<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Mailing List
________________________________________
December 7, 1999
Canada Split as Gun Laws Are Tightened
By JAMES BROOKE
MONTREAL -- A decade after the murder of 14 women by a deranged gunman at a
university here, Canadians are grappling with the massacre's legislative
legacy, strict federal laws that mandate registration of all guns and the
licensing of all gun owners.
In what many gun control advocates hope will be a North American beachhead
for tighter controls on firearms, all Canadian gun owners must obtain
licenses by the end of next year and they must register their guns by the end
of 2002.
Similar to laws passed in Britain and Australia following mass shootings
there, Canada's tightened gun controls followed the worst mass shooting in
this country's modern history.
Here, on Dec.. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine, a 25-year-old unemployed loner, stalked
through three floors of an engineering building at the University of
Montreal. Carrying a semi-automatic rifle, he targeted women, shooting 23 and
killing 14. He also shot and injured four men. Lepine, whose applications had
been rejected by the Canadian military and by the engineering school, then
committed suicide, leaving behind a note: "Feminists have ruined my life."
Canadians had long thought that such mindless violence only occurred south of
the border.
"We were all shocked out of our complacency to action," said Heidi Rathgen, a
survivor of the shooting who went on to help found Coalition for Gun Control,
the lead group that battled for tighter controls.
Although public opinion favored stricter laws, the battle for gun
registration and licensing turned into a bitter political fight. On Sunday,
Ms. Rathgen recalled after inaugurating a memorial near the engineering
school, "We won because we remembered, because we never gave up, because we
didn't go away."
Public opinion polls by Gallup Canada indicate that support for the new
National Firearms Registry has increased since enabling legislation was
passed in 1995, rising from 64 percent in 1995 to 73 percent in a poll taken
six weeks ago. Support is strongest, 88 percent, here in Quebec, where many
students were given Monday off to attend memorials, concerts, symposiums and
marches.
But, in Canada's West, support in the Gallup poll was only 54 percent of
respondents. And it is in Canada's West and North, regions with the nation's
highest rates of gun ownership, that a very un-Canadian movement is brewing:
civil disobedience.
"The vast majority of people that I have spoken to have said flat out, 'I
will not register, I just won't do it'," said Ray Laycock, a founder of the
National Firearms Association, a gun-rights group, in a telephone interview
from Calgary.
In the year since the new law took effect, on Dec. 1, 1998, only 184,808 of
Canada's estimated 3 million gun owners have applied for licenses. As for
Canada's estimated 7 million firearms, 264,464 gun registrations were
approved over the last year. Canadians have had to register revolvers and
pistols since 1934.
Some Canadian gun owners say they are boycotting the registry system because
they believe it is a first step toward restricting gun ownership to the
police and military.
Others seem to be procrastinating, waiting for Canada's Supreme Court to
decide on a challenge to the law, which is to be argued in February. Arguing
that gun control is a provincial and territorial, not federal, right, the
challenge is backed by Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,
Ontario, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Northwest Territories.
According to a survey by the Firearms Center, about 40 percent of Canadian
gun owners rarely use their guns and would probably sell or destroy them to
avoid registration.
To Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, this would make
for a safer Canada.
"Where you have more guns, you have more gun deaths," said Ms. Cukier, a
professor of justice studies in Toronto. In an essay last year in a Canadian
public health magazine, she contrasted American and Canadian statistics for
gun ownership and gun deaths in the mid-1990s.
She found that the United States had 3.5 times the number of firearms per
capita as Canada and 3.6 times the number of deaths by firearms as Canada.
The American rate for murder by firearms was 15 times higher than the
Canadian rate.
She concluded: "You are hard pressed to explain the difference in firearms
deaths without touching on the availability of guns."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company [/quote]
------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
________________________________________
December 7, 1999
Canada Split as Gun Laws Are Tightened
By JAMES BROOKE
MONTREAL -- A decade after the murder of 14 women by a deranged gunman at a
university here, Canadians are grappling with the massacre's legislative
legacy, strict federal laws that mandate registration of all guns and the
licensing of all gun owners.
In what many gun control advocates hope will be a North American beachhead
for tighter controls on firearms, all Canadian gun owners must obtain
licenses by the end of next year and they must register their guns by the end
of 2002.
Similar to laws passed in Britain and Australia following mass shootings
there, Canada's tightened gun controls followed the worst mass shooting in
this country's modern history.
Here, on Dec.. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine, a 25-year-old unemployed loner, stalked
through three floors of an engineering building at the University of
Montreal. Carrying a semi-automatic rifle, he targeted women, shooting 23 and
killing 14. He also shot and injured four men. Lepine, whose applications had
been rejected by the Canadian military and by the engineering school, then
committed suicide, leaving behind a note: "Feminists have ruined my life."
Canadians had long thought that such mindless violence only occurred south of
the border.
"We were all shocked out of our complacency to action," said Heidi Rathgen, a
survivor of the shooting who went on to help found Coalition for Gun Control,
the lead group that battled for tighter controls.
Although public opinion favored stricter laws, the battle for gun
registration and licensing turned into a bitter political fight. On Sunday,
Ms. Rathgen recalled after inaugurating a memorial near the engineering
school, "We won because we remembered, because we never gave up, because we
didn't go away."
Public opinion polls by Gallup Canada indicate that support for the new
National Firearms Registry has increased since enabling legislation was
passed in 1995, rising from 64 percent in 1995 to 73 percent in a poll taken
six weeks ago. Support is strongest, 88 percent, here in Quebec, where many
students were given Monday off to attend memorials, concerts, symposiums and
marches.
But, in Canada's West, support in the Gallup poll was only 54 percent of
respondents. And it is in Canada's West and North, regions with the nation's
highest rates of gun ownership, that a very un-Canadian movement is brewing:
civil disobedience.
"The vast majority of people that I have spoken to have said flat out, 'I
will not register, I just won't do it'," said Ray Laycock, a founder of the
National Firearms Association, a gun-rights group, in a telephone interview
from Calgary.
In the year since the new law took effect, on Dec. 1, 1998, only 184,808 of
Canada's estimated 3 million gun owners have applied for licenses. As for
Canada's estimated 7 million firearms, 264,464 gun registrations were
approved over the last year. Canadians have had to register revolvers and
pistols since 1934.
Some Canadian gun owners say they are boycotting the registry system because
they believe it is a first step toward restricting gun ownership to the
police and military.
Others seem to be procrastinating, waiting for Canada's Supreme Court to
decide on a challenge to the law, which is to be argued in February. Arguing
that gun control is a provincial and territorial, not federal, right, the
challenge is backed by Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,
Ontario, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Northwest Territories.
According to a survey by the Firearms Center, about 40 percent of Canadian
gun owners rarely use their guns and would probably sell or destroy them to
avoid registration.
To Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, this would make
for a safer Canada.
"Where you have more guns, you have more gun deaths," said Ms. Cukier, a
professor of justice studies in Toronto. In an essay last year in a Canadian
public health magazine, she contrasted American and Canadian statistics for
gun ownership and gun deaths in the mid-1990s.
She found that the United States had 3.5 times the number of firearms per
capita as Canada and 3.6 times the number of deaths by firearms as Canada.
The American rate for murder by firearms was 15 times higher than the
Canadian rate.
She concluded: "You are hard pressed to explain the difference in firearms
deaths without touching on the availability of guns."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company [/quote]
------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
