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The Failure of Canadian Gun Control by Dave Kopel
Enacted in 1977, Canada's prevailing gun law divides weapons into three basic types. In the "Prohibited weapons" category, sawed-off shotguns or rifles are completely illegal. Fully automatic weapons are legal only if they were registered to their current owner before January 1, 1979. Simple possession of tear gas for self defense is also a serious felony. Intermediate controls apply to "Restricted weapons." These include all handguns, and any long gun the Governor in Council (the federal cabinet) places on the restricted list. In 1983, the Council placed the FN-FAL rifle (a large Korean war semi-auto from Belgium) on the restricted list, even though only one crime had ever been committed with the FN-FAL (a 1962 bank robbery by "the beetle bandit"). To receive a Restricted Weapon
Registration Certificate, an
applicant has the burden of proving that the gun will be used for
one of four purposes: "to protect life where other protection is
inadequate," or "in connection with a lawful profession or
occupation," or for use in target practice, or by an applicant
"who is a bona fide gun collector." The applicant takes the letter to the police, who run a criminal records check on the applicant. Next, they visit the place (usually the home) where the applicant intends to store the handgun. After subjectively evaluating the applicant's suitability, and investigating how the applicant will store the (locked) gun safely at home, the police will issue a restricted weapon permit. That permit allows the individual to buy as many guns as he wants. Each gun, however must be officially registered with the police. The person may purchase a restricted firearm at a dealer, obtain a police permit to transport the restricted gun to and from the police station, and then take the gun with the permit to the police for registration. The police fill out a form, and give two copies to the purchaser, keeping other copies for themselves. The purchaser must return one copy to the gun vendor, and then return directly to the police station with the gun. The police stamp the purchaser's copy of the form. The other copy must stay with the gun anytime the gun leaves the person's home. The police send their own copy of the form to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the Mounties) in Ottawa, who in a few months will send the purchaser an official certification that he legally owns the gun, and a permit to transport the gun to a particular shooting range. Permits to transport restricted weapons to target ranges must be renewed every three years. In practical terms, handguns are
still readily obtainable;
an applicant merely has to be a gun collector or belong to a
target shooting club. How strict the police departments are in issuing handgun target licenses varies from region to region. In some jurisdictions, a person might legally buy a handgun, but the police would hold the gun for several months, while the central government in Ottawa completed its paperwork. Only then would the police allow the gun to be taken to a target range. In other areas, a permit to carry for target shooting may be issued in an afternoon, with the only background check being a look at computer records to make sure that the applicant does not have a criminal conviction. The lowest level of control applies to "non-restricted" weapons -- hunting shotguns and rifles. Canadians wishing to purchase a shotgun or rifle must acquire a $10 Firearms Acquisition Certificate. People who owned long guns before the 1977 bill was put into effect were not required to retroactively apply for certificates. The law states that protection of life is a legitimate reason for gun ownership. A Firearms Acquisition Certificate does not ask the reason for owning a gun. Yet in practice, applicants who state they want a gun for self-defense are often denied. To obtain a Firearms Acquisition Certificate, an applicant must furnish a variety of personal information, including addresses for the past five years. The police carry out a background check, which varies considerably in intensity from area to area. Some police conduct personal interviews in the applicant's home, or talk with neighbors and employers. London, Ontario used to require a 13-question psychological test. A drafted, but still unproclaimed,
provision would add the
requirement that the applicant pass a test or take a course in
safe firearms handling.
Canadian gun control is far stricter,
however, than it was
before 1977, when no permit was required to keep a long gun in
one's house or business, and sales of such weapons were subject
to virtually no control. Second, the 1977 gun law, Bill C-51, illustrates how anti- gun forces can get their way. Like the Gun Control Act of 1968 in the United States, Canada's Bill C-51 was part of an omnibus "crime control" package. The package pleased liberals because it tightened gun control, and it pleased conservatives because it eased restrictions on wire-tapping. The liberal/conservative "anti-crime" coalition overwhelmed its civil libertarian and sportsman opposition. (Of course neither gun control nor excessive wiretapping has much to do with real crime-fighting.) Does the Canadian Law Work? Second, there seem to be plenty of
illegal guns still
available. Inspector Crampton, of the Toronto police, has
released a much-publicized report that claims a person would not
have to walk more than two kilometers "to pick up a hot piece."
Part of the illegal gun supply comes from stolen American guns,
but even without U.S. imports, the Canadian pool of illegal
weapons is more than sufficient for criminal purposes. For example, the government paper noted that the per capita firearm murder rate, after increasing from 1961 to 1975, declined from 1975 to 1981. Since the gun control law only went into effect after 1978 it hardly can be given credit for a trend begun in 1975. In four major Canadian cities -- but not the country as a whole -- the percentage of firearms used in attempted murders did drop significantly after 1978. Notably, the frequency of attempted murders did not experience a similar drop. The fact that attempted gun murders declined, but attempted murders did not, supports the theory that if gun are less available, people will choose other weapons with which to kill. It is sometimes claimed that the presence of guns causes a huge amount of inter-family "domestic homicides" in the United States. Take away the handguns, and angry family members won't kill each other -- so the argument goes. In fact, after the Canadian gun law took effect, domestic homicides did fall. But they dropped even more sharply in America -- evidence that the Canadian decline was not due to the new gun law. As for other crimes, the use of firearms in "rape and indecent assault, assault, and woundings," was already low, and showed no change. The robbery rate increased, and the use of guns in robberies increased at a slightly slower rate. (Robbery was up 38%, and gun use in robberies up 34%.) The new gun law had provided for increased penalties for use of a gun during a felony (a measure the N.R.A. supports). It might be that robbers' slightly diminished interest in using guns was attributable to the enhanced sentencing law. Whatever effect the gun law had on robbery was not significant, though. American states which border Canada -- who were not enacting any new gun laws -- saw a much slower rise in the robbery rate than Canada did. As for the death rate from firearms accidents, Canada continued to enjoy a decline that had begun in 1971. Suicides involving firearms fell noticeably after 1978, reversing the previous trend. The overall suicide rate, however, did not drop, which leads to the inference that the availability of particular weapons has no impact on a nation's suicide rate. America's suicide rate, already slighter lower than Canada's, declined some more. In short, the evidence indicates that Canada's handgun crackdown/long gun licensing had little effect on crime or suicide. Although the new gun law seems ineffective, a gun controller might point out that even before the law was enacted in 1977 Canada had far fewer guns per capita than America does. Therefore, it might be that Canada's lower overall gun density has contributed to the lower Canadian homicide and robbery rates. Two comparisons with the U.S. disprove this argument, though. If one excludes Americans born in Southern states (of all races) from American crime statistics, America's crime rate is comparable to Canada's. American Northerners have far easier access to guns than Canadians do, and commit no more crimes. American Southerners have the same access to guns that American Northerners do, and commit far more crime. The important variable in crime rates is not the number of guns available, but the characteristics of the citizenry. (The high Southern crime rate cannot be due mainly to guns, since most of the guns are in rural areas, and most of the crime is in urban areas. Southerners also have an abnormally high non-gun assault rate.) Further, despite editorial claims that America is a land of "carnage," most Americans have no more to fear from guns than Canadians do. The overall death rate for non-Hispanic white Americans from all types of shootings (murder, suicide, accident, etc.) is the same as the rate for Canadians. American Blacks and Hispanics have a
much higher death rate
from shootings, in part because they are likely to live in
poorer, more dangerous neighborhoods, and to receive less
protection from the authorities. A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine compared handgun homicide rates in Vancouver and Seattle. The article contrasted Seattle, with its high handgun homicide rate, and Vancouver, with its lower rate. The article noted that Vancouver had stricter handgun possession laws than in Seattle, and a lower handgun homicide rate. True enough. But while Seattle and Vancouver have the same average income, they have the very different below average income groups. The low-income groups in Seattle have a high proportion of racial minorities that have been brutalized by a history of racial discrimination and destruction of fundamental family structures. If one limits the Seattle-Vancouver comparison to non-Hispanic whites, the homicide rates and gun victimization rates in the two cities are equal -- despite Canada's stricter laws. The New England Journal of Medicine article had other flaws as well. It attributed Vancouver's lower handgun homicide rate to the 1977 Canadian law barring possession of a handgun for self-defense. Yet Vancouver's handgun homicide rate (and overall homicide rate) after the law went into effect has remained almost exactly the same as in the years before the law. Thus, to conclude that the law was the main cause of the low homicide rate is simply specious. So intent are the article's authors on "proving" a case against guns that they even misrepresent other research. The article cites Under the Gun: Weapons and Crime and Violence in America (by Wright, Rossi, and Daly) for the proposition that stricter gun control would reduce homicide. In fact, that book (written by top-ranked sociologists who started from a very anti- gun perspective) concludes that there is no persuasive evidence that any form of gun control has reduced or would reduce homicide. To make things worse, the inaccurate, misleading Seattle- Vancouver "study" was paid for by U.S. government funding from the Center for Disease Control. Taxpayer dollars would be better spent on research about real medical questions -- rather than half-baked polemics on criminology. Rather than reducing crime -- as the
Canadian government and
some American researchers claim -- Canada's restrictive gun laws
may well cause crime. The crime that gun ownership best deters
is burglary of occupied residences. While only one in ten
American burglaries is committed against an occupied home, half
of all Canadian burglaries are. Since the 1977 law took effect,
the Canadian breaking and entering rate rose 25%, surpassing the
American rate, which has been declining. (The situation is even
worse in Britain, where gun control is stricter, and 59% of
burglaries are attempted against occupied residences.) Would the Canadian Law Work in America? In America, a thorough hearing in front of a judge is necessary for the government to receive permission to confiscate someone's property. But in Canada, magistrates (court officers one step below a judge) may issue warrants for home searches and gun confiscation whenever the magistrate "believes that it is not in the interest of the person or not in the public interest that a person should have in his possession a firearm." In such situations, the authorities use the F.A.C. or Restricted Weapon lists to determine if the home has a gun to confiscate. Gun- owners have complained that informants have tricked the police into impounding neighbors' weapons by filing false reports of violent threats. Once the gun has been taken, an appeal by the gun-owner is allowed. America forbids the police to search a home, unless they are given a warrant by a court, or unless there are exigent circumstances. Canada allows warrantless home searches when a police officer believes that possession of a firearm in someone's home "is not desirable in the safety of that person, or of any other person," and obtaining a warrant would be "impracticable." After a home search, the Canadian
prosecutors are required
to report the results to the magistrate, so that the courts can
monitor the intrusions into people's homes. In practice, many
search results are reported only when guns are found which the
authorities want to have permanently forfeited. First of all, there are many more guns in America, particularly handguns. Overall, Canadians own guns at about half the American rate. Handguns comprise a third of America's gun supply, but only a twentieth of Canada's. The actual stock of American handguns is over 40 times Canada's. (Canada has about five million long guns, and, at last count, 863,000 handguns.) During the debate on the 1977 Canadian gun law, the leading academic proponent of the bill, University of Toronto Law Professor M.L. Friedland, warned that Canada must adopt gun controls immediately, before guns became as common as they were in America. Friedland argued that gun control was no longer possible in the United States, because there were so many guns. Canada's criminals are adequately supplied with a pool of illegal guns that may, according to government estimates, be as low as 50,000. In New York City alone, the police estimate there are one to two million illegal firearms. If Canada -- with 50,000 illegal guns -- cannot disarm criminals, it is ludicrous to expect that America -- with many, many more illegal guns -- could possibly disarm criminals by banning guns. The amount of illegal guns in New York City alone is more than sufficient to supply American criminal needs, even if all legal American guns were confiscated. While only five percent of Canadians
(mostly in the
prairies) list self-defense as their main reason for owning guns;
a quarter of Americans do (mostly in the cities). Common sense
indicates that persons who own guns for self-defense believe they
have a strong need for the gun, and will be unlikely to obey
prohibitive gun control statutes. Neither Canada's culture nor its
Constitution have
inculcated in its citizens a determination to own guns. As one
Canadian police official put it, "We don't have the tradition
here of people believing it's an inherent right to carry a gun.
I've had people come in to a police station after a relative had
died, and they'll bring in a box carrying his collection. I tell
that to American policemen, and they think I'm lying." Gun
amnesties in major American cities almost never pull in more than
two or three dozen weapons. Canada did not even have a Bill of
Rights until 1960, and
that Canadian Bill of Rights is merely a statute, subject to easy
repeal at any time. In 1984, Canada implemented a Charter of
Rights, derived from its Commonwealth British heritage. The
Charter of Rights is much harder to change, and provides a solid
foundation for the rights contained in America's first amendment
(free speech, religion, and assembly). Not surprisingly, civil liberties are far less secure in Canada than in America. There is no "exclusionary rule" in Canada; thus the police can make illegal searches, knowing that whatever they find will be probably be admissible in court, depending on the individual judge. Few police officers face serious discipline for any but the most clearly illegal searches. Canadian courts still issue "Writs of
assistance," which
allow the R.C.M.P. to conduct blanket searches, without
specifying what they are searching for. Until recently, the
courts simply gave the R.C.M.P. "fill-in-the-blank" search
warrants. Now, writs of assistance are harder to get. In
the
United States, writs of assistance were abolished over two
centuries ago, after the American revolution. Only in 1987 did the Mounties disband their "countersubversion branch," that kept files on certain popular labor and antiwar groups. (Domestic spying was recently transferred to a different branch of government.) Overall, government internal security has files on 600,000 people, one out every forty Canadians. More so than any other people,
Americans are mistrustful of
government power, and careful guardians of their rights. In
contrast, some Canadian nationalists complain that American
television is subversive because it makes Canadian youths believe
they have constitutional rights. America fought a seven-year war for total independence; Canada was settled in part by American Tories (United Empire Loyalists), and was peacefully granted sovereign status in the British Commonwealth many years later. In The Invasion of Canada, 1812-1813, Pierre Berton, Canada's foremost popular historian, discusses the American invasion of Canada during the War of 1812. Berton explains how the Canadians remained loyal to Britain and British values. The formative experience of that war, writes Berton, explains why Canada developed "that special form of state paternalism that makes the Canadian way of life significantly different from the more individualistic American way." The Canadian advance on the frontier
was not a violent as
America's. The French fur traders who first settled Canada could
co-operate with Indians; the English farmers who settled America
did not want trade, but land. Their determination to take the
continent put America through nearly two centuries of continuous
warfare, as the frontier was pushed west one farm at a time.
When not fighting indigenous peoples, American settlers still
needed to protect themselves from the horsethieves and other
criminals that ruled parts of the frontier. In fact, the Mounties came to establish law and order before many settlers arrived. From the earliest days of the Canadian west, the Mounties discouraged the eastern settlers from carrying handguns. By effectively providing for the security of the settlers, the Mounties obviated the need for defensive weaponry. Although some Americans urged the creation of an American "Mountie" force for the frontier, western communities resisted it as an encroachment by military rule on local autonomy. A man on a saddle with rifle and revolver symbolized the West in both nations. Canada's character was the government Mountie, and America's the independent cowboy. Indeed, The Lone Ranger would have been an outlaw in Canada, since 19th century law forbade carrying a firearm while "masked or disguised." Toronto Professor John Hagan contrasts the Mountie with another American symbol, the eagle, "a fiercely independent animal prone to outbursts of violence." Symbols such as Mounties, cowboys, and eagles reflect and create social reality. So do constitutions. Professor Friedland contrasts the American Constitution, with its right to keep and bear arms, and the Canadian constitution, which simply provides for "peace, order and good government," and signifies obedience to authority. In short, Canadians have faith in government power in a way that Americans do not. Their gun laws are merely one aspect of the Canadian system of relying on the government to take care of everyone's welfare -- in contrast to the American system, where many citizens distrust government power, and insist that they possess the means to protect themselves. Whether or not gun control has affected the Canadian crime rate -- and the evidence is that it actually causes crime -- gun control has been generally accepted in Canada. Because America's culture is different, particularly in America's far lesser respect for authority, and far greater attachment to the gun, it is unlikely that Canadian-style gun controls could succeed in America. |
