Prime Minister Paul Martin says the Americans have an obligation to help stop the smuggling of guns into Canada.
Martin made the comment Monday as his government prepares a series of gun-control initiatives aimed at curbing a wave of violence in Toronto. Those measures, which sources say could include suing U.S. weapons manufacturers, will be announced next month. But the prime minister used a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to press the issue immediately.
He said the Americans expect Ottawa to help keep their borders secure and Canada expects the same in return.
“The Americans ask us to do things in terms of the border; I think there’s an obligation on their side to work with us to prevent gun-smuggling into Canada,” Martin told a news conference.
The prime minister said up to half the gun crimes in Canada involve weapons smuggled from the United States.
Spokespersons in the Prime Minister’s office refused to confirm that Paul Martin plans to meet next with Jamaican officials about working with the Federal and Ontario governments to staunch the flow of trigger-pullers into Canada.
It seems to me that the Liberals are going about this all backwards. With clear evidence that crime rates in the United States are inversely proportional to the rate of gun ownership, the solution to the problem of “gun crime” in Canada is obvious – smuggle in more Americans!
update… a McLellan-Martin flip flop?
Has anyone seen the study that says half the guns used in shootings are “smuggled” in from the US.
It may be true, but the political theme is blowing too strong right now. Taking a page out of Schroeders 2001/2002 election playbook.
DOnt run against your domestic opponent run against unpopular americans.
Anywway, if the study is accurate it is accurate I would just like to see it.
Just smells to me like the “domestic vilolence goes up on SuperBowl” lie that went around a while back.
Sounds like it should make sense but turns out to not be true when you look into it
Check out:
http://porcupinenine.blogspot.com/
All good articles.
Kate:
Can you point us to the clear evidence on the relationship between gun ownership and crime?
Peter
I seem to have come down with a case of Solbergitis, I thought I knew what was supposed to happen but the NGP points out I was wrong yet again.
You see, when the Americans complained that terrorists were accessing the US through Canada we told them that it was their responsibility to protect their own border. (Now this is where the symptoms of Solbergitis show up). By that same logic I would have assumed that it would be our responsibility to protect Canadian borders from American smugglers but of course I was wrong.
But I am beginning to see the whole picture. No guns required for our border guards because the Americans will be stopping the flow of weapons, not us. Our borders are becoming more secure in the smuggling of illegal cigarettes which of course will save us from the ravages of cancer so the Gov’t has done a fine job of yet again protecting us from ourselves
With clear evidence that crime rates in the United States are inversely proportional to the rate of gun ownership, the solution to the problem of “gun crime” in Canada is obvious – smuggle in more Americans!
Yes, or deport the gangbangers one and all.
Considering that so many of the shooters on the streets of Toronto,( and elsewhere), are repeat offenders- and most of these come from the same place, there has to be a reason why the justice system refuses to address this. (When thugs rule the streets, it diverts attention from the criminals who run the country.)
It’s the barbarians Paul Marin’s government is letting into this country that are doing most of the shooting. Am I right on this?
There are other countries who would love to see the US reduce the flow of their weapons, so they could get some of their product in here.
Here is an indusputable law of human nature.
Where there is a demand there will be a supply … Paul!!!!
Who is doing the demanding? Get rid of them. Or …. consider the following.
There is a huge demand for drugs and the government’s answer to stop the drug crime is either legalize it or at least allow it unabated and provide injection site to help out.
There is a huge demand for guns … I suggest you apply the same solution.
No government shooting galleries required. We can and will build our own.
Even if the report re 50% is accurate–that means the same amount are not smuggled here?
Guns are inanimate objects–why focus on them–why not get a Justice System that handles the criminals?
Why are so many of these gang members from one country? Why are they let into Canada? Why is no one in government answering these questions? To every action there is a reaction–and the liberals, with their lax immigration and refugee systems have caused the problem.
George,
That’s because the Lie-berals believe (and I mean truly BELIEEEEV-AHH in the religious sense)that there is no such thing as responsibility, there are only rights.
So if an individual is convicted of a crime, let’s not talk about payback and responsibility, let’s talk about how his rights have been infringed.
Oh and by the way, it’s my RIGHT to live in a country where everything is taken care of by the collectivist nanny state. Don’t believe me? It says so in the Charter of Rights and as we all know “We can’t cherry-pick rights.”
/Lie-beral off
George, you miss the point. Our justice system already focuses on the criminal. But punishing someone after the crime is done is no comfort to the dead and their grieving family.
We need to procatively take steps to avoid crime. That means knowing where the guns are and where they are coming from. Asking the US to tighten up on its side of the border is one of many steps being taken. It will not solve the problem but svereal initiatives have the effect of whittling down the problem.
Virtually all gun crimes are by canadian citizens. Most of the time the killer knows the victim.
Don’t expect the Liberals to do anything but pay lip service to this. The fact is there aren’t enough votes in it for them; its a lot easier to blame the Americans than acknowledge the depth of the problem, lax justice and immigration system.
“crime rates in the United States are inversely proportional to the rate of gun ownership”
Trick play that’s dangerous.
That meme has been clouding the discussion for years. The issue of the explosion of gun violence is about suicide and the majority of gun deaths known by shooters …ie not shooting criminals.
Crime rates down=gun ownership? Maybe but decreased crime rates are everywhere (except eyewitness et al news). Increase in guns means an increase in gun violence in families and neighbourhoods. Check it out.
Guns are very dangerous consumer products soon to pass cars. The crime rate down for more guns argument is a gun lobby/business trick.
“Asking the US to tighten up on its side of the border is one of many steps being taken.”
All I can say in response is that those who spout this nonsense must have very little experience in driving from Canada into the US.
guns bad. canada soft and cuddly. pweez help us mommy.
Dave and George:
I think you are both bang on the money (sorry – no pun was intended, I wrote it then saw it. mea culpa). What steps does the government want the U.S. to take? The U.S. has its own gun laws and assuming they aren’t being violated, how does Canada expect to project it’s own standards on the U.S.? Any time the U.S. does this to Canada (i.e. liberalization of marijuana laws) the Canadian nationalists flip out.
Better focus on the criminals – keep them out in the first place, deport when possible and throw the gunmen into prison for a long time.
Kate:
What is your source for saying that “With clear evidence that crime rates in the United States are inversely proportional to the rate of gun ownership”? I know you are busy having just gotten back from the trip, but you are usually really good at giving us a good link to a source so we can judge for ourselves.
It seems in Canada at least, where I believe gun ownership is higher in the Western provinces and crime and murder rates are higher, the opposite seems to be statistically true (we were having a somewhat good-ish discussion about this over at Cerberus, but there was never, to my mind, really a good explanation for the difference).
TB
Cerberus
Gun sale laws are a state, not federal, responsibility. This drives certain US jurisdictions nuts themselves. For example, Washington D.C. (a “state” for this purpose) has about the strictest gun control laws in the country but Virginia’s laws are pretty easy so the D.C. laws are basically pointless.
If the U.S. federal government can’t solve the problem of guns smuggled over state borders it really is no position to do much about smuggling into Canada.
It’s essentially up to the Canadian Border Services Agency (formerly known as Canada Customs) to do the best it can and I fear that is not too much given the limited real support the Liberals give the agency (agents cannot bear arms, students at the border during the summer, good grief).
Mark
Ottawa
Clearly the real problem is the gun users but even if it was true that the best way to address the problem is thru restricting the importing of guns the Liberals are approaching the issue once again in a dishonest way.
I suspect that the majority of the guns come in thru the Indian reservations that straddle the border around Cornwall Ontario etc. As we learned 10 years ago with cigarettes, the Liberals have no courage in addressing illegal smuggling if natives are involved.
Election Optics.BS
The ultimate source on the relationship between higher rates of gun ownership and the reduction of violent crime in the U.S. read John Lott’s “More Guns, Less Crime”.
That is the best source for statistical analysis on the mat
I knew the Care Bears were going to screw us up for a few generations…
If we won’t even arm our border guards or bother to post guards at about 50 crossings [as is the case] we should just shut up and take it for jeezuz sake. 12.5 billion dollar FED surplus predicted [see Bloomberg, yesterday] for March and an 8 billion dollar surplus last year and we don’t even strengthen our security at the borders with it… WTF do you expect, Martin??? Stop making us look like such pansies! Get tough with criminals and defend our own borders – DUH.
Violent crime rates in the US are at a 32 year low.
From the statistics I have seen, Alberta has the highest gun ownership rates and the lowest suicide and murder rates in the country.
From what I have seen in the Toronto media, the gun violence problem predominantly involves young males from Jamaica and the drug trade. It seems more than coincidence that the rates have dramatically risen after the election of a socialist mayor who has gotten rid of a law and order chief of police. Guiliani’s experience in New York demonstrated that clamping down on minor crime had a major effect on more serious crime. One suspects that the desire to avoid the appearance of racial profiling (and sky-is-falling-headlines in the Toronto Star) with regard to minor crimes in the Jamaican community is a contributing factor. The regrettable irony is that it is the Jamaican community that suffers from the anti-racial-profiling withdrawal of effective policing, as most of the fatalities and serious injuries seem to be within that community.
Whining to the US to restrict guns is laughable. Since when do nations frisk people leaving their country? Memo to government: police entry into Canada better–screen immigrants, check for guns, check for drugs (much of the violence has involved drugs).
The problem with gun crime in Canada is that marijauna from Canada smuggled into the U.S. is exchanged for firearms. If the Liberals want to reduce the flow of firearms into Canada, than they should start cracking down on marijauna grow-ops.
Another crucial problem is that the law we have, with minimum sentences (four years I think), for using firearms in the commission of a crime is almost never applied. Charges under them may be laid but are invariably plea-bargained away with charges being limited to the underlying offenses.
If we simply applied our existing laws it might have a significant deterrent effect, and it would certainly get a lot of the trigger-happy people off the streets for some time.
The fault, dear Ditherer, lies not in the Stars and Stripes but…
Mark
Ottawa
I think Steve L has nailed this one.
I think AsISeeit is also dead-on. That cagey crook Martin is electioneering to the large Toronto vote. And he is scoring points on two fronts by blaming the hated Americans, and by appearing to do something about the gun violence in Toronto.
In reference to the “update…a Mclellan-Martin flip-flop”, my interpretation may be a little off, but:
I think it’s a case that Annie (Got-Your-Gun) McLellan had to say what she did to maintain support for the Gun Registry.
By indicating that US-sourced guns are being smuggled into Canada is a problem (and it might well be), Martin is in a very real sense admitting that the Gun Registry is a $2B waste of money (which it is).
When are these people going to learn that the bad guys are not going register their weapons!!
Hell no ! I won’t go !
Mitch:
I think it’s pretty clear that Levitt and others have shown that Lott’s methods were wrong and his inferences incorrect. He may be right, but his book is not a convincing case, and certainly not the last word.
Peter
Martin and his group of incompetents whose original misguided effort to combat crime was to spend a billion dollars on gun registration which proved very futile and a huge waste of money now is turning to the Americans to try and stem the flow of weapons across the border.
For a lot less money spent and for effective results does someone have to remind Dithers that the biggest problem of smuggling guns, tobacco, etc. has always been and continues to be the Indian Reserves. But Dithers as usual would sooner talk about the problem than take constructive and effective action to deal with it.
Maybe he is only waiting to come up with a scheme where he could funnel big dollars to Liberal friendly cohorts and to Liberals themselves in a purported attempt to deal with the smuggling on reserves.
Why would Mithter Dithers cwack down on the criminals using handguns, after all they are his most loyal gang of supporters out there!
And the immigrant community is going to back Mithter Dithers all the way so why make waves right?
Obviously the blame McChimpy BushHitler hand plays well with the pathetic Liebral flock, so he’s gonna play that hand all the way to the bank!
Murray: I don’t think the facts back up what you say. Recent StatsCan results show a different story:
“Canada’s homicide rate jumped in 2004 after reaching a 30-year low in 2003, Statistics Canada reported this morning. The 2004 rate of 1.95 homicides for every 100,000 population was 12 per cent higher than in 2003 and 3 per cent higher than the average over the previous decade, the statistics found.
Ontario and Toronto haven’t been the main driver of the homicide rates, however. The West is more deadly based on population, the statistics found.
Ontario’s murder rate was slightly below the national average at 1.51 slayings per 100,000 population.
Among major cities, Toronto was fifth in the murder rate, trailing Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary.”
Percentages can be deceiving though: There were 172 homicides committed with a firearm, but that is only 11 more than in 2003 and 20 more than in 2002 and the 2004 national total was still slightly below the average of 176 homicides involving firearms over the past decade.
So I’m still wondering, genuinely trying to figure out, what link there is between gun ownership and violent crimes, especially homicides (accidental and deliberate). The left would like to believe that higher gun ownership = higher crimes generally and there seems to be some slight statistical support for this but the stats are clear enough to draw any definitive conclusion and could be explained by different things. The right would like to believe that higher proliferation of guns in society act as a deterrent to crime, as Kate suggests, but I haven’t seen any independent stats to solidly back up either claim. Surely someone – other than the discredited advocate John Lott – or some agency or criminologist has done a thorough analysis of this.
Anyone?
TB
Cerberus
Ewwwww. What’s that smell? Did I step in dog shit again?
(looks up)
Yup.
Oops. Meant to give a site for that quotation: here.
TB
Cerberus
TB
I don’t think the Statscan data you quoted show a different story. Those are city statistics. As far as I know, Alberta still has the highest gun ownership rates and lowest suicide and murder rates. I don’t know the data for the other Western provinces.
TB – though I abhor venturing into this territory, the difference in crime rates in cities in western Canada vs eastern Canada is directly proportional to the population of aboriginals.
Of course, as in the Jamaican community, guns can’t scream “racism”! so guns get the blame.
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051006/d051006b.htm
http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/prgrm/correctional/abissues/know/10_e.shtml
I don’t get the suicide portion of the debate, unless there is an inference here that owning guns causes severe depression…
Think of it this way, though – for every suicide committed with a firearm, there is a tractor-trailer unit travelling down the highway without a minivan impaled on the front grill.
The answer is so simple.
If the Yanks don’t settle the Soft wood thing, stop supplying them with oil and gas from Alberta.
If the Yanks don’t stop the gun flow into Canada, stop supplying them with oil and gas from Alberta.
If the Yanks don’t stop hurricanes from crossing their northern border, stop supplying them with oil and gas from Alberta.
But an even quicker solution would be to have Belinda ask her Daddy to stop suppling the US auto plants with any left fenders, left wiper blades etc.. for all the companies that they produce parts for.
Kate:
I think the suicide line is brought is to point out the death by gun rates can be misleading if suicides aren’t removed. The logic is that in jurisdictions where there are more guns, a greater proportion of suicides will occur by gun rather than by some other means. So, if counted among gun deaths, it appears to inflate the number of deaths associated with high gun-ownership jurisdictions.
Peter
Kate: You are quite right about natives and Jamaicans. The murder rate is skewed by, and to a great extent contained within, certain groups.
Mark
Ottaw
people, we’re getting off track…statistics can be argued until the cows come home. Personal accountability and lack thereof in the Liberals and the metrosexualization of our foreign policy is the problem. It’s not the gun that pulls the trigger or smuggles it in or doesn’t register itself…
TB
When was John Lott discredited? Last I heard, his “discredited” status is being propagated by anti-gun activists.
If you think the Liberals really care about gun smuggling I got a ad agency you should invest in . This is just a corrupt party gearing up for an election. They will come out all anti-american saying that the concervatives are going to sell out to the yanks, take away your health care, get in bed with the bloc. It will be the same old lies and fearmongering the liberals used last time and the Canadian public will just eat it up and then what.
RJ:
Lott was discredited when by the National Academy of Sciences’ meta-analysis of gun ownership and crime rates (see http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309091241?OpenDocument).
It’s clear that the jury is still out. That is, Lott could be right, but he certainly didn’t establish it with his work.
You’ll note at the end of the above page that the panel was fairly balanced, including James Q. Wilson of Broken Windows fame.
There is a lot of discussion of Lott’s book, but there has not been a serious refutation of his works. The only scholarly works about gun ownership that has been refuted was a professor who claimed that his research showed that gun usage during colonial days wasn’t as rapant as first thought – the problem was that he could not show his sources – as they no longer exist, even at the time of his research – i.e academic fraud.
So to clarify Peter, there has been debate of Lott’s use of data, but no strong rebuttal to his conclusions or methodology to date.
Wow, Mitch. Have you read the study I cited? It’s a little more serious than anything Lott’s done.
Evidently the gun control program has failed. Registering long guns has cost this country $2B and the cost is still rising (another computer system to cost $270M) meanwhile the death toll in major cities from hand guns continues to rise. In the US the gun laws fall under state law jurisdiction and there are an increasing number of states that are licencing a CCW permit. This is akin to the MAD nuclear policy. The statistics are all on the internet, but statistics as we have seen in this country can be skewed depending on which side of the issue you reside on. It is enough to say that the morons who are ‘packing’ in Toronto have a good reason to believe that better than 90% of the population in Toronto do not own hand guns, therefore they have more ‘power’ than the next guy on the street. Morons have a habit of abusing power. If you are a law abiding citizen in Florida with a CCW permit only you and the licencing authority know if your ‘packing’, the moron carrying the illegal gun may think twice about accosting you. MAD worked for fifty years on the international stage maybe CCW can work in the neighbourhood. Just a thought, any comments.
I’ll have to read that post about the analysis of Lott’s book – I beg everyone’s pardon on that.
Hopefully it is a sincere attempt to analyze based on the scientific method. Too much of what passes for ‘science’ and ‘scholarship’ is politicized towards an agenda rather than a search for the truth.
Mitch, agreed. That panel was pretty serious and rigorous. And you’ll note that they don’t say there’s no connection with certainty, they just establish that we can’t know either way with certainty at the present time.
Excellent thread! I’m late to the party, as usual, (normally, I arrive just in time to help clean up. Not this time!)
One observation, here in the states, a higher rate of gun ownership may show a drop in crime rates, albeit marginal, however the presence of “concealed carry” permits, as a municipal jurisdictional issue, shows that violent crime drops like a rock. This fact, not the suicide potentiality stats, is what frequently gets dropped from the equation of “gun” control. An armed criminal will not show face to an armed, and trained, gun owner.
Besides, our 2d amendment of the Constitution was designed for two purposes. Defense of the individual/constitution AND to take down, forcibly if necessary, a tyrannical(I can’t spell) government, if installed against the wishes of its citizens.
If you want a little history on the subject of self determination and an armed populace, check out this book, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0767916883/qid=1130266217/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5025807-1658448?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
A little long for the subject, but excellently covered.
Enjoy, and good luck.