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h 2 >Control and Controversy Dan Barham 100032310 Soci 2723 11 / 30 / 1998? Firearms laws in Canada have become increasing restrictive over the past century. Permits were first required for carrying handguns outside of ones house in 1892. Carry permits for handguns grew restrictive until 1934 when handguns were registered.
Since that time, handgun registration became increasingly centralised. Bill C- 150 was introduced into the Canadian Criminal code in 1969. Bill C- 150 stated that, ? All automatic firearms, handguns, and firearms less than 66 cm (26 in) in length were classified as restricted firearms and required registration? Increased criminal penalties were introduced for possession and carrying of both registered and unregistered firearms. In 1976 the government enacted Bill C- 83.
Bill C- 83 required that prospective firearm purchasers first obtain a police permit and supply police with two character references. ? In 1977, Parliament passed C? 51 which, among other things, prohibited a number of firearms and introduced the Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC). Now in order to purchase, Canadians had to submit to police scrutiny before they could purchase any firearm. In 1991, Parliament passed C? 17, an omnibus firearm law. The government justified this legislation by the brutal murder of 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique by Marc Line. Among other things, C- 17 prohibited a number of semiautomatic firearms and restricted a number of other firearms.
It prohibited " high capacity" magazines, pawned bureaucratic rules for safe handling and safe storage, introduced " reverse onus" provisions for firearms applicants and a centralised training program for prospective firearms owners. Concomitant to C? 17, the Minister of Justice tightened up many procedures for dealing with firearms owners, including a lengthy new application form for the FAC. Despite the 1992 introduction of C? 17, the new Liberal Justice Minister vowed to introduce still more restrictive firearms laws after the 1993 federal elections. In November 1994, he introduced an outline of his planned legislation, and in February 1995, over the objections of many Liberal MPs, he introduced C? 68. Rushing this law through the House Justice Committee, the Justice Minister vowed he would not accept any amendments to his law. Thus, he rejected input from the Reform Party, the Bloc QuÉ bÉ coi's and even his own party.
Despite the largest protest ever mounted in the history of Canada, the House of Commons passed the law on June 13, 1995. It was passed through the Senate on November 22, 1995, and was proclaimed on December 5, 1995 in time for the sixth anniversary of the Montreal murders. Bill C- 68 requires that all firearms must be registered in a central database starting on Dec 1 and being passed in by 2003. All gun owners must have a license to possess a firearm by 2001. The registry will require the county? s estimated three million gun owners to register approximately seven million firearms.
It was initially slated to get underway next week, but the government announced Monday 16 th of November that the implementation of the database would be delayed two months because some police forces are not ready yet. The Government stated that the cost to register every rifle and shotgun in Canada would be $ 85 million spread over 5 years to do the whole job, of creating the database, and enacting all of the legislation, and to go through the registration process. It is now three years later since the inception of C- 68, the government has spent close to? $ 200 million and not a single firearm in the country has been registered in the database yet. Much of the opposition to the implementation of Bill C- 68, say that enough is enough.
The government is wasting time and millions of dollars on legislation that has no guarentee of affecting crime in Canada. ? Criminals are NOT affected by gun control systems. ? They do not apply for a permit to buy a gun, do not buy guns in stores, do not register guns, and, above all, NEVER go to the police station to apply for a permit to take a handgun down to the bank for the purpose of robbing the bank. ? ? ? ? ? ? Dave Tomlinson, member of NFA When it comes to the debate over whether or not firearms should even be permitted one of the major factors has been values. Values guide actions and beliefs. They influence perceptions of the world and allow us to make distinctions between " good" and " evil. " Values are culturally transmitted, often by parents, increasingly by the media.
In an important sense values are not open to discussion, they are articles of faith. Evidence contrary to an individuals values is generally ignored or rejected. People may change their minds about many things based on comparative evidence, but values tend to remain in place. When someone changes his or her values it is a dramatic personal event, sometimes termed a " conversion. " Values play an important, though often denied, role in gun control debates. Someone with anti-gun values is likely to support anything called gun control, some one with pro-gun values is likely to resist anything-called gun control. As a matter of intellectual consistency, values lead people to patterns of belief and assumptions about the workings of the world that they come to believe reflect the natural order of things, and are " common sense. " Two questions have been asked to determine basic values.
First: " Do you agree or disagree that Canadian citizens should have the right to own a firearm? " This question does not refer to the American Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, but just whether a Canadian should or should not have the right to own a firearm. Second: " Do you generally favour or oppose hunting? " Undoubtedly there are other basic values, which come into the issue, but the time or funds were lacking to ask about respect for life; security; self-preservation; self-reliance; or independence. The two questions, " right" and " hunt, " do, however, provide a powerful index of the underlying assumptions of the respondents. Support and opposition to gun control, smoke screens and partial analogies aside, depends to a great extent on views of the place of firearms in Canadian society. Some citizens have little or no tolerance for guns and arguments about recreational use or wildlife management are meaningless to them. Those who lawfully own firearms find the views of the first group incomprehensible.
However, the gun control debate is not carried on at the level of values to determine whether Canadians do or do not have the right to own firearms. It has often been conducted at the level of assumed outcomes, debating instead whether laws and regulations can affect violence against women, or death rates from homicide, suicide and accidents. Thus, it is never resolved. For the first party, statistics are irrelevant, as guns are bad in themselves. Arguments from firearm owners and their allies, who say that rates of misuse are not high and that regulations are ineffective, strike the first party as a self-serving cop out. Firearm owners have been reluctant participants in a debate that they feel they did not start.
They state that they were willing to follow the reasonable laws of C- 51 and C- 17 but felt betrayed when these actions did not end the debate and there was continuing movement towards further legislation. Canadas Aboriginals have been the wild cards in the debate. High rates of violence in some communities and an apparent willingness by a few of them to use firearms in disputes with government are confounded with treaty rights. Generally though the aboriginal firearms-use has constituted an unvoiced sub-text in the debate.
At the level of values, the basic question is whether or not Canadians have the right to own firearms. The position of Canadian gun owners is that they are not campaigning for " the right to keep and bear arms, " but for a restoration of the right to own and use firearms within a framework of reasonable laws. Those who believe in gun control and are supporting that side of the debate seem to be taking the more absolute position that firearms are not necessary in a law abiding society and no one should carry them at all. Values are an important factor in the gun control debate. Those who have anti-firearms values can be expected to support any measures, which restrict firearms use. Those who have pro-firearms values can be expected to oppose these measures.
Logic and reason are of little use when it comes to values. Emotion and a sense of right and wrong are the foundations of value disputes. Just as partisans in the abortion debate are seldom converted by the arguments of the opposition, those who have pro and anti firearm values are probably not open to argument, and are unlikely to be swayed by the arguments of the other side. Two basic value conflicts in the gun control debate are over the right to own firearms and opinions on hunting.
When these two positions are combined into a single measure the outlines of the value conflict become clear. On one side we have Canadian urbanites, and non-gun owners. On the other side are those are rural residents, and gun owners. While one may find a non-gun owning Montreal resident who supports the right to own a firearm and favours hunting, or a rural prairie resident who thinks no one should have the right to own a gun or hunt, they are often exceptions to the general rule. Much of the gun control debate reflects these values, and while people may talk of the techniques or effectiveness of gun control, they are often simply voicing their value positions. ?
Where do we go from here, ? seems to be the important question that we deal with now. Is Bill C- 68 a valuable piece of legislation, or should it be turfed and forgotten just like a long list of other government programs gone wrong. Or is Bill C- 68 a piece of legislation that even though it has cost us more then we originally believed a piece of legislation that will bring us one step closer to a crime free society?
One thing is for sure however, the gun control debate in this country is far from over.
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