Column: Guns aren’t the problem
Date: Sep 21, 2006 9:44 AM
PUBLICATION: The Daily News (Halifax)
DATE: 2006.09.21
SECTION: Perspective
PAGE: 15
BYLINE: Blackburn, Lisa
ILLUSTRATION: mourning: Candice Stark (left) and Stephanie
Scappaticco,from nearby LaSalle College, hold hands last week as they
visit a memorial of flowers outside the Dawson College Atrium where
gunman Kimveer Gill went on a shooting spree.
WORD COUNT: 719

————————————————————————
——–

Guns aren’t the problem

————————————————————————
——–

In the circles I travel in, there’s not much opportunity to see a gun,
let alone have the chance to fire one. There are no hunters in my
family, no police officers and other than the rumours of a mob boss from
a couple of generations ago, no guns were even in the home growing up.
It was with that naivete I approached my first opportunity to handle a
gun. After an invitation from the RCMP, I ventured to the shooting range
where officers train and brush up on their gun skills.

Suited up in a bullet-proof vest and versed on the strict rules of
conduct, I was allowed to pick up the weapon for the first time. It was
a service revolver that all Mounties are issued. I don’t even know
enough to be able to tell you what kind of gun it was. It wasn’t a
shotgun – that I know – but other than that, I couldn’t tell you if it
was a 9 mm or a Smith and Wesson or a Magnum P.I. It was heavy and felt
awkward in my hand.

The biggest challenge was keeping it from quivering in my grip. Shooting
off a round wasn’t as simple as pulling the trigger. Finding your aim
wasn’t easy and keeping it was even harder once the trigger was pulled.
The sheer power of the bullet flying out of the chamber could be enough
to break a finger if the gun wasn’t being held properly. Not to mention
the heat of the bullet casing, especially if it flies out and down into
your top.

Protect your life

The Canadian Firearm Centre reports that individual Canadians legally
own 520,000 handguns. Under the current system, handguns are prohibited,
but people are allowed to possess a restricted firearm for target
practice, target-shooting competitions, to form part of a collection or,
in rare cases, for employment purposes or to protect your life. Those
Canadians would have needed proof as to why a handgun was necessary,
including Kimveer Gill.

The 25-year old committed unspeakable horrors at Montreal’s Dawson
College last week, but guns had nothing to do with it. The cries for gun
control can be heard from all corners the moment a gun related death is
reported. But Statistics Canada says in 2004, 27.7 per cent of Canada’s
622 homicides involved some sort of gun, down from 31 per cent three
years earlier. Guns weren’t the problem, Kimveer Gill was.

It wouldn’t have mattered what the weapon of choice was. Gill’s guns
were all registered and legal, but even without as much as a water
pistol at his disposal, Gill would have found a way to do what he did.
Gill had no intentions of coming out of the situation alive. The death
and injuries he caused could have been inflicted by a car speeding
through a bus stop or with a machete. No one would dream of calling for
a ban on cars or camping axes.

In the United States, they have the right to bear arms, so there’s no
shortage of weapons lingering along the 49th parallel that can leak into
Canada. None of those weapons will ever be registered. An improperly
stored gun can fall into the wrong hands or be stolen. The drug dealer
who swipes it won’t care if it’s registered. Guns are a reality of the
world we live in. There’s no turning back time and there’s no way to
wipe them off the face of the earth.

That’s why a gun registry will never work. Those in favour of it sold us
on the concept that registering guns would protect us from the Kimveer
Gill’s of the world. They poured $2 billion of our money into the
boondoggle and 20 people still got shot last week from bullets fired
from Gill’s registered weapons. It was, and is, nothing more than an
expensive smokescreen to make us think something is being done about gun
control. But there is no controlling hatred, and that was Kimveer Gill’s
motivating factor.