Handgun ban in canada to be announced Thursday

Babble

This has me a bit worried I tell ya!

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=news_home&articleID=2113839&lid=today+box

A campaigning Prime Minister Paul Martin planned to venture into a violence-plagued area of Toronto on Thursday to announce a sweeping ban on handguns, The Canadian Press has learned.
Martin was scheduled to visit Toronto's troubled Jane-Finch area to make a "safer communities announcement." Liberal sources confirmed Wednesday the announcement includes a ban on handguns.

Handguns are already severely restricted in Canada and a handgun registry has been in force for more than 60 years.

civdef

Im sure a ban on handguns will stop the homies shooting each other allright.

Of course an upcoming election has nothing to do with this at all.....

Manic Moran

I don't expect much out of this. The registration campaign a few years ago was an unmitigated failure, and if you look at the fine print on this proposed ban, it actually is more along the lines of 'The central government invites the provinces to enact bans'

NTM

Babble

Handgun ban won't stop shootings: police
Last updated Dec 8 2005 01:02 PM PST
CBC News
Vancouver police say the Liberal campaign promise to ban handguns in Canada wouldn't do much to cut down on gun violence in the city.
The Liberals have pledged to ban handguns and increase minimum sentences for some gun crimes.
RELATED STORY: Liberals vow to ban handguns
But police aren't sure those measures will help. Vancouver Deputy Chief Doug LePard says handguns are almost illegal already – and that 90 per cent of the guns used in crimes have been smuggled into Canada from the U.S.
"So in terms of reducing that, I don't think that this legislation, or proposed legislation, is the answer to that problem."

Oh what a surprise


LINK
http://www.cbc.ca/bc/story/bc_guns20051208.html

DJKH

Note: Canadian PM Paul Martin's election promise to ban handgun has elicited a storm of editorial comment. Here are four opposed and one for. Like the Brazil gun ban referendum, the success or failure of this move will have international repercussions.

____________________________________________________________________________

PUBLICATION: Calgary Herald
DATE: 2005.12.09
EDITION: Final
SECTION: The Editorial Page
PAGE: A28
SOURCE: Calgary Herald
WORD COUNT: 553

Handgun ban won't curb deaths: Tougher enforcement, jail time produce
declining crime rates

Many Canadians see no reason why anyone should own a handgun, much to
the dismay of at least one million target shooters and handgun
collectors for whom it is a passion. But no hobby should be demonized
just because it doesn't appeal to a majority.
A sweeping handgun ban is what Prime Minister Paul Martin claimed he was
announcing Thursday in a crime-ridden community of Toronto. In fact, it
is less a sweeping ban than a lazy attempt to win over voters who don't
know what it takes to reduce crime.
Martin says he would change the Criminal Code to allow provinces to
prohibit handguns within their borders, but allow exemptions for
collectors and "legitimate target shooters." For those puzzling to make
sense of it, it could mean handguns will be systematically confiscated,
or it could mean the current restrictive system will stay as it is. Much
depends on the fine print.
A program of systematic confiscation would be costly (private property
owners would have to be compensated for forfeiting guns they purchased
legally), and, most significantly, would have no effect on crime.
Gary Mauser, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University, is updating his
2004 study of gun control, The Failed Experiment. He found that since
the U.K. banned handguns in 1997, firearms-related crime rates have been
steadily trending up. In 1997, there were 13,000 crimes committed with a
firearm; by 2004 it had increased to 51,000. Over the same period, the
homicide rate doubled and violent crime more than tripled from 700
incidents to 2,200 incidents per 100,000 population.
In the U.S. -- where authorities devote far more resources to
apprehending criminals, putting them in prison and keeping them there --
the crime rates have been falling steadily.
This suggests it is not the legality of guns that determines the level
of crime in society; it is the level of tolerance society has for crime.

When rapes, violent assaults and attempted murder are routinely met with
sentences of house arrest, as they are in Canada, it sends a clear
message of complacency to the criminal element.
There is a better way to deal with the problem, says Mauser.
First, the police must engage community leaders. If youths in ethnic
gangs are engaging in gun play, the ethnic communities must be recruited
to help stop it.
Second, the police must enforce laws. Eighty-four per cent of handgun
homicides are committed with weapons that have never been registered,
according to Statistics Canada.
The misuse of handguns is a crime, but gun violations are routinely plea
bargained away in the courts. The auditor general recently chastised the
Liberal government for starving the RCMP of resources, to the point they
have to cannibalize staff from national organized crime efforts to meet
local contractual commitments. This is why there is an enforcement
problem.
Finally, once the bad guys are caught, they must do real time in jail. A
small percentage of people commit a large percentage of the crimes. The
Liberals' catch-and-release program, which mandates that judges find
solutions other than imprisonment (even for violent offenders), results
in recidivism and escalation in crime.
The Liberals' $2-billion failed long gun registry continues to divert
resources away from front-line law enforcement. Why should anyone
believe diverting more resources to confiscate handguns would have a
measurable impact on crime?
Politicians on the campaign stump are too eager to offer Band-Aid
solutions that cost more than they are worth. Resources should be
devoted to catching real criminals, not meaningless bans.

__________________________________________________________________________

PUBLICATION: The Toronto Sun
DATE: 2005.12.09
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Editorial/Opinion
PAGE: 20
BYLINE: CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
COLUMN: Queen's Park
WORD COUNT: 486

---

HOW ABOUT A BAN ON THE CRIMINALS? THEY WON'T BE LINING UP TO TURN IN
THEIR GUNS

---

Well, hallelujah and praise the Lord.

After a long, bloody year of gun violence, Paul Martin has got religion
on gun crime.

Not just that, his provincial kissing cousins are climbing on the
ban-the-gun bandwagon as well.

Who knew? All it takes to stop the broad daylight slaughter on our
streets is a handgun ban! Just tell those criminals nicely that handguns
are now illegal and they'll stop killing each other.

Just as this province outlawed pit bulls, so handguns will now banned,
banned, banned. I feel safer already.

Except if you think some punk gang member with a short fuse and nothing
to lose is going to give up his handgun because Paul Martin told him to,
you might also want to hit "reply" on that Nigerian cash scam spam you
keep getting.

This is laughable. A federal Liberal government that, despite a red tide
of MPs from T.O., studiously ignores this city suddenly sees the light
when there's an election on? How stupid do they think we are?

You couldn't help thinking Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Attorney
General Michael Bryant were embarrassed by this cynical ploy on the part
of their federal counterparts. When PC leader John Tory asked legitimate
questions in the Legislature yesterday about what he calls our
"revolving door," bail system, they tried to hang the gun lobby label on
him.

"Are you on the side of the National Rifle Association? Are you in the
holster of the gun lobby?" Bryant demanded.

Give me a break. First, it's the government who's held accountable in
the Legislature, not the Opposition leader. And to duck a legitimate
question with scurrilous accusations is is arrogance squared.

Banning handguns won't make a jot of difference until there are
meaningful penalties for using them. And as long as goverments keep
handing criminals get-out-of-jail-free cards, gangs are going to
continue using one another for target practice.

STATUS QUO

"I think it really takes a lot of gall for them not to answer questions
on the bail system," said Tory outside the Legislature.

He called the handgun ban "basically a restatement of the status quo
that still doesn't deal with the question of illegal guns being used by
criminals to commit illegal acts."

A more effective way to deal with guns is to have tougher sentences and
stop letting people charged with gun offences back out on the streets on
bail, he said.

"This is what makes people cynical about the political process," Tory
said, pointing out that neither the feds nor the provincial government
ever mentioned a handgun ban until now -- when there's an election on.

I asked Bryant if he thinks criminals will give up their already illegal
guns just because they're "banned." He admitted this isn't a cure-all,
but said it's a start.

"Nobody suggests it's a panacea, but I think it is an important
component toward gun safety because it will greatly assist choking the
supply of handguns onto the streets," he said, pointing out that about
half the guns in the hands of criminals are smuggled in from the U.S.,
while the other 50% are stolen from legitimate owners.

Bryant said the federal government will legislate the ban while the
province will enforce it. The feds have pledged cash for the
enforcement, although Bryant didn't know what the price tag would be.

It won't turn into a $2-billion boondoggle like the long gun registry,
he argued, because there'll be no registry. In fact, the province will
scrap the present handgun registry.

At bottom, this is a very typical Liberal campaign promise. Promise
anything to get elected. Forget about it when you get a majority
government.

Martin's getting tough on crime? The criminals must be quaking in their
boots.

DJKH

PUBLICATION: The Winnipeg Sun
DATE: 2005.12.10
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: 8
ILLUSTRATION: photo by Jonathan Hayward, CP Stephen Harper plays snooker
in Guelph, Ont., yesterday.
BYLINE: CANADIAN PRESS
WORD COUNT: 332

---

KLEIN BLASTS AWAY AT GRITS' GUN BAN

---

The federal Liberals' much-ballyhooed handgun election promise appears
to be firing blanks in a couple of Prairie provinces.

Alberta Premier Ralph Klein shot down the proposed handgun ban yesterday
and Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale is conceding the plan won't
fly in his home province of Saskatchewan.

Klein, speaking in Calgary, said he doesn't see how further tightening
Canada's long-standing restrictions on handgun ownership would serve any
practical purpose.

"I just don't see at this point what good proposed legislation would do
in terms of keeping handguns out of the hands of bad guys," said the
premier.

"Edmonton has had 36 murders this year, and many of them involved
handguns. I'm sure those handguns weren't registered. I'm sure even with
a ban, the bad guys would find a way to get their hands on a handgun."

Goodale's office, in a letter to a constituent dated Thursday -- the day
after Prime Minister Paul Martin announced he'd institute a total
handgun ban -- said the "option to ban firearms is just one facet" of
the Liberal anti-crime platform.

"Regarding the ban in particular," said the letter from Goodale's
office, "it would be unlikely that the province of Saskatchewan would
feel the need to participate, therefore Saskatchewan gun owners should
not be affected ... "

SHARPLY RESTRICTED

The letter was being brandished by the Conservative party yesterday as
evidence that not even Liberals believe the handgun ban is a serious
proposal.

Handguns have been sharply restricted in Canada since the 1930s, and the
new tighter restrictions would primarily affect gun collectors, who
experts say tend to keep their weapons under lock and key.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper called the ban a sham.

"You know what Ralph Goodale told one of his own constituents?" Harper
told a partisan crowd at a campaign rally in Hamilton, Ont. "'Don't
worry about the gun ban. It doesn't affect anything anyway!' This is a
typical Liberal policy to deal with crime. A phantom policy."

In an interview yesterday, Goodale said the letter simply states the
facts as they are known to him.

He said Saskatchewan's justice minister has indicated the province won't
adopt the handgun ban.

Goodale said it shouldn't be interpreted as a sign he and Martin are not
on the same page.

"Obviously we would like to see a total national picture, but (the ban)
is designed in a way that respects what the provinces want," Goodale
said. "The respect for provincial opinion is a very important thing."

Goodale said he still hopes to persuade the western provinces that the
Liberal-proposed ban is a good thing.

_____________________________________________________________________________

PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
DATE: 2005.12.09
PAGE: A26
BYLINE:
SECTION: Editorial
EDITION: Metro
WORD COUNT: 619

---

---

The real challenge in eliminating handguns

---

---

Liberal Leader Paul Martin's promise to amend the Criminal Code to allow
the provinces to ban handguns is baffling. Aren't most handguns illegal
in this country already? It's hard to fathom how the ban will reduce gun
crime.

Liberal officials answered doubters yesterday by saying the problem is
not crimes committed by the owners of legal guns -- the total of such
crimes is "minute," one official said -- but thefts by the bad guys of
legal guns from private residences. There are currently 520,000 handguns
legally owned by 183,000 individuals in Canada.

These individuals are either target shooters or collectors or those
whose lives are under threat. (Six thousand people, mostly trappers or
tree planters who encounter wild animals, have gun permits to protect
themselves.) There are strict background checks on all these
individuals, and strict rules about gun storage and such matters as
travelling with a gun on the way back from the shooting range; for
instance, they must return directly home.

Although Mr. Martin spoke of an "outright ban" yesterday, background
materials show that "legitimate target shooters who meet strict
requirements would be eligible for a narrow exemption to the ban."
Liberal officials say the provinces and the federal government would
hold discussions to define what is meant by a target shooter. In
Australia, for instance, a target shooter is one who attends six
competitions a year and belongs to a gun club. In other words, an
enormous bureaucratic effort is ahead to weed out a few target shooters,
and for what? The supply of guns south of the border is large enough and
the demand in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver is strong enough that the
prevalence of guns on the street is unlikely to be affected.

To be fair, the gun ban is not the only weapon in Mr. Martin's arsenal.
He would spend $225-million over five years to create an RCMP squad that
could help provinces and municipalities fight guns and gangs. The
federal crime-fighting help is welcome. He would also create a
$50-million fund for social programs in troubled neighbourhoods, and
provide money to local police departments to encourage gun amnesties.

(Toronto had a successful gun amnesty just two years ago, but that
didn't stop 2005 from being a record year for gun murders.) And he would
double the mandatory minimum sentences for trafficking, smuggling or
possession of illegal guns. That might take some people off the street
for slightly longer periods, but would be unlikely to act as a
deterrent.

From the government that brought Canadians a $1-billion gun registry,
the proposed ban is probably not surprising. (Imagine how much more
money there would be in the federal anti-crime kitty if not for that
boondoggle.) Guns are bad, and should be stamped out at all costs, say
the Liberals. It's an easy message to deliver, but it's much tougher to
do something in Ottawa that will have real bite in tough inner-city
suburbs such as Toronto's northern Etobicoke and Jane-Finch
neighbourhoods, into which the Liberal Leader strode like a sheriff
yesterday, uttering tough words ("We will take their guns away") on his
campaign stops.

The problem of guns, gangs and drugs isn't amenable to bureaucratic
solutions. In some poor, black, heavily fatherless communities in
Toronto, a youth counterculture is taking shape in which guns are a
potent symbol of power and masculinity -- a fashion accessory, as it
were. No federal wand can make that counterculture disappear.

DJKH

__________________________________________________________________________

PUBLICATION: The Toronto Star
DATE: 2005.12.09
EDITION: ONT
SECTION: Editorial
PAGE: A30
WORD COUNT: 630

---

---

Martin's gun ban a bold, good step

---

---

Prime Minister Paul Martin's promise yesterday to ban handguns in Canada
if his Liberals are re-elected might better be described as a crackdown
than a full-fledged ban. But it is welcome all the same. It is the
boldest bid yet by a federal party leader to stem a toxic social
problem.

In Toronto, 50 of the 75 homicides this year were committed with
handguns. Many involved young black men. Left unchecked, this violence
will spread. That would be intolerable. It must be suppressed. As Martin
says, Canadians "do not accept the rising threat these weapons pose."

Martin proposes to enact federal legislation empowering the provinces to
prohibit handguns. If they balk, Martin should go further and
unilaterally enact a nationwide ban. A patchwork quilt won't solve the
problem. That's why Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty should throw his
full support behind combining tight new restrictions on legitimate
handgun ownership with a get-tough approach to gun crime.

Martin will also invest in more policing, criminal prosecution and
community development to get illegal guns and gangs off the streets.

He would double the mandatory minimum sentences for key crimes
trafficking in firearms, smuggling, and unlawful possession of loaded
handguns in public places. He would also invest $400 million over five
years to beef up the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, other police forces
and the Canada Border Services Agency to better target gangs, smugglers
and organized crime. And he'd spend more on youth services and skills
training to give urban teens positive alternatives to gang membership.

While Canadians legally own nearly 400,000 handguns, few of us regard
handgun ownership as a fundamental right.

Under Martin's proposal, only "legitimate target shooters" in "major
multidisciplinary sporting competitions" would be granted a "narrow
exemption." That means many, perhaps most, handgun owners would have to
give up their guns.

In effect, he wants to create a non-permissive climate toward handgun
ownership, reversing current policy. People would get licences as an
exemption, not as a rule, and only for demonstrably competitive
purposes.

Lawful handgun owners will no doubt complain they are being targeted
when the main problem lies elsewhere. There is some truth in that. But
there is also no denying that far too many Canadians own handguns for
which they have no real use. That is hard to justify.

In reality, many Canadian handgun owners are anything but competitive.
Only an elite handful compete in the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth
Games. A few thousand belong to well-organized, safety-conscious groups
like the International Practical Shooting Confederation, which has
members in 60 countries. And many compete in casual fun "shoots" at
their local gun clubs. But many handgun owners show up occasionally to
shoot at paper targets, competing only with themselves.

And many "collectors" simply want to keep a gun in the house.

While Canadians may sympathize with bona fide sport shooters, it is hard
to see how anyone has a "right" to store a .45 calibre handgun in the
basement, just to have it there. That invites theft, accidents and
worse.

Martin's approach sensibly favours active sport shooters over passive
gun owners. It includes a buyback plan for those who must surrender
guns. And it is tough on criminals. It is a rounded package.

It is worth noting, too, that the owners of the country's more than 6
million rifles and shotguns, mostly to protect farm families and
livestock or to hunt, won't be affected by this ban. They get a break.
Martin will waive relicensing fees to encourage them to register and
safely store guns.

Martin is taking some political risk with this approach. There is also
some question as to who, exactly, will be allowed to retain handguns for
competitive purposes. And provincial co-operation is required.

But Martin deserves credit for trying to make our communities safer. His
ideas should spark a healthy campaign debate.

______________________________________________________________________

World Forum on the Future of
Sport Shooting Activities
http://www.wfsa.net/

The WFSA is an NGO in Roster Consultative Status with the
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.



Thomas L. Mason
Executive Secretary - US
7618 Oak Leaf Drive
Santa Rosa, CA 95409
+1 707 539 3371 - voice
+1 707 538 2737 - fax
+1 503 998 0555 - mobile
tlmorusa@aol.com - email

Babble

I have never seen so many shooters get in to action before!
I been using this tool which will send one email to 79 newpaper editors across Canada

http://ddm.fiveronin.com

Dvs

DJKH wrote:

__________________________________________________________________________

PUBLICATION: The Toronto Star
DATE: 2005.12.09
EDITION: ONT
SECTION: Editorial
PAGE: A30
WORD COUNT: 630

---

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Martin's gun ban a bold, good step

---

---

It is worth noting, too, that the owners of the country's more than 6
million rifles and shotguns, mostly to protect farm families and
livestock or to hunt, won't be affected by this ban. They get a break.
Martin will waive relicensing fees to encourage them to register and
safely store guns.


And the reason for this would be ?
so he can have a go at banning them also,
when he has a list of owners, and locations for them.

Dvs.