If you’re finding it hard to keep track, here’s a site with a list of the RCMP investigations into the Liberal government and civil service over the past three years – all 33 of them.
Via At Maggie’s Farm this observation on gun control from John Lott;
You don’t have to live next to the United States to see how hard it is to stop criminals from getting guns. The easy part is getting law-abiding citizens to disarm; the hard part is getting the guns from criminals. Drug gangs that are firing guns in places like Toronto seem to have little trouble getting the drugs that they sell and it should not be surprising that they can get the weapons they need as well.
The experiences in the U.K. and Australia, two island nations whose borders are much easier to monitor, should also give Canadian gun controllers some pause. The British government banned handguns in 1997 but recently reported that gun crime in England and Wales nearly doubled in the four years from 1998-99 to 2002-03.
Lots more there to debunk our fondest Canadian mythologies about the US crime rate.
The world’s leading consensus builder on climate change – George Bush.
Saskatchewan people – Working together to prevent crime!
I love the Crime Watch billboard. You westerners must have a few Texans (or at least Texans at heart) among you.
Goodale must be proud to know he has officially become a true Liberal with his own scandal. I must admit he did not need to due something this big to get in with the inner circle at the Liberal Party, but maybe being from the West he did have too.
I am a Ph.D. student studying crime at the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta, and I believe that a couple of points that need to be addressed regarding the U.S.-Canadian crime disparity and the role of guns:
1. Canada DOES have a lower crime rate, for every category of crime compared to the United States. The reason the linked website shows violent crime is higher in Canada. That is because the definition of violent crime in the U.S. encompasses more crimes than does the Canadian definition… look up the disparity of the rates in Statistics Canada and the FBI’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
2. Homicide rates are ten times higher in the United States as they are in Canada. Look up the statistics in the two sources I provided above. If you look year by year, the U.S.-Canadian disparity stays consistant.
3. The extreme crime drop that affected the United States in the early 1990s also affected Canada with the SAME MAGNITUDE. This phenomenon is the focus of my dissertation. Crime IS higher in the United States, regardless of how people want to spin it. The data don’t lie. There are an enormous number of academic papers investigating why Canadian crime rates are much lower than American ones. A number of studies demonstrate that income disparity is the best predictor of homicide rates – and we all know how Canada tends to be a liberal welfare state, alleviating poverty (at the cost of self-efficacy).
4. All that being said, gun control DOES NOT work, for the reasons that have been widely cited – criminals can get illegal guns more easily than we can disarm legal owners. A handgun ban IS a stupid idea… and in fact, Canada has a higher per capita gun ownership rate than the U.S., yet our crime rates are much lower. In our biggest city, Toronto, 78 homicides. Find an American city of similar size with such a low homicide rate.
Thats about all I wanted to state to clarify things… while I support mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes, such sentences do not work for minor offenses such as marijuana posession or use… and even being center-conservative as I am, I can see that there are benefits to having an enormous social safety net in Canada.
Any specific questions about crime? Email me – I have a lot more data supporting my points from the official U.S. and Canadian crime statistics bodies.
Sandeep
Mike:
Being from the west has nothing to do with it.
Look at it this way..Canada 32 million..USA 290 million..
Craig –
I’m not talking about an absolute comparison between the number of American and Canadian crimes. I’m talking about crimes per 100,000 population… it is impossible to compare different populations without population-adjusted rates. All my points hold this in mind, and thats why I suggest a comparison of Toronto’s crime rate with an American city of equivalent size.
Sandeep
Sandeep — Have you run any correlations on illegitimacy and crime rates? A more reasonable connection between high unemployment and high crime is that both are the result of social disintegration, beginning in the home.
Bob –
Unemployment actually has no predictive value when looking at crime rates – and its not just my own research that has demonstrated such a finding. Thats because most unemployed people are working hard to get back on track… those that generally commit crimes often aren’t employed to begin with. Although, I agree with you on your second point – social disintegration, broadly taken, is an important factor in turning people to crime. If people are healthy, and have stable, fulfilling lives, crime is not a problem (or even considered an option).
People in good conditions tend not to commit crimes… its always the disproportionately poor and marginilized members of society that do so, although more often than not they place themselves in a negative situation (i.e. think about the poor not willing to get a decent job, or get educated, and continue to dabble in crime)
Sandeep
bob:I love the crime watch billboard.lol, yeah me too Bob.
Thanks for the laugh Kate.
Just to prove how juvenile I was while growing up in rural sask,
a couple of my favorites:
telephone poles with glass insulators on top.
lightening rods with glass bulbs on top of Barns.
old abandoned t.v. sets at the local dump were always favorites.
Sandeep, blaming (violent) crime on “income disparity” seems somewhat simplistic.
Don’t you think that someone who is inclined to commit violent crimes is also inclined to not be capable of educating himself ?
Give that man a decent job, and it doesn’t take away his violent nature.
I’ve been poor, living in a disgusting rooming house in a large Canadian city, I’ve never committed violence agsinst anyone.
“The reason the linked website shows violent crime is higher in Canada. That is because the definition of violent crime in the U.S. encompasses more crimes than does the Canadian definition… look up the disparity of the rates in Statistics Canada and the FBI’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.”
so… if the u.s. definition of violent crime were applied to canada, what would the numbers look like?
Jay–you are absolutely right–committing crime because you are poor is the justification used by the talking heads. There is no justification for crime–and I resent that just because someone is poor they are more likely to commit a crime–what excuse do the Liberals have then–they are rich on our money.
Making excuses for criminals is the way to create more criminals. Because of social engineering our society has no values, no ethical standards and no action against the criminal element. I am so sick of the excuses–there is right and wrong and it is time we learn it–even though our ‘betters’ are the ones who seem to have less ethics than most of us.
Jay & George –
I am making absolutely no excuse for criminals, but to say that the only people that commit crime do so because of their “innate” nature is reductionist and a very scary proposition. Most people are NOT born criminals.
I believe (and the data suggest) that there are criminals that simply cannot be rehabilitated. For those criminals, I believe the death penalty is not an unfair punishment. However, there are those that commit crimes because of negative circumstances. Its a matter of the whole, “if your family was starving, would you steal a loaf of bread”? There are no absolutes, whether you want to believe it or not. Yes, crime is wrong, regardless of its circumstances. However, to write off criminals as hopeless and condemn them from the start makes us no better than the terrorists that automatically condemn anyone from a democratic/western country with different values.
Jimmmy – if you parse apart each crime that constitutes a subsection of the definition of violent crime in the U.S. and Canada, and compare them one by one, Canada has lower rates for every single type of offense.
Sandeep
The really interesting thing about US/Canadian comparisons is how murder/crime rates break down within each country; despite the hoary old stereotypes of gun owners and gun ownership that the MSM thrives on, if “more guns” actually equalled “more crime”, I’d expect to see that borne out within the populations that actually OWN “more guns” (ie. middle class white males). When you look at murder rates in particular, young black males make up less than 3% of the US population, but commit up to HALF of all murders in that country each year; they certainly don’t own anywhere near half of all firearms in the US (they wouldn’t own anywhere near that even if they each owned TWO), while similar populations that have a gun ownership rate much higher have murder rates as low or lower than similar Canadian populations. In Vermont, as long as you’re 21 or older and have a clean criminal/mental history, and aren’t barred from owning a gun by any of the other US federal prohibitions on gun ownership, it’s legal for you to carry a concealed handgun without even any sort of a licence required, yet Vermont is also consistently one of the safest (if not THE safest) state in the US, based on its rates of rape/robbery, aggravated assault, and homicide.
First off, I must apologize for repeatedly posting… I feel that this a topic that I can aptly comment on, and I want to set the record straight.
SDC – I agree with you 100%. Gun ownership is NOT a problem (or THE problem, as the Libs would allow us to believe). As I mentioned earlier, Canada has an enormous per capita gun ownership rate, and it has not hurt us in terms of crime rates.
Young black males tend to be in very bad conditions (whether by their own hand or by others is a separate argument… it doesn’t matter for the crime argument)… and they commit the most crimes. And, as you said, they hardly own half the firearms in the United States.
Sandeep
Having lived in Sask. I take exception to the sign.
Isn’t this what gun control was supposed to stop.
Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait for Martins gun ban.
That’ll surely do the trick.
Horny Toad
Liberals characterize poor people as a bunch of criminals yet the vast majority of poor people are not criminals.
However, criminals can be wealthy, politically well-connected people who can take the tax money Canadians pay – so long as they grease the palms of that millionaires club known as the Liberal Party.
Shooters or fraudsters – the common denominator is that both groups think they can get away with it. Neither group has to worry much. The Youth Criminal Justice Act will let killers loose in no time and regular criminal law won’t be too hard on them either. Liberal fraudsters make so many people beholden to them that they don’t worry much about it either – media, ‘business’, the legal ‘profession’, medical professions etc. etc. are all toady’s to the Liberal Party – that’s why they all work so hard to keep Liberals in locked in power, they’ve taken the bait and can’t look back now.
Sandeep,
“in fact, Canada has a higher per capita gun ownership rate than the U.S.”
Please, please, please, please tell me you have documentation on that. That info could completely reshape the gun control debate down here in the United States (where it’s just assumed we have higher gun ownership per capita than any other developed nation).
Hi D.J. McGuire:
I have gone looking for the data that I suggest existed, to find that I am actually completely wrong, and I am sorry for that.
Canada’s gun ownership rate in 1996 according to Justice Canada is 22%. The United States ownership rate was 48.6%. Roughly 1 million guns exist in Canada, and 76 million in the United States.
However, I can say this. As I am researching the crime drop phenomenon in the early 1990s, I have found numerous academic papers suggesting that gun ownership is not a significant cause of crime. I am sure that with a little research, you can find further evidence suggesting that gun control makes no difference, the biggest reason being that criminals WILL find a way to obtain illegal guns, whether they are controlled or not. Gun buyback programs in big cities have failed miserably, and I have seen a number of studies presenting data as such.
I am very sorry for my mistaken statements regarding gun ownership – however, I believe that my point (and most others’ here) stands – gun ownership does not cause crime.
Now that I think of it… the best case to look at would be Switzerland. Their government mandates military participation for all males, and thus every male over the age of 18 in that country owns a gun, yet they have an incredibly low crime rate:
“Although there is more per capita firepower in Switzerland than any place in the world, it is one of the safest places to be. To the delight of Americans who support the right to keep and bear arms, Switzerland is the proof in the pudding of the argument that guns don’t cause crime.”
See this link for more information:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1566715.stm
Sandeep
sorry to go O/T from the crime issue, but has anyone seen the flash cartoon “Martinomics”. It can be found on the right sidebar of CBC’s website. I have not laughed so hard in a long time. Check it out. And what’s more amazing, it’s on CBC!
Kate, you really need to link this, it is an absolute hoot.
sandeep
are you a student or phd study the crime?
Don’t jump to any sort of conclusions on that issue yet, Sandeep; the honest truth is that NO-ONE knows exactly how many guns there are in Canada, and certainly not the government; back in the 1970s, when the Trudeau LIEberals were considering registering every gun in Canada (they dropped it as an expensive exercise in futility, and went to the FAC system of licencing instead), they asked StatsCan to give them an idea of how many guns there were to be registered. No-one had any sort of idea, but by putting together survey responses with importation figures, they arrived at three possibilities; at that time, there were a MINIMUM of 6 million guns in Canada, a MAXIMUM of somewhere around 21 millions guns in Canada, and a “most likely true” number of somewhere around FOURTEEN MILLION guns in Canada. When you add on 30-odd years of importation and domestic manufacture (at a known rate of ~1/4 million per year), that means that there are today a minimum of around 13 million guns in Canada (a FAR cry from the “only 6 million” lie told by Allan Rock and the LIEberals), a possible 28 millions guns in Canada, and a “most likely true” number of somewhere around 21 million guns.
Re O/T Nat…Martinomics flash cartoon on CBC is right on the money! Priceless! Coming from the CBC tells me they expect to be dealing with the CPC after Jan 23.(Might as well start sucking up now)
SDC – I think thats a good point. Regardless, I think we can still agree that gun control is bogus and there are better ways to reduce crime.
George – I am a graduate student in evolutionary psychology, working on behavioural studies of criminological phenomena.
Sandeep
The 1 million guns in Canada Sandeep mentions is handguns only, no rifles or shotguns included. Officially it’s about 1.2 million with 560,000 in the prohibited 12(6) class. SDC’s estimates are the best available on the total gun count. Logically, the 21 million count is probably closest. The United Nations did a civilian gun ownership survey around the time of the Trudeau survey. IIRC, per capita gun ownership was highest in the United States. Canada was in 2nd place and Norway was in 3rd place.
RJM
True story from Edmonton Centre: Last night on my way to the liquor store I almost got mugged. Two men (ethnicity will not be mentioned) reaking of hard alcohol approached me with the classic “Do you have a light? Got any money? Let me see your pockets?” I’m a pretty big guy (and I am no stranger to violence) but the two of them would have taken me; I just wanted to slug the guy in my face and run away, but I was too scared to. I responded by giving them my matches and I looked into their eyes told them no, I have no money for you. I was pretty sure I was going to get my ass kicked, but I think my non-verbal communication indicated that I was ready for what was to come. It’s strange what sometimes happens when you look at people directly into their eyes. As I was walked away from them I heard something along the lines of ‘we should just beat the shit of some motherfucka and jack his money” The other guy replied, “Nah, man, we’ll go to jail”
That last line stuck with me because that was the basic logic coming from possible would-be assailants that prevented them from kicking my ass to the curb and robbing me of my meager amount of cash. “we’ll go to jail”
I think that should be a campaign slogan for Annie. LOL
Unfortunately, that sign represents the only form of crime prevention rural areas have. If I called the police, it would take 2 hours for them to reach my place if they could find it by my estimation and if I called and mentioned an armed person, it would take at least 6 hours as the swat personelle have to come from Regina. That sign is the absolute truth and the only thing that stands between rural residents and criminals.
I wish the young man studying crime stats for his Phd, I assume in criminology,the best of luck in trying to prove anything by using statistics. Poverty is a good excuse, politicians can always promise to attack “the root causes of crime, poverty, etc.” This means “I think there’ll always be violent crime and as long as it doesn’t affect me personally I’ll ignore it.”
Ever notice how the ones who preach “touchy-feely” on crime seem to have no concrete ideas as to solutions?
I grew up on the Prairies in the 1950’s. We were all “poor as churchmice”. Very few ever resorted to serious crime. Why? Severe punishment, including the death penalty, censure by our peers,and some positive roll models who demonstrated that it didn’t have to be that way. I, like most of my friends,chose to leave my hometown of 600 persons, and make a more prosperous life. We did have the advantage of a good public school education.
Crime seems,from my observation, to spring from a poverty where there is no hope, no positive role models, and plenty of negative ones. I do not have experience with life in a big city ethnic enclave (ghetto)but from what I’ve read and heard, it seems hopelessness is utterly pervasive. To all the Socialists out there, what’s the answer? I don’t have it, do you?
Another point: crime is a lot easier way to make a living than carrying a lunch bucket to the bus at 6 A.M. I worked for many years in a situation where we hired inmates from a Provincial jail on temporary work duty. Eavesdropping on their lunch break conversations convinced me that it’s easier to deal drugs, or steal, than to discipline oneself to get up at 5 A.M. to catch the aforementioned 6 A.M. bus to work each day. Many considered short jail terms a minor inconvenience to their preferred lifestyle. Inmates told me drugs were easier to obtain inside than out. Most said they tried to arrange it so their jail time happened in the winter. I see no reason to doubt their word.
Solutions to violent crime? The cynical pols are probably right, so we taxpayers have to demand punishment to fit the crime, as recently demonstrated by Gov. Schwarzenegger. Make career crime very unappealing. Rehabilitate those who can be. Keep dangerous offenders locked up forever. Send a clear message to novice criminals, “follow the rules or F you”.
Seize all the legally owned guns or pointy sticks, it really won’t make much difference, except in the “victims of crime” statistics.
Nobody has all the answers, but Harper is a lot closer to a solution than martin or Layton.
According to Joan Tintor and in the comments me, gun bans wouldn’t have stopped Toronto’s Boxing Day tragedy – see joantintor.blogspot.com/2005/12/personalized-handgun-ban-didnt-stop.html
I have had the good fortune of meeting a one time criminal who committed his crime in the late 1930s early 1940s. He was my employer, and a very sucessful business man, who became my friend. He committed a break and entry, stealing some money and misc. items. He had been in trouble before a couple of times and did not heed the warnings form the police or judge. When he was caught the last time he spent time in jail and recieved the lash. He was seventeen at the time, a young offender by todays standards. His ( honest / hardworking )parents approved of the Judges sentence, told him he was only getting what he deserved. He often said how his parents did the right thing by not hireing lawyers and trying to buy him out of his punishment. The parent’s actions and attitude towards him saved his younger brothers from requiring the same experience. He himself loved his parents very much, and his parents were very proud of him and the man he had become.
A few years ago we were talking about all the crime getting worse, the soft Justice system, young offender act, and how society had lost control of our Justice system.
He once told me that he wished he had taken the time and looked up the Judge that had sentenced him and thanked him, however the Judge had passed away before he got around to it. My freind has also passed away now as well, but I’m sure he would like to know that I have passed this short message on to those who may not believe that stern, firm, and serious punishment, ( like the lash )or the toughest kind of love is often the best thing you can do for a young criminal. He believed that if you catch the punks early, and punish them severily after the third warning, they will then respect the police and the Judge that repesents the victims and society. This slap on the wrist, and taking away the punks internet privilege, the 10 pm curfew, and the in home custody has to go.
Time to get rid of the Liberals, clean up the Justice system, which at this point in time is a bigger treat to our society then the criminals that the justice system is creating.
I don’t know whether the United States has more or less crime than Canada proportionately or not. However, I think there are some factors about crime generally that people who should know better overlook.
In respect to all the varieties of gangbangers, we have to take into consideration the fact that the ‘gangsta’ lifestyle is highly romanticized in film and rap.
If I were a 16-year-old kid and I compared getting up on Monday morning to head down to the plant with cruising around the ‘hood resplendent in ghetto chic, admired and idolized by my peers, bitches and ‘ho’s hanging on my elbow, I think I’d choose the latter.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that Hollywood and the music industry have turned the idea of a criminal lifestyle into a highly lauded social statement. If you’re a gangsta, you’re dominant over your environment. You are cool. You are an anti-hero. You have joi de vie where your neighbor has an inadequate pay envelope.
As far as US crime goes, when you have 300 million free people, more creativity and creative opportunities for criminal activity is part of the package. It’s not a case of direct proportionality. It’s the fact that creativity and daring and insidiousness and malevolence and social indifference grow with huge numbers of free people just as many of the same qualities grow with people who would never be a criminal.
So I think that as long as we turn criminals into romantic outlaws, and as long as we do not recognize that a society with huge opportunities automatically creates more criminal initiative, we will always wind up scratching our heads, looking at statistics for answers.
Sandeep:
The comparison of crime rates is often done only country-to-country, but I believe the stats change if done by region. For example I recall seeing that both Montana and North Dakota have lower crime rates per 100,000 than does Saskatchewan, although more Montanans and North Dakotans own guns, and their state gun laws are more relaxed than Canada’s.
Will your research consider regional differences within the U.S. and within Canada?
Correct me if I’m wrong,  but I believe that the Conservatives unveiled new policy relating to gun crime in a Harper letter to the National Post on Dec. 30.   I have not heard or seen any media or blogs pick up on the new policy which includes:
Mandatory prison sentences for weapons offences,  violent crimes and drug trafficking offences.   An end to conditional sentences  (house arrest)  for weapon offences and other serious crimes.
The law governing young offenders strengthened to require that violent or serious repeat offenders 14 years of age or older be tried in adult court.  Further,  statutory release,  the law entitling prisoners to parole after serving two-thirds of their sentence,  replaced with earned parole.
Granting customs officers full resources to execute powers of arrest.
Re-establish the Ports Canada Police and allow them to renew the fight against gun smuggling.
See the Conservative web site for the text of the letter.
These changes would certainly address the problem better than the simplistic handgun ban from the Liberals and David don’t-interrupt-my-vacation Miller.
Sandeep
Reference your first post, you mentioned that the US murder rate is 10 times that of Canada. This sounded a little high so I looked it up. According to the “Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics” the US murder rate is 5.6 (2002). This is a little over 3 times greater than Canada’s rate (1.73 – 2003), not 10 times as you state. The info contained is obtained from the US Dept. of Justice and its Bureau of Justice Statistics (same source you quoth). The document that lists the rates can be found here: http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t3106.pdf.
Another interesting item that I found on the internet sometime ago (sorry cannot remember the site)is the Canadian homicide rate is that for those convicted of murders while US rates are for those charged for murder not convicted!
As an aside, according to the FBI there were 564 justified homicides in the US (339 by police and 225 by civilians) in 2002. Of the 225 felons killed by civilians, 154 were killed by handguns.
‘Leaders declare war on gun crimes, criminals’
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051231/gun_violence_051231/20051231?hub=TopStories
“Three senior political leaders have agreed to declare war on guns and those who use them.
Prime Minister Paul Martin, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller came to that agreement in a conference call on Saturday”
“The trio has vowed to use all levels of government to bring about tougher sentences, tougher bail conditions and the full force of the RCMP and Justice Departments”
—-According to current CPC policy—-
http://www.conservative-own.ca/documents/policy031905.pdf
“H79. Sentencing
A Conservative Government will:
i) institute mandatory minimum sentences for violent and repeat offenders;
ii) require that sentences for multiple convictions be served consecutively;
iii) eliminate statutory (automatic) release;
iv) Reform the National Parole Board including increased input from the
community and victims in National Parole Board decisions; and
v) require applicants for parole to demonstrate to the National Parole Board that
they have been rehabilitated.”
—-It’s funny that only now are Liberals willing to consider these sort of principals.
This article gets even better though…—-
“Ontario politicians call for handgun ban”
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051230/shootout_reaction_051230?s_name=&no_ads=
—-Ofcourse this inevitably leads to
(Toronto Mayor David Miller)—-
“He went on to say “a party that doesn’t include gun control in its platform isn’t addressing the issues in Toronto,” referring to Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.”
—-I wonder if this philosophy is going to resonate with voters.—-
In America race plays a great deal into the crime levels. The crime rates in white areas are not that different from canadian crime rates? And poverty plays a roll as well so what is the crime rate in canada’s poor areas up north? In native canadian areas?
Over 50% of murders in the states go unsolved.More poor people are murdered.It’s the top killer of young black men.That’s a tragedy.It’s a high killer of Aboriginals here in Sask and Manitoba. That’s also a tragedy.