Gun Control: Placing Costs in Context

For much of past two years, advocates of firearm licensing and registration have been attacked by hunters, gun lobbyists, and others concerned about soaring government costs of federal program. And in December 2002 Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, released a report that was sharply critical of these increased costs. Dubbed the billion-dollar registry by its opponents, it has been quite fairly estimated that program will have cost more than $1 billion by 2005, 10 years after its inception (Mauser 2001). What has typically escaped notice, however, is that Auditor General Fraser was not prepared to make any statements about effectiveness of program in her December 2002 report, noting, did not audit program efficiency or whether it is meeting its objectives (Canada, Department of Justice 2002: para. 10.21). It is task of Auditor General to point to budgetary anomalies, not to examine relative efficacy of government programs. The rate of firearm death in Canada Between 1989 and 1999 rate of firearm death in Canada dropped from 5.0 per 100,000 to 3.3 per 100,000; this figure included not only declines in culpable homicide but also declines in accidents and suicides. Changes to firearm regulation, beginning in 1978 and culminating in 1995 approval of Canadian Firearms Program, predate these declines. Admittedly, however, it is very difficult to determine whether there is a cause-effect relationship between legislative and regulatory changes and incidence of firearms deaths in Canada. We have only a correlation, and, as critics note, most of decline in firearms deaths occurred prior to 1995, date of implementation of Canadian Firearms Program. With cases of firearms homicides, we also have to acknowledge demographic shift resulting from baby boom generation passing into middle age in both Canada and United States: there are fewer young men in population, and there is, correspondingly, less culpable homicide of all kinds in both countries. But a demographic shift alone cannot explain dramatic decrease in all firearms deaths between 1989 and 1999. For example, significant declines in suicides with firearms cannot be linked to life cycles of baby boomers; suicides are most commonly carried out by elderly men, a demographic grouping rarely associated with culpable homicides involving firearms. It is probably more appropriate to think of decline in rate of firearm death as a reflection of cultural change, rather than as a direct consequence of one specific law. We are becoming a culture less tolerant of guns, images of violence that they tend to represent, and damage that they can do; we are increasingly aware of harms that they are associated with and understandably eager to place limits upon their presence in our daily lives. The changing law has served as a catalyst for, and as a reflection of, these sympathies. We license and register cars; many gun owners can understand corresponding logic. If society requires a licence to operate a vehicle, and appropriate registration of each vehicle, why should a gun, another potentially dangerous commodity, be any different? In fact, as of close of 2002, more than 70% of gun owners had registered their weapons; among majority of non-gun-owners, there is overwhelmIng public support for both licensing and registration (Canada NewsWire 2002). Moreover, in support of this hypothesis of cultural shift, there is evidence that rates of gun ownership have been declining in Canada during 1990s (GPC Research 2001). There is also evidence within Canada of a relationship between extent of gun ownership and extent of firearms deaths: provinces with higher rates of firearm ownership are statistically more likely to have higher rates of firearm death. Two specific areas of concern have emerged from criticisms of licensing and registration: (a) extent of benefits that we collectively realize from Canadian Firearms Program and (b) thorny issue of increased costs and future expenses. …

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