Opinion: The evidence simply doesn't support calls for gun bans in Canada by Zinalben Shaileshbhai Gamit

1.Handgun homicides continued to rise after Canada’s 1995 ban on more than half of all legally registered handguns (4th paragraph).

n01622585_ — 2023-11-14 22:43:58 UTC

1. The country’s buyback program caused more than 700,000 firearms to be handed in and destroyed, reducing the number of legally owned guns from 3.2 to 2.5 million between 1996 and 1997. But since then, the increase in privately-owned guns has outpaced population growth by a factor of three. The number now stands at 5.8 million(7th paragraph).

n01622585_ — 2023-11-14 22:45:59 UTC

2.The same numbers for the U.S. were 4.6 per cent of the population and 1.1 per cent of the mass shootings, so it is also much safer than the average country(10th paragraph).

n01622585_ — 2023-11-14 22:47:09 UTC

2.Murder rates more than tripled after Ireland’s 1972 ban. In Jamaica, they went up six-fold after a 1975 ban(5th paragraph).

n01622585_ — 2023-11-14 22:52:30 UTC

n01622585_ — 2023-11-14 22:55:48 UTC

1.According to gun control advocates’ logic, Australia’s buyback should have been followed by a sudden drop in firearm homicides and suicides. After all, access to legal guns ought to have been greatly diminished. Gun control advocates would then have predicted a slow increase in firearm deaths as the ownership rate increased again. No such thing occurred. Firearm homicides and suicides were falling for 15 years prior to the buyback, and fell more slowly after the buyback.So there is no evidence that the buyback actually caused the fall, but it may look that way in the absence of historical context(8th paragraph).

n01622585_ — 2023-11-14 22:57:14 UTC

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation defines a mass public shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot to death in a public place, excluding gang fights and guerilla warfare. The murders also cannot have occurred in the commission of another crime such as robbery (9th paragraph).

n01622585_ — 2023-11-14 23:40:25 UTC

1.Whether we look at all countries or only at developed ones, we find that nations where gun ownership is more common tend to have lower homicide rates and lower rates of death from mass public shootings. That’s because armed citizens are able to defend themselves and stop attacks in crowded, public places. Every single mass public shooting on record in Canada has occurred in areas with gun prohibitions. In the United States, that’s true of 98 per cent of attacks. It’s no wonder, since many mass killers intentionally pick targets where people can’t defend themselves. (11th paragrph).