The Honourable Justin Trudeau
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada
K1A 0A6
justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca
Dear Sir,
RE: Firearm Legislation
I can
demonstrate clearly that there is no justification for the most recent
government gun control initiatives. When the issue is contextualized to
societal risks generally, a person legally owning a firearm of any kind fails
to make muster as a justification for a governmental intrusion on the right to
own a firearm. There is a fulsome body of law in relation to property rights
and the expropriation of same. There is also a long-standing cultural and
(British / Canadian) legal tradition dating back 400 years in support of
citizen ownership of firearms. Further, and more importantly, Section 7 of the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms is excited in relation to this matter, both
under the rubric of liberty generally and security of person. Further again,
Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is excited, as these
government actions unjustifiably discriminate against an unenumerated class of
people. Please, let me reason with you, please consider the
following.
Excerpt from my
recent book – On Canadian Governance
A useful
concept to use to consider in relation to gun control is called
the “Availability Heuristic Salient” (AHS). In instances where the
AHS affects public opinion, the ease of imagining an example or the vividness
and emotional impact of that example becomes more credible than the actual
statistical probability. Because an example is easily brought to mind or
mentally "available", the single example is considered representative
of the whole, rather than as just a single example in a range of data. Salient
events tend to distort the judgement of risk.
Click Here: Emergencies Measures Act Charter Right Concerns
There are
issues where Availability Heuristic Salient drives policy that is detached
from mathematical reality and this distorts
public perception and the political process, one
such policy area is gun control. People who are unfamiliar with firearms are
intimidated by them. They hear about mass shootings on television, they see
movies with guns going off. They have
repeated exposure to the most extreme outcome of firearm use and the pro-gun
control lobby uses the high level of saliency to support, what is truly an
irrational position.
The
government of Canada spent approximately 2.7 billion dollars on a long gun
registry. Then, in 2012 the long gun registry was scrapped with no significant effect on public safety – 2.7 billion dollars
wasted. The government of Canada at the time of writing, is embarking on the
banning of certain classes of firearms and implementing a freeze on handguns. The
ban on certain classes of firearms involves a “buyback” program – the total
cost of which ranges from 2.6 to 6.7 billion dollars according to a Fraser
Institute article written July 30, 2021.
Click Here: Military Preparedness
According to
Statistics Canada “In 2020, police reported a total of 743 homicide victims in
Canada or a rate of 1.95 per 100,000 population. For 277 of these victims, a
firearm was used to commit the homicide (for a rate of 0.73 homicides per
100,000 population). “Overall, one in four (25%) female victims of
firearm-related violent crime were victimized by a current or former spouse or another
intimate partner.”
|
Deaths (Risk) / 100,000 |
|
|
Cause of Death |
Rate / 100,000 |
|
Female IPD (Intimate
Partner Deaths) |
0.046 |
|
Female Deaths by
Firearms |
0.180 |
|
Firearm Deaths
Excluding Suicide |
0.180 |
|
Total Deaths by
Firearms |
0.730 |
|
Motor Vehicle Fatalities |
4.600 |
|
50-Years or Older
Male – Aspirin |
10.400 |
|
Suicide |
10.600 |
|
Opioid- and
Stimulant-related Harms |
19.500 |
|
Medically
Preventable Accidents |
66.000 |
|
Tree Falling (Occupational
Risk in the United States) |
357.000 |
In Canada, 277 people per year are killed in gun-related incidents (one
would be too many) yet we are spending as much as $8 billion on gun control and
nothing on a medical records system when in Canada 25,000 people die each year
from preventable medical accidents. In the context of rational thought, medical
accidents should be our priority.
Here are a few points to illustrate how politicization distorts response
to real-world problems. There is no factual support that the Canadian public
will be safer because of the billions spent on gun control, yet the government
is doing it anyway. The legally restricted guns and their some 2,000,000 owners
represent no threat to the safety of the public. The portion of Canadians that
are gun owners, regardless of what kind of firearm they own represent no threat
to public safety. Yet the government is bent on confiscating private property
and intruding on gun owners' most fundamental rights. This issue has been
political in the extreme for generations – liberals supporting gun control,
conservatives against gun control. Gun control policy is most strongly
supported by the urban female voter, and gun control as a wedge issue excites
the respective party bases. The fact is, gun ownership is a non-issue, no one
needs to spend time on it.
To further illustrate how costly this phenomenon is, let's take a moment
to think about what might be done with the funds that are being wasted due to
the public’s map of reality being distorted – $8 billion would provide $100,000
to 80,000 Autism kids, a Japanese company in India built the equivalent of a
Vancouver to Hope rapid transit line for approximately $8 billion, we could
provide 16,000 $500,000 forgivable business start-up loans, we could start a
bond return augmentation program to incent innovation in key industries like
environmentally friendly products and services, we could put $2 Million toward
4000 first nation water systems … you’re getting the picture. I've used gun
control as an example above, but there are many other examples to draw from, a
fact that amplifies the damage being done.
A Case for Self Defence
Why, in
Section 7 Declaration of Rights of 1688, was self-defence recognized as valid
(then directed to protestants, in contemporary Canada it would apply to all). And
then again, why, in 1892 was self-defence considered a valid reason to lawfully
carry a handgun and in 2023 self-defence has fallen by the wayside. Whether one
is threatened by a rabid animal or a homicidal person, the threat is there in
the moment, and the 10-minute response time of the police is unhelpful. The fact
is, the police are unable to protect against these sorts of threats, and citizens
are left to fend for themselves. This is an unacceptable circumstance, the
right to life and security of a person must be attended to by the state, if the
state is unable to attend to the section seven rights of citizens, it must
permit citizens to attend to them on their own accord and by their own good
judgement. This is especially true in remote locations such as farms etc.
Self-defence
is a valid reason to have a firearm, defending one’s life is a right and
defending the life of another is a moral obligation. This value is expressed in
the United Nations doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, while directed at
state scale instances, the moral obligation to protect remains valid at the
individual level.
Rather than
making people, women, into victims that must wait for help, we should be
empowering them to defend themselves and others, as they do in so many countries
around the world. With correct training, a civilian can be as effective and
safe in the use of a firearm as a police officer. Had we taken this attitude and
taught the women victims of the Polytechnique shooting how to care for
themselves it is likely some, if not all, would be with us today. England, with
very strict gun control laws, had a higher rate of gun crime through a period of
IRA violence than the US – when people decide to do something illegal and a firearm
is their chosen means to execute, they find guns - there will always be a man with a gun.
The attitude
that accompanies the insistence that state actors are the only people qualified
to attend to this most personal challenge, is part of the devolution of the
individual’s standing in Canada. There is a greater insistence by the government to
force people to depend on officialdom rather than to be self-reliant. This is a
dangerous trend because, in matters related to self-defence the state is unable
to effectively respond to certain types of threats that befall an individual -
no matter how committed a police officer is, they can only drive a car so fast,
and most acts of violence occur in an instant.
The
Government’s Insistence on “Disarming” People is a Trigger – A case for
returning to the status quo.
Many people are concerned by the government’s insistence on “disarming” people, particularly
in the face of there being no data to support the government’s actions. The
imposition of the gun registry and its subsequent removal in 2012 indicated no
marked impact on public safety in having it or not having it. The recent spat of gun violence in Toronto for example has
been the product of illegal guns in the hands of criminals. The legal gun
community is almost entirely absent in the illegal use of firearms.
” Indeed,
there are more than two million PAL holders in Canada; each one has been vetted
by the RCMP and is checked nightly for any violation through the “continuous
eligibility screening” program. Firearm owners are also exceptionally
law-abiding. PAL holders are less likely to commit murder than other Canadians.
Between 2000 and 2020, the number of PAL holders accused of homicide varied
from 6 to 21, averaging 12 accused per year out of approximately 2 million PAL
holders. The number of PAL holders increased from 1,979,054 to 2,206,755 over
this same time period, so the annual rate over 20 years was 0.63 accused per
100,000 PAL holders.”
Fraser Institute November 25, 2022
This reality
is triggering a negative reaction, a fearful reaction in some cases, in this otherwise
exceptionally law-abiding group many are
perceiving an injustice.
Conclusion
We are at a
critical juncture in Canada, a confluence of factors has emerged: post-Covid
realities, the fragmentation of our national narrative and societal fissures
that have emerged from these events, the “real” two solitudes in Canada - rural
and urban are diverging rapidly and, finally, the events in Ukraine are driving
the imperative to vigorously prepare for national defence. The gun control
initiatives of the present government are serving to amplify division
generally. Furthermore, the gun control
initiatives are attacking and alienating the very law-abiding citizens who
possess the fortitude and predilection to come to arms should it be required. The
funds that will be consumed by this effort should proceed would be better
directed at any number of initiatives – this type of expenditure on what one
can only deduct to be political pandering is irresponsible.
There are no
grounds by which the government can assert that it is fair, sound and
reasonably necessary to confiscate private property in the form of firearms
from law-abiding citizens. These people are exemplarity citizens, vetted for
criminality and with a longstanding track record of responsible firearm ownership.
Whether these individuals have a 3 or 30-shot clip, an automatic weapon or a
single shot or a handgun, their presence is benign; this fact is clearly
demonstrated by the data. The legal gun owners of Canada are being discriminated
against due to the politicization of the issue distorting the map of reality of
the body general. The data is clear that the risk associated with gun ownership
as has been the status quo post-2012 warrants no further government
intervention when you contextualize the very limited risk of legal gun
ownership with the full breadth of human endeavour.
Please
reconsider your actions in this regard.
Kind Regards,
Neil E.
Thomson
