Ban won’t solve gun violence

A recent EKOS poll suggests the majority of Canadians (69 per cent) favour a ban on firearms in urban areas. Aside from the logistics of how that might work for, say, hunters who live in cities but hunt in outlying areas, one question worth considering is: what harm would such a ban reduce?

The barrage of news about gun-related injuries and deaths in the United States can make Canada seem relatively safe. According to Statistics Canada, 2015 was the second consecutive year that the number of gun-involved homicides rose: “The rate of firearm-related homicides in 2015 increased by 14 per cent to 0.50 per 100,000 population (compared to 0.44 in 2014), and was the highest reported rate since 2010 (0.51).”

Furthermore, statistics show that handguns were used in 57 per cent of firearm-related homicides in 2015, making them the most frequently used type of firearm, but also that that percentage is down from 2014, when handguns accounted for 67 per cent of such incidents.

A significant factor in gun deaths is the use of firearms in suicides. (After hanging, guns are the most-used method for men attempting suicide.) What, then, would an urban gun ban do to stem such fatalities? Reducing the availability of firearms would likely decrease their use in suicide attempts, but that isn’t the only factor in reducing the risk of suicide. Improved mental-health care and community support would also help.

It might be that a majority of Canadians living in metropolitan areas would barely notice they were no longer permitted to use guns in the city, but that’s not the point. Gun fatalities are not merely an urban problem — they are a societal one. A solution that looks only at a legislative remedy, without including a safety and health-centred approach, is incomplete.