B.C. has enough firearms to equip one in five
Date: Feb 13, 2007 8:10 AM
PUBLICATION: Vancouver Sun
DATE: 2007.02.13
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: A1 / FRONT
ILLUSTRATION: Map: Guns across Canada Number of guns per 1,000 people.;

BYLINE: Doug Ward
SOURCE: Vancouver Sun
NOTE: Ran with fact box “Where the guns are”, which has been appended
to
the end of the story.
WORD COUNT: 452

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B.C. has enough firearms to equip one in five

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There are nearly 850,000 registered firearms in B.C. — enough to arm
one out of every five people in the province, according to the Canada
Firearms Centre.

The vast majority of guns registered with the national gun registry are
owned by people in rural B.C., where hunting is a popular recreation.

But firearms are popular with many urban British Columbians. Of the
101,503 handguns in the province, 6,035 are in the Vancouver V6 postal
code, which is roughly downtown, east to Clark Drive, and the west side.
The same postal code also accounts for 44 submachineguns.

There are 31,140 prohibited guns in B.C., a category of ownership which
includes automatics, specific models of handguns and sawed-off shotguns.

Gun ownership in B.C. is the third-lowest of all provinces on a per
capita basis with 217 guns per 1,000 people, followed by Ontario (193)
and Prince Edward Island (177), according to the Canada Firearms Centre.

But the low per capita ownership shouldn’t be viewed as a sign that guns
aren’t popular in B.C., said Blair Hagen, vice-president of the National
Firearms Association of Canada.

“I think the numbers are deceiving if it gives people the impression
that guns are not part of the culture of British Columbia,” added Hagen,
who sells guns at Lever Arms Service in Vancouver.

Hagen said that sales of guns are up, along with participation in guns
shows, shooting ranges and gun clubs.

He said that gun culture has grown despite the regulations introduced by
the Firearms Act. Indeed, he added, media controversy over the
legislation sparks an interest in gun ownership.

Hagen said that handguns are very popular in urban B.C. “People in urban
areas don’t have the opportunity to hunt so they take up handguns and
use them at ranges and participate in target-shooting sports.”

Simon Fraser University professor Gary Mauser, a sharp critic of the
national gun registry, believes gun ownership in B.C. is much higher
than the registry’s statistics would indicate.

Mauser said B.C. has had a high number of hunters and target-shooters
relative to other provinces.

The SFU professor said that he conducted a survey on guns in B.C. in the
late1990s and found that the province had one of the highest rates of
ownership in Canada.

“I am skeptical about these numbers,” said Mauser. “The other question
here is what percentage of hunters and target-shooters in B.C.
registered their firearms.

“My earlier estimate on a national basis was that about half of gun
owners registered their firearms. Perhaps, British Columbians have a
lower rate of registration.”

Const. Shinder Kirk of the Integrated Gang Task Force, said the number
of legally-owned guns in B.C. does not concern law enforcement.

“We know there is a very large hunting and target-shooting community out
there,” said Kirk.

“What we are concerned with is the number of semi-automatic handguns
that are making their way on to the street.

“This seems to be the weapon of choice — the kind of gun that police
across the region are seizing from criminal elements.”

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WHERE THE GUNS ARE

There are more than 849,000 registered firearms in British Columbia.

Here’s how legal gun ownership breaks out by the first two letters of
B.C. postal codes:

Postal code Total guns Handguns Prohibited guns Full automatic
prohibited

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !