Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and his fellow Liberal Party members in Canada, must be smoking something:

“I’ve come to the conclusion that significant change is needed. I’ve come to the conclusion that we should ban handguns,” Martin told a rally in one of the most violent areas of Toronto.

First, it would nice if something like some evidence was given to show how banning all handguns will reduce crime. In the U.S., it has become much easier for people to carry guns - and crime has gone down. Sure, a lot of other factors had a bigger impact on the falling crime rates. For example, the much higher imprisonment rates over the last decade surely had a big impact. But in states where right-to-carry laws have passed, crime has clearly not increased. In fact, John Lott’s research indicates that crime has actually dropped in those states.

In the Australia and the UK, which have recently passed very strict gun control laws - crime has been going steadily upward.

So it seems to me that the burden of proof is on people like Prime Minister Paul Martin to give examples of where gun control has been enacted and crime has dropped. Banning guns, where the result may be that the violent crime rate goes up, is very irresponsible. Just following the path of ideological purity is no justification. This involves the lives and safety of real Canadians, not just abstract righteous feel-good policies.

Also, free Canadians have a right to have handguns for self-defense just like Americans do. It is disturbing to think of our hardy northern neighbors being stripped of their guns by their government as if they are untrustworthy children.

Update: For a roundup of Canadian bloggers regarding this gun ban proposal, see here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2005 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Crime, Europe, UK, Canada, Guns, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. For Trackbacks to this post, use URL: http://nospeedbumps.com/wp-trackback.php?p=578