Not a toy …
a gun is for killing
Beneath
the Surface
by
Elizabeth Champion
The individual who buys a gun is equipped to kill something—to
take life, animal or human. Guns are made to kill.
That is their function.
The motivations
for possessing a gun are varied: a feeling of power; the illusion of security;
reassurance of masculinity; a primeval, atavistic hunting instinct; even a
perverted form of social status. Men used to wear swords and carry daggers
but most of them outgrew this ancient practice, at least in the social milieu,
if not the military.
The current
public outrage at the cost of gun registration has little to do with the feasibility
of gun control and everything to do with government mismanagement. A car driver
must obtain a licence, a reality of modern life that is taken for granted
and which has not resulted in a major financial bungle. Officials who have
been involved in gun registration must be held accountable, right up to the
finance department. The taxpayer is owed an explanation of what went wrong
and why.
Using a powerful
semi-automatic assault rifle, the Ruger Mini-14, a man entered l’École
Polytechnique in Montreal and shot 27 people in 20 minutes. Fourteen young
women died. The date sears the memory. December 6, 1989.
Heidi Rathjen
bears the emotional scars of that terrible day. She was 21 at the time, an
engineering student at the school. Heidi laid aside her grief and her career
to focus on the future. What must be done? How shall we do it?
The traumatized
students and teachers at the school immediately organized a Canada-wide petition
for gun control. By March, 1990 there were half a million signatures. Ms.
Rathjen was asked to administer the process, as well as do research on draft
legislation for presentation to Parliament.
In 1989 a gun
buyer paid $10 for a Firearms Acquisition Certificate. The law required the
potential gun owner to be 16 or older, without a criminal record and mentally
fit. The legislation passed in 1991 in response to the Montreal Massacre was
Bill C-80. The changes to the existing law were feeble and inadequate. The
Uzi and the AK-47 were simply reclassified as “restricted”, as
with handguns. Possession of these weapons involved merely filling out a second
form. The Ruger Mini-14 used to kill the 14 women was not on this restricted
list. In spite of the weakness of this bill, Jean Charest, MP in the federal
cabinet, opposed the gun control legislation.
Ms. Rathjen
reacted to this political appeasement of the gun lobby by launching a movement,
the Coalition for Gun Control with co-founder, Wendy Cukier, a Toronto professor.
Together these courageous, dedicated women worked tirelessly over many years
to promote public awareness of of gun-related violence. They gained the support
of hundreds of organizations and institutions, among them the Canadian Association
of Chiefs of Police; the Canadian Police Association; municipalities; churches;
universities; teacher associations; boards of education; and respected social
groups of many kinds. In addition the Coalition for Gun Control numbers thousands
of individual supporters.
The Coalition
has received reinforcement from the on-going tragedies that are reported in
the press. The Columbine high school massacre in 1999 was one of the worst
of similar juvenile crimes. There was another shooting in Montreal on December
12, 1992 when four Concordia professors were murdered. One-third of gun deaths
are women. Community gang wars thrive on weapon availability and bystanders
are often caught in the crossfire. A particularly disturbing phenomenon on
major highways is the drive-by shooting—mindless, random killings for
killing’s sake. In the US the annual statistics involving handguns are:
12000 suicides; 9000 murders; 1000 fatal accidents. (Josh Sugarmann: NRA:1992)
Because of
the work of the Coalition and its supporters, Canada’s Gun Law (C-17
and C-68) is an improvement over C-80 of 1991. In spite of propaganda to the
contrary by those antagonistic to gun control, the Gun Law has achieved notable
successes. License screening has stopped over 7000 potentially dangerous people
from owning guns. Police across Canada consult the Federal Gun Registry, accessing
the data base 2000 times every day in their investigations.
A nation that
has high standards of gun control is unfortunately the prey of gun runners.
More than 50% of handguns recovered by crime investigators were smuggled into
Canada, most from the US.
Canadians live
next to a country that has a gun fixation. This dangerous obsession is related
to myths about the American Revolution, Paul Revere, the citizen-soldier and
the constitutional right “to bear arms”. Guns are venerated objects,
part of a cultural mystique that is bolstered by film, television and video
games. A conservative estimate places gun ownership in the US at 70 million;
the number of firearms at more than 200 million. There are 20 million hunters.
Half of all households own a gun. Hundreds of thousands of firearms in every
category are exported: rifles, revolvers, pistols, shotguns, machine guns.
In the year 1989, US manufacturers made four million non-military firearms.
(M. Di Canio: Encyclopedia of Violence: 1993) Gun-making is a lucrative industry.
As with most
problems of this century, a solution demands global measures. For example,
a semi-automatic pistol originally sold for $600 in Georgia, US, which has
lenient gun control laws, might sell for as much as $1500 in Massachusetts,
a state with strict gun laws. Smuggling is thus encouraged and nations with
effective gun laws are the targets of illicit trafficking. (M. Di Canio: E.
of V.)
The influence
of the National Rifle Association crosses the Canadian border. Founded in
1871 by former Civil War army officers for the encouragement of competent
firearm use, the Association has grown to a membership of three million. The
NRA is staunchly supported by the gun manufacturers and by those shadowy groups
for whom guns are primary tools of operation. It has a war-chest of millions,
giving it financial and political influence, enabling it to use the media
and to pressure politicians into voting against gun control legislation. Intimidation
and even death threats have been used to coerce recalcitrants. In 1986 these
self-appointed “defenders of freedom”
opposed a ban on ‘cop-killer’ bullets
designed to pierce bullet-proof vests, a position that brought the police to the side
of advocates of gun control. The friends and supporters of the NRA include
celebrities, congressional leaders and US presidents. Nevertheless recent
polls indicate that a majority of Americans support gun control.
To individuals
who are immune to the seduction of the gun ‘culture’, a gun is
an abhorrent object. Likewise the sight of the gun store with its array of
shiny, polished weapons. Death for sale.
If the human
species ever evolves out of its killing stage, the commercialization of death
will cease. Meanwhile in Canada, the Coalition for Gun Control works to protect
civil society from the worst effects of gun worship.
Contact the
Coalition for Gun Control, 1488 Queen Street W., P.O. Box 90062, Toronto,
Ont., M6K 1L0 or visit www.guncontrol.ca
