.
Whether it is an expose of bureaucratic incompetence at managing the computer
system leading to the permanent extinction of the records of thousands of
registered guns or the sending of an angry letter to a dead man, rebuking him
for failing to register hunting rifles that had long been sold by his family,
nearly every story about this billion-dollar fiasco provides another reason to
scrap the entire project.
The
latest stories concern a typical administrative cover-up and an even more
typical administrative screw-up. In response to the scathing report by the
Auditor-General, which among other things detailed the half-million dollars
spent on hospitality and $13-million on travel, the bureaucrats have apparently
hidden their spending in other departments.
The
registry was supposed to track stolen guns, which are disproportionately in the
hands of criminals. So far, the bureaucrats have been able to trace about 4% of
guns stolen in the country.
There
has always been a deep well of emotional support for the gun registry. TV images
of armed killers are powerful and compelling, and politicians get the message
that something must be done to make society safe again. Since murderers are
usually portrayed as children or otherwise ordinary people (even though they are
much more likely to be habitual criminals who graduate from lesser crimes to
armed robbery and murder), the politician who wants to appear to be doing
something can always restrict access to weapons. In short, criminal violence
causes gun laws.
An
important result of registering weapons and restricting ownership is to make
advocates feel good about themselves, a kind of therapeutic narcissism for the
timid. These supporters of the registry all along assumed that guns caused
people to die and that, because every life is infinitely precious, the cost
means nothing. "If one life is saved," such people say, "it's
worth it." For individuals in the grip of powerful emotions, evidence is
beside the point. However touching such exquisite concern for human life may be,
it makes no practical sense.
The
real issue is not the infinite preciousness of human life, but limited human
resources. Accordingly, the real policy question, as most commonsensical critics
of the federal gun registry have said from the start, is whether a billion
dollars spent on something else would result in even more infinitely precious
lives being saved.
Some
of its advocates argued, more or less coherently, that a comprehensive gun
registry would help cut violent crime. The gist of the argument was that the
availability of guns contributes to increases in violent crime, and restricting
access will reduce it. If this argument makes sense, it should be supported by
evidence.
Gary
Mauser, a professor at Simon Fraser University, has examined the evidence in
excruciating detail. His latest study looked at gun regulations in Britain and
Australia as well as Canada. He asked whether all these regulations had reduced
violent crime. After all, society is no safer if the trends in violent crime go
up, however many guns may be registered.
In
Britain, for two decades, gun laws have grown more restrictive and violent crime
has increased. In 1996, the UK surpassed the U.S. in violent crime rates.
Banning ownership of handguns in 1997 was followed by a serious increase in both
violent and gun crime. Likewise in Australia that same year, draconian firearms
legislation was immediately followed by an increase in robbery and armed
robbery. The Australian taxpayers forked over $500-million to enable bureaucrats
to confiscate and destroy thousands of guns. As in Canada, sensible Aussies made
the obvious criticism that the money could have been spent on more police and
better equipment.
Worst
of all for the emotional as well as for the more reasonable gun control
advocates in Canada, the comparison with the U.S. is particularly unflattering.
Today, where 35 states allow qualified and responsible citizens to carry
concealed weapons, violent crime and homicide rates have plummeted.
The
evidence is clear and so is its meaning. Confiscating, prohibiting and
registering guns are all expensive failures. The only beneficiaries of this
perverse policy are criminals who can more easily prey on an unarmed citizenry
and their bureaucratic accomplices whose jobs have the effect of harming this
same populace.
-------------------------------------
The
Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England
and Wales
by Gary A. Mauser
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/FailedExperiment.pdf