Angry in the Great White North

You wouldn't think the BBC would be a cheerleader for less gun control, but then the numbers are the numbers:

A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.

The research, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, has concluded that existing laws are targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals.

The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997 as a result of the Dunblane massacre, when Thomas Hamilton opened fire at a primary school leaving 16 children and their teacher dead.

Is the Liberal Party listening? Of course not.

The Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College in London, which carried out the research, said the number of crimes in which a handgun was reported increased from 2,648 in 1997/98 to 3,685 in 1999/2000.

It also said there was no link between high levels of gun crime and areas where there were still high levels of lawful gun possession.

Of the 20 police areas with the lowest number of legally held firearms, 10 had an above average level of gun crime.

And of the 20 police areas with the highest levels of legally held guns only two had armed crime levels above the average.

The BBC shows its bias a bit here. It says there is no link between high levels of gun crime and areas where there are still high levels of lawful gun possession. Actually, there is a link. It's the opposite of what gun control advocates want you to believe. When criminals are in an area where there is signficant gun ownership by the populace, they move on to other areas, disarmed areas, to commit crimes, knowing that in those areas, a criminal with a gun is always going to win.

"Policy makers have targeted the legitimate sporting and farming communities with ever-tighter laws but the research clearly demonstrates that it is illegal guns which are the real threat to public safety."

Well, duh. Legal weapons are, by definition, used legally.

This BBC report was from 1991. Maybe things have gotten better. Maybe after an initial surge, the police were able to get their act together and clamp down on gun crimes.

Not according to the British Home Office:

Contrary to public perception, the overall level of gun crime in the UK is very low – less than 0.5% of all crime recorded by the police.

Despite these figures, the number of overall offences involving firearms has been increasing each year since 1997/98. And crime involving imitation weapons was up 55% in 2004-05 compared to the previous year. (Source: Crime in England and Wales 2004/2005)

One of the things they've noticed -- an increase in the use of air weapons.

Of course, the Home Office page doesn't say it, but everyone knows why the Home Office is making a point of measuring gun crimes committed since 1997 -- the Dunblane massacre, refered to in the BBC report, and the subsequent wholesale ban of all handguns.

Now why can't Canada look at the UK experience and learn from it? Eight years of statistics in a country that is not unlike Canada in many ways, indeed a country that has many advantages in terms of controlling gun ownership, being a much smaller country and not sharing a border with the US. Yet despite these advantages, criminals are eagerly using illegally obtained weapons, despite the difficulty in obtaining them and the increased punishment if caught.

Why?

The answer is simple. Because of the handgun ban, the time and effort to get your hands on a handgun, and the increased risk in using it, is worth it to a criminal because of the enormous advantage it gives the criminal over the disarmed law-abiding citizen, as well as over other criminals not clever enough to get their hands on a handgun.

The same will happen in Canada. If you ban running, criminals will buy running shoes. If you ban handguns...