GUN VIOLENCE: WARNING SHOTS THAT SHOULD BE HEARD

Two decades Ago, more fatal stabbings than shootings were recorded in Regina. No more

The year 1999 was something of a watershed in Regina’s crime scene.

That was when, for the first time in at least a decade, someone in this city was more likely to be killed at gunpoint than at the point of a knife.

Regina recorded four homicides in that final year before the 2000s arrived. And three of those four victims died from gunshot wounds. One of those deaths was an absolute tragedy in all that word entails, an 18-year-old woman seated in a car, an unintended victim of a shot from a hunting rifle fired drunkenly and randomly through a car window. The judge, who sentenced the shooter for manslaughter, called the young woman a “blameless victim” and chastised her killer for his careless storage of a firearm that facilitated the commission of the crime.

Until those shooting deaths in 1999, none of the 53 homicide victims in Regina for the decade before that, between 1988 and 1998, had died from a gunshot. In fact, the last fatal shooting in the city before 1999 was in June 1987.

As a self-confessed crime statistic nerd, the change stood out for me. Not only was this city seeing more people die from a bullet wound, but there was also an increasing number of close calls that year — a couple of nonfatal, drive-by shootings and one incident in which a police car was peppered with bullets.

At that time, the head of the Regina police major crimes division told me knives still remained the weapon of choice on Regina streets, even if that wasn’t the case for that particular year. Indeed, I recall news conferences during the 1990s when police in this city and elsewhere on the Prairies were pressing for better laws to clamp down on the carrying of knives. Before 1999, when homicides by gun dominated, 23 people in Regina who had died by someone else’s hand in the previous decade had in fact been stabbed to death.

At the time I noticed and wrote about that shift, quite rightly the senior officer couldn’t say if it was the start of a trend or just an anomaly.

''There’s always been lots of firearms in houses in Saskatchewan,'' he said. ''Whether it’s a weapon of choice or weapon of opportunity, I can’t say.''

Looking at this city’s numbers since then for homicides in which the cause of death is known or has been publicly released, stabbings still dominate. But what’s also clear is that in almost every year since 1999, with a few exceptions, someone has been shot to death.

And digging further into the facts of those deaths, equally clear is that a growing number of them aren’t the accidental or drunken or opportunistic crimes of years past, but a callous, deliberate and intentional disregard for life — often at the hands of rivals in the drug trade or gangs.

The handful of near-misses the officer referenced back in 1999 has given way to near daily, but most certainly weekly, gun calls in this city — whether it’s shots fired at a residence, non-fatal woundings or guns found in vehicles stopped by police officers. This year alone by the fall, Regina police had seized close to 400 guns and reported some 130 violent incidents involving a firearm.

Those numbers are captured in the excellent article Urban and Armed by Leader-post journalist Brandon Harder. It’s part of a Leader-post/starphoenix special report examining guns in this province.

Over the course of the past two decades, a cultural shift in attitudes toward firearms has occurred on the streets of Regina. Sure, even back in the 1990s criminals could their hands on a gun if they really wanted to — but most didn’t.

Harder sat down with a former gang member to get some insight on when and why things changed, to understand how lethal force has become accepted and encouraged by some elements in this city.

"If you hear the door kick in, it’s a relief to hear police,” the former gang member told Harder. “You just get shut down for a bit. Things are going to carry on.

“If you don’t hear the police, you gotta load up,” he said.

But perhaps the most chilling part of Harder’s piece is the assessment of one man who has worked with at-risk youths, and has watched the anti-gang programs to help those young people diminish in that same time.

He warns that we’re likely witnessing only the start of the trend.

There’s always been lots of firearms in houses in Saskatchewan. Whether it’s a weapon of choice or weapon of opportunity, I can’t say.