October 22, 2010 For immediate release:
Victims of gun violence and public safety experts expressed their shock at comments by mayoralty candidate Rob Ford on gun control.
In a mayoral candidate debate held on Wednesday, Ford indicated that he would take his lead on gun control from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives. "It's a federal issue John you know what and that's up to the Prime Minister.... Absolutely, I am going to sit down with the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister, and take their lead it is a federal issue John." From the Newstalk 1010 Debate, October 10, 2010, available online here.
Elaine Lumley, whose son Aidan was shot and killed, expressed disbelief:
"We have been fighting for years to defend the registry in the face of virulent opposition from the gun lobby in rural Canada. I am from Northern Ontario and know that even in smaller communities there is support for keeping the registration of rifles and shotguns, particularly among women. I was in the House of Commons exactly one month ago, when we defeated the Conservative Bill to dismantle the registration of rifles and shotguns by two votes. It is simply unfathomable that a candidate for mayor of Canada's largest city will not advocate for Toronto's citizens but would kowtow to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on gun control."
In recent months, police, health and safety experts, women's organizations, unions and victims of gun violence have fought hard to keep the registry. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reiterated "The party I lead will not rest until the day [the registry] is abolished." Depending on the election results, he may have the help of the mayor of Canada's largest city in dismantling gun control.
Ford's stance on gun control would be an incredible reversal of the City's long support for gun control.
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Wendy Cukier, President of the Coalition for Gun Control said: "I have been working on gun control for more than 20 years now. During that time, every single Mayor of the city of Toronto and every Toronto City Council has stood behind gun control. The City of Toronto was an intervenor in defence of the firearms registry all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Toronto Police Services Board, the Toronto Chief of Police, the Toronto Medical Officer of Health, as well as Toronto based community groups, and victims of gun violence have fought hard to defend the firearms law. This is staggering."
She added: "Mr. Ford's comments also suggest he is just parroting Mr. Harper and does not know the facts. Our Chief of Police has been very clear this is a vital tool to police across the country. Rifles and shotguns account for a substantial proportion of the guns recovered in crime -- even in Toronto. The Toronto Police query the registry thousands of times each day and use it to support criminal investigations and to help prosecute criminals. Ford is also totally confused about the costs. Seven million guns are registered. The money has been spent. The costs of keeping it are estimated by the RCMP at $4 million dollars a year. That pales compared to the costs of gun violence."
Facts on the firearms registry:
• Rifles and shotguns are the guns most often used in domestic violence, suicides, accidents and in the murder of police officers and account for a portion of the crime firearms seized. Testifying before a Parliamentary Committee, along with Toronto Police Service Police Chief William Blair last May, TPS Det. Nadine Teeft stated that over the past year and a half in Toronto, hundreds of people have been victims of retail armed robberies in which rifles and shotguns have been used.
• Gun control works: firearm death and injury have declined with stronger laws. Licensing gun owners and registering firearms reduces the chances these guns will fall into the hands of dangerous people.
• Recent polls have shown that two-thirds of Canadians support the registry. Even in rural areas, supporters equal opponents. While there are more gun owners in rural areas and more opposition to gun control there are also higher rates of firearm death and injury.
Rob Ford is one moronic fat fuck,isn't he?
The fact remains that the Gun Registry has never solved, nor prevented a single crime. Its supporters admit this, so they cite the "11,000 hits per day" statistic--a number generated automatically by a police computer software protocol, on police responses to everything to fender-benders to jaywalking incidents. And the Canadian Associatiation of Chiefs of Police supports the Registry, because they're its paid lobbyists: the CACP is funded by Registry IT contractor CGI. The Liberal Party also used to receive large donations from CGI. Coalition for Gun Control maven Wendy Cukier is also in this for money: her firm Telecon Consulting makes money off of Registry-related IT contracts, and she ILLEGALLY received a $380,000 grant from the Chretien government, to act as a paid government lobbyist.
The Registry and licensing system was recently tapped to confiscate about 2,000 firearms from law-abiding owners who had let their PALs/POLs lapse. Senior citizens were also subject to warrantless searches by Toronto Police, who were looking for 'unsafe storage' of firearms and the like. Somehow, this escaped the notice of 'progressives' alarmed at Chief Blair's thuggery during the G-20 protests. Blair made it very clear that fabricating laws and mass arresting G-20 protesters was crucial to public safety, too. And--as with the police who ignored violent Black Bloc protesters, while mass-arresting peaceful protesters--Blair's storm troopers have taken a strictly hands-off policy with regards to violent, gun-toting gangsters, like the ones who murdered Jane Creba.
"I have been working on gun control for more than 20 years now. During that time, every single Mayor of the city of Toronto and every Toronto City Council has stood behind gun control. The City of Toronto was an intervenor in defence of the firearms registry all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Toronto Police Services Board, the Toronto Chief of Police, the Toronto Medical Officer of Health, as well as Toronto based community groups, and victims of gun violence have fought hard to defend the firearms law. This is staggering."
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20 years of gun control and things only got worse. Handgun murders are up 25% since 2002, the year the government banned everything smaller than a 4" barrel. Do you think she might be doing it wrong?
Ford is right. Harrassing target shooters (Mayor Miller shut down all the ranges including the one Beijing Olympic Competitor Avianna Chao trained at.), hunters and farmers to fight gangs and drugs is stupid. The billion dollars ought to have gone to dismantling illegal drug markets and providing councilling and shelters for mentally ill people and victims of violence. After 20 years, it's obvious that Wendy Cukier's version of gun control is a huge waste of government resources and time. Cukier's finest achievements since 1995 had no effect on the 1977 to present secular trend of declining violence in Canada.
1. Stats Canada "Deaths Involving Firearms": http://www.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-bin/af-fdr.cgi?l=eng&loc=pdf/4194126-eng.pd...
2. Stats Canada "Homicide in Canada 2008" http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2009004/article/10929-eng.pdf
3 "Family Violence in Canada: A statistical profile 2009" http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/85-224-x2009000-eng.pdf
4 "Family Violence in Canada: A statistical profile 2008" http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/collection_2008/statcan/85-224-X/85-224-XIE20...
Meanwhile, Washington DC was forced to end their gun ban in 2008 and has enjoyed a 36% reduction in murder since then. Three decades of firearms prohibition in Chicago have only resulted in deliberations about whether to call in the National Guard in April, 2010. How does Ms, Cukier explain the ~7% per year drops in US homicide in the context of the largest gun buying sprees and relaxation of firearms law in US history? 40 states are now packing heat and crime is still dropping. I may not be comfortable with the idea, but my fears don't reflect the reality being proven there.
An example of a progressive (gay marriage, strict environmental laws, 'hippie' culture) is Vermont. That state has NO gun control: civilians can carry handguns without permits, civilians can own machine guns and there is no licensing, or registration (only a ban on bringing guns into schools). Vermont also has among the lowest gun crime rates in the country; contrast that to Illinois and especially Chicago, with licensing, registration, a handgun ban and a horrendous gun violence problem. Gun control is a REGRESSIVE agenda.
Like every other pet authoritarian power of Chief Blair and his CACP thugs, the Gun Registry is another tool in wannabe police-statists' toolbox. Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot and other authoritarian slimebags made civilian disarmament their first priority. And the group behind Canada's gun control lobby (funds the Coalition for Gun Control, etc.) and advisor to the Liberals and NDPs gun control policy, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), is funded by George Soros and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. How's THAT for a foreign, billionaire-funded lobby?
One might also look at before/after evidence in other countries. The gun control movement that Cukier and Peters spearheaded into IANSA has produced no positive results in UK or Australia, despite drastic restrictions. UK crime using guns has doubled in the decade since the gun ban of 1998. Australia cannot prove any net positive to the bans they emplaced there. Both countries had massive programs of civilian property confiscation and destruction in the late 1990s, and have nothing to show for it.
New Zealand registered all guns up to 1980 and then dropped the process as it was ineffective and expensive. What happened when they dropped registration (as Canada was set to do with Bill C-391)? Nothing. They saved money, time and effort. When IANSA lobbied for registration in New Zealand this year, they politely told Cukier (an IANSA board member on its strategic planning committee in 2004) and R. Peters (IANSA director and architect of Australian gun control), "No thanks".
Cukier and Peters do the work on domesc violence a grave injustice by making it all about guns. The "Disarm Domestic Violence" campaign simply diverts energy and focus on resolving domestic violence into focusing on the smallest part of the problem. Of 38,573 victims of 'violence causing the most serious injury to the victim in spousal violence incidents' in 2008, only 40 involved a firearm of any kind. Thinking that banning the implements used in 0.01% of domestic violence incidents will help in any significant way is preposterously myopic. Again, a billion dollars would go one hell of a long way, and so would 4 million (a figure which the newspapers admitted was a distortion, just days before the final vote killed Bill C-391).
1. UK Centre for Crime and Justice Studies: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/youngpeopleknivesandguns.html
2. "Family Violence in Canada: A statistical profile 2008" http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/collection_2008/statcan/85-224-X/85-224-XIE20...
How long will W. Cukier and company continue to misrepresent the facts to further their agendas? Yes, crime has gone down since 1995, but that trend started 15 years before Wendy Cukier did, and none of her work changed it for the better. She is careful to obfuscate on this point. We don't know why handgun violence went up 25% since Canada's mass handgun ban in 2002 (585,000 guns incl. everything with a barrel under 4" and all .25 and .32 cal pistols), but the very least you can say is the ban didn't help at all.
Note very carefully that Cukier does not mention whether the guns still being used in crime were done by licensees or with registered guns. If not, they are outside the system that Cukier created, and the system does not address that crime. She is careful to obfuscate on this point.
Note also that Ms. Cukier states that guns are used in suicides, but doesn't offer any proof that 20 years of her gun control work has reduced the number of suicides. That's because it hasn't. Again, Ms. Cukier is careful to obfuscate.
Wendy Cukier is a fraud. "Fraudulent" is the best word to describe her selective use of statistics and information with regard to the effectiveness of her illegitimate brainchild fathered by Allan Rock: the Firearms Act and the long gun registry.
To believe Cukier is to believe in magic. Cukier claims that violent crime and homicide by firearm have declined since the registry has been in place. That is complete nonsense. How is it possible that a 15 year old piece of legislation could account for a trend that began almost 20 years before in the mid-1970s? Cukier's argument is akin to drawing a line on a playground slide, at the halfway point of its length, and then claiming that a child's acceleration down that slide is due to the presence of the line. It's preposterous. But then of course, that's precisely the reason she only acknowledges statistical data from after the registry's imposition. Even then, somebody needs to remind her of a few things.
First off, 1995, when the FA was put into place, is not "year zero" as the trend she tries to claim credit for was already well established by this point. Also, registration did not become law until several years later in 2002. With respect to long guns recovered in "crime", Cukier and others of her ilk have been misleading the public for years.
Cukier and her enablers such as Bill Blair have always been trumpeting the number of firearms and especially dastardly long guns, of late, that have been "removed from the street" or "recovered in crime". These figures are also fraudulent.
When the current round of firearms legislation was being put into place, the RCMP refused to endorse the guns "recovered in crime" and "crime gun" figures publicized by the Liberals and Cukier. They did this because Cukier and the Liberals included in these figures, the mere presence of a firearm in police/public interactions. So, that meant, for example, that if officers responded to a noise disturbance and in the course of their interaction with the people involved, they observed a firearm that had nothing to do with why they were there, was perfectly legal, stored properly and so on, but was merely seen, and included in their notes/report, that information was added to the "crime guns" or "guns recovered in crime" list to pad the numbers. And again, for this reason, the RCMP refused to endorse these figures.
However, fast forward to today, and Cukier, Blair and others are still playing that game. Many of the guns "seized" and put on display have nothing to do with any type of criminal activity. Rather they come from people who's paperwork has lapsed, or that have been taken from estates and widows. Sometimes, they are not even real firearms, but are toys and other miscellaneous objects that are used to awe the uninformed. Witness Blair's antics during the G-20 summit.
Good on Rob Ford for not kow-towing to these sheisters.
Another irrational plea in defence of the indefensible. I refer of course to the long gun registry.
Some poor souls don't know the difference between gun control and registering rifles and shotguns.
Gun control is suppressing the 80 odd urban gangs in Toronto that are the market for illegal firearms. As long as there is a demand there will be a supplier. Guns are no different from alcohol, tobacco or drugs when it comes to demand and supply. Toronto before gangs did not have a gun problem. I know because I moved there in 1947!
Gun control is a system of personal licensing that vets applicants for criminal records and mental problems. Licensing tells the police who can legally own firearms and where they live.
Firearms registration is a list of guns only. It does not mean those firearms are at the licensee's residence or even how many firearms a licensee may possess at the moment.
Emotion, ignorance, fear and greed are the underlying arguments for maintaining a program that has absolutely failed to produce results beyond opinion and is a program devoid of any empirical study to support its claims.
Bill Blair and his Chiefs Association have profited by taking donations and perks from GCI the major registry contractor. No ethics with these boys. Blair has been rewarded by Miller with an unprecedented second term as Chief of Police because he was willing to do the dirty work necessary to further Miller's phoney war against guns. They haven't decreased the number of gangs or the demand with their attacks on legal firearms owners.
Crime and gangs will be a continuing problem in TO until the social roots of the problems are addressed. Where are the pro-registry politicians on the real problems? That would cost money and require a political will and ability. It is easier to attack the law abiding from a soapbox thus deflecting attention from the real issues.
Ms. Lumley unfortunately continues to be part of the problem as her emotion adds nothing to the debate and in fact hinders a solution. A gun may have been the tool that killed her son but the poor social conditions made the tragedy possible.
Ms. Cukier of the Coalition for Gun Control is more concerned with universal disarmament than crime in the streets. Her Coalition received about $500,000 from the then Liberal government to lobby that government on behalf or the Liberal's own gun registry. She is not even a criminologist by training. Her expertise is in communications. Check her out on the Ryerson website. Quoting Blair's and other unprovable opinions on the gun registry shows how bankrupt her arguments are.
Yes, Mr. Ford is on the right track on gun control.
It is hard to respect pro-registry opinion when it has NO basis in fact. Yet that is all we are offered. It is a proven fact that if a lie is told often enough then an opinion takes hold that it is a fact. So we have to call these people out when they spout their propaganda.
Well said zeister!
Rex Murphy thinks Ms. Cukier's work is full of crap too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XOmUXycDPs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--bHM3HhrQU