EVIDENCE LACKING ON HIGH, MEDIUM AND LOW PRIORITY GUN CONTROL TARGETS
OPEN LETTER #4 TO SENATORS: EVIDENCE LACKING ON HIGH, MEDIUM AND LOW PRIORITY GUN CONTROL TARGETS
Why are 443,043 convicted criminals prohibited from owning firearms by the courts allowed to roam Canada free of any of the government’s gun control programs? On November 24, 2004, Firearms Commissioner Bill Baker testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights: “On the change of address, if someone is prohibited from having a firearm in the country they are no longer effectively covered by the Firearms Act.” Maybe it’s time they should. By Dennis R. Young – February 5, 2019
WHAT HAS GUN CONTROL COST TAXPAYERS?
SUMMARY OF REPORTED FIREARMS PROGRAM SPENDING 1995 TO 2017
Highest Spending Amounts Reported = $1.79 Billion – Lowest Spending Amounts Reported = $1.60 Billion
PUBLIC SAFETY CANADA BACKGROUNDER: Costs and Crime Statistics
QUESTIONS GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO ANSWER
THE GUN BLOG: A CANADIAN APPROACH TO PUBLIC SAFETY
https://thegunblog.ca/2019/01/31/a-canadian-approach-to-public-safety-humour/
A CANADIAN APPROACH TO PUBLIC SAFETY (HUMOUR) TheGunBlog.ca – January 31, 2019 — Following is an imaginary conversation based on real laws for Canada’s 2.2 million men and women hunters, farmers and sport shooters with police authorizations to own guns.
Albert: If we want to improve public safety, what if we tracked the people who threaten it? We know a lot of them, but we won’t touch them.
Billy: Are you some un-Canadian unhinged authoritarian fascist Nazi-Communist alt-scumbag threat to democracy? We don’t treat people like that here. We respect their rights and freedoms, their privacy, their culture and way of life. We respect principles of law and justice like fair treatment, due process and innocent until proven guilty. What you suggest is immoral, unconstitutional and illegal.
Here’s what we do instead: https://thegunblog.ca/2019/01/31/a-canadian-approach-to-public-safety-humour/
RCMP FIREARMS PROGRAM 2016/2017: $53.7 MILLION AND 451 EMPLOYEES
RCMP FIREARMS PROGRAM SPENDING & STAFFING 2016/2017: $53.7 MILLION AND 451 FULL TIME EQUIVALENTS (FTE) – RCMP ATIP Response dated January 23, 2018 – Requested Dec 8, 2017 – Received January 29, 2019
DECEMBER 5, 2018 – IMPORTANT GUN CONTROL STATISTICS MISSING FROM RCMP FIREARMS COMMISSIONER’S REPORTS TO PARLIAMENT – The Liberal Government promised their policies and programs would be ‘evidence-based’. Unfortunately, the base of ‘evidence’ in support of federal firearms programs is sorely lacking. https://dennisryoung.ca/2018/12/05/evidence-based-firearms-statistics-desparately-needed
SENATORS DEBATE ATT AMENDMENTS IN BILL C-71
SENATOR PRATTE AND SENATOR PLETT DEBATE ATT AMENDMENTS IN BILL C-71 – E-mail exchange reveals lawful gun owners are the real targets of Bill C-71 – not crime guns and gangs. By Dennis R. Young – January 25, 2019
TEN YEARS OF RCMP AUTHORIZATION TO TRANSPORT (ATT) STATISTICS
RCMP ATIP Response dated January 16, 2019 – Received by Dennis R. Young January 22, 2019 ATT Statistics by Province, 2008 to 2017
- Total ATTs issued for Canada 2008 to 2017 = 992,139
- Total ATTs Refused = 17
- Total ATTs Revoked = 471
ONTARIO CFO COSTS OF PROCESSING & ISSUING ONE ATT IN 2017 = $2.16
THE GUN DEBATE IN CANADA: PT-2 – “ASSAULT WEAPONS”
THE GUN DEBATE IN CANADA: PT-2 – “ASSAULT WEAPONS”
“We will take action to get handguns and assault weapons off our streets”. Liberal Party of Canada website. Several statements about firearms use and misuse have been made by the governing Liberal Party of Canada, and by gun-control lobby groups even as the Liberal government mulls a complete ban on handguns and possibly also on so-called “assault weapons” which are modern semi-automatic sporting rifles. By RCI | english@rcinet.ca Monday 21 January, 2019 http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/01/21/the-gun-debate-in-canada-pt-2-assault-weapons/
RCMP: NO STATISTICS ON FIREARMS INTEREST POLICE (FIP) EVENTS
RCMP response to Access to Information Act Request dated January 11, 2019 – Received January 18, 2019 – Important statistics about firearms license holders who are ‘involved in an event involving violence or other offences’ are not tracked.
- No Statistics on the average time it took to initiate an investigation of a FIP event;
- No Statistics on the average time it took to complete the investigation of a FIP event;
- No Statistics on the number of FIP events that resulted in firearms being removed from possession of the licensed gun owner; and
- No Statistics on the average time it took from reporting of the FIP event to the firearms being removed from the possession of the licensed gun owner.
EXCERPT – CONTINUOUS ELIGIBILITY SCREENING OF FIREARMS LICENCE HOLDERS: “The Canadian Firearms Information System (CFIS) contains current and historical firearms licence holder data. If a licence holder is involved in an event involving violence (or other offences specified in Section 5 of the Firearms Act), it is reported in CPIC via a Firearms Interest Police (FIP) event and sent to the relevant CFO for review. Licence holders are regularly screened to assess their continuous eligibility to remain licensed. There were 29,487 FIP events in 2016 that were matched to a person with a firearms licence. (Table 8).” http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/2016-commissioner-firearms-report
NOTE: The number of FIP Events in 2017 were not reported in the RCMP Commissioner’s 2017 Report to Parliament http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/2017-commissioner-firearms-report
WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE CANADA’S GUN CONTROL PROGRAMS ARE WORKING?
Maybe Senators can get the answers that my Access to Information requests can’t? By Dennis R. Young – Updated: January 13, 2019
ONTARIO CFO DOES NOT TRACK FIREARMS INTEREST POLICE (FIP) STATISTICS
Important statistics about firearms license holders who are ‘involved in an event involving violence or other offences’ are not tracked. Ontario CFO FOIP Response dated December 31, 2018 – Received January 9, 2019 by Dennis R. Young.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
(A) RCMP AUDIT OF THE CANADIAN FIREARMS PROGRAM CONTINUUM OF ELIGIBILITY FOR FIREARMS LICENSING http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/audit-the-canadian-firearms-program-continuum-eligibility-firearms-licensing
(B) THE CANADIAN PRESS ARTICLE FIREARMS LICENCE SCREENING BACKLOGS POSE SAFETY RISKS: RCMP AUDIT – Excerpt: However, there were “significant delays in both initiating investigations and in the duration of eligibility investigations themselves.” For the 27 files in the sample that were still under review, an average of 331 days had passed since the incident in question. By Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press – Published Friday, November 16, 2018 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/firearms-licence-screening-backlogs-pose-safety-risks-rcmp-audit-1.4179698
(C) THE FIREARMS COMMISSIONER’S 2016 REPORT TO PARLIAMENT WHICH STATES: CONTINUOUS ELIGIBILITY SCREENING OF FIREARMS LICENCE HOLDERS: “The Canadian Firearms Information System (CFIS) contains current and historical firearms licence holder data. If a licence holder is involved in an event involving violence (or other offences specified in Section 5 of the Firearms Act), it is reported in CPIC via a Firearms Interest Police (FIP) event and sent to the relevant CFO for review. Licence holders are regularly screened to assess their continuous eligibility to remain licensed. There were 29,487 FIP events in 2016 that were matched to a person with a firearms licence. 8,408 FIP Events in Ontario (Table 8).” http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/2016-commissioner-firearms-report