gun deaths | Geoffrey & Mika

A shooting at a sawmill in Nanaimo, British Columbia on April 30, 2014, has left two men dead and two in the hospital recovering from gunshot wounds. The gunman, a 47-year-old former employee, is in custody. The murder weapon is a shotgun. I will not be surprised if prohibitionists use this tragedy to step up their complaints that it is the “availability of guns,” that it is too easy to get a gun, as to what is to blame for such incidents. “Availability” or “access to guns” is commonly held as a problem in the ranks of prohibitionists who tirelessly assert this claim. Researchers have tried to test this theory that there is a causal link between the availability of guns and deaths and injuries by gun. The difficulty for researchers studying this theory is in generating data that can be tested using scientific research methods. However, their inability to find a causal link between the availability of guns and deaths and injuries by gun has not stopped prohibitionists from advancing their belief that such a relationship exists. Continue reading →

I try to tune out the white noise that is generated by assorted gun prohibitionists as I learned there is nothing to gain in engaging in futile quarrels with them. Certainly, it bothers me when they spout their nonsensical assertions and point their fingers at hunters, sport shooters and collectors, spewing vitriol and denouncing them as the enemies of humankind. I always knew there were people who disapproved of gun ownership and hunting, but thought of it as their problem. If you do not like guns, do not keep them and if you disapprove of hunting, do not go hunting and if you are a landowner, you are free to post your property against hunting. If only it were that simple. In reality, however, Canada’s gun owners find themselves in a very precarious position. Beginning with the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69 (S.C. 1968-69, c. 38) in 1969, continuing with amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada, Bill C-51 in 1978, Bill C-17 in 1991 and Bill C-68 in 1995, Canada’s gun owners are now saddled with the Canadian Firearms Act. In the span of 26 years, Canada’s gun owners have seen their freedoms to own and use their property for lawful and safe past-times such as hunting and sport shooting, drastically curtailed and the character of the gun owner defamed brazenly by an array of public and non-governmental associations. Continue reading →