Gun violence is a red herring. The Liberals incite fears about “gun violence” so they can use it as a red herring to deflect public attention from whatever scandal is currently embarrassing them. The ban of “assault-style” firearms in 2020 dominated the news cycle and conveniently masked reports about the RCMP’s failures in dealing with the Nova Scotia mass killer; Bill C-21 and Trudeau’s handgun “freeze” are intended to get the public to ignore the current stream of scandals.
The Liberals know gun controls won’t stop criminals. They are counting on it. The Liberals use the fear of “gun violence” to justify imposing more and more general restrictions on firearms. Behind the lies, the truth is guns are rarely involved in criminal violence. High-quality research shows Canada’s gun controls fail to reduce criminal violence.
Don’t be fooled.
Guns are only present in 2.6% of violent crimes. True, firearms are more often involved in homicide. In 2021, 38% of homicide victims were killed by shooting, while the majority of murders involved other methods: 31% by stabling, and 32% by a variety of methods. According to Statistics Canada, almost half of shooting homicides were gang related. The highest criminal violence and homicide rates in Canada are in the rural North.
Even this small percentage exaggerates how few guns are involved in criminal violence because StatsCan has an absurd definition of “firearms-related crime.” Statistics Canada calls it a “firearms-related” crime” when “a gun is present during the commission of the crime” — just “present,” not “used.” This means that a crime may be “firearms-related” even though the gun was not directly — or even indirectly — involved in committing the crime or in injuring the victim. It was just found somewhere at the scene of the crime. Even in a safe in the basement. But the police thought it still might have intimidated the victim.
The StatisCan definition of ‘firearms-related crime” is unreasonably broad because it means that every violent crime committed in a gun-owning household could be seen as a “firearms-related” crime. Since firearms ownership is higher in rural Canada than in cities, this definition could exaggerate the number of “gun-related crimes” in rural Canada. A Special Request I made to Statistics Canada back in 2014 revealed that a gun was actually used to injure the victim in one- quarter of “firearms-related” crimes. This means that a victim was shot in just 0.5%, not 2.6%, of violent crimes.
Regardless of the nature of the violent crime, all that is required for the crime to be “firearms related” is that someone in the household owns a gun. The criminal code defines a firearm as a weapon, but for millions of Canadians a firearm is just another tool and may not be any more intimidating than kitchen knives or the axe by the back door that’s used for chopping firewood. While StatsCan’s definition may be appropriate in some situations, because quite clearly a gun can be used to intimidate someone, it is unreasonable to automatically assume that every gun is regarded by household members as intimidating. Not all violent crimes committed in a household with a gun are “firearms related.”
Urban vs Rural crime rates
According to Statistics Canada, crime is higher in rural areas than in cities, even homicide. From 2011 to 2021, rural police services reported an average annual rate of 2.22 homicides per 100,000 population. By comparison, urban police departments reported an average of 1.64 homicides per 100,000 population.
Police-reported crime rates for 2021
| Violent crime | Property crime | Drug offences | Homicide | |
| Urban | 1,159 | 2,882 | 155 | 2.0 |
| Rural | 3,040 | 3,524 | 191 | 2.5 |
Averages are useful but they are like bikinis: they conceal as much as they reveal.
And what they conceal is often more interesting.
Violent crime is concentrated in particular communities. A small number of rural communities are extremely violent, as are a few large Canadian cities. A similar pattern is seen within Aboriginal communities: some have much higher levels of criminal violence than others.
As StatsCan notes: “The higher crime rate in rural areas was attributable to a small number of police services that recorded very high crime rates. In 2021, 14% of the rural population lived in a community with a crime rate of at least 10,000 incidents per 100,000 population, compared with 6% of the urban population.”
“However, rural residents were also more likely to live in a community with a relatively low crime rate. For example, more than one-third (34%) of the rural population lived in a community where the crime rate was below 3,000 incidents per 100,000 population, compared with one-quarter (25%) of the urban population.” (See the Summary on page 23 in the pdf version). Rural gun ownership helps to keep residents safe.
In 2021, Homicide rates were higher in the territories than the provinces.
| Yukon | Nunavut | Northwest Territories | Canada | |
| Homicide rate per 100,000 population | 9.31 | 5.08 | 2.20 | 2.06 |
Summing up – Gun violence is a red herring.
Gun bans are an attack on traditional Canada. We can never give up. Why does Justin Trudeau hate Canadian culture?
Given the highly localized nature of crime and violence, it should not surprise then that nation-wide gun laws have virtually no effect on violent crime. While government gun-control proposals may help leftists fool the public, gun control proposals are a trick to divert attention from the real social problems that face Canadians living in the afflicted areas.
Armed civilians in rural Canada and in small towns keep communities safe. Miscreants know that they will suffer swift retribution because property and lives are protected by responsible neighbors.
As long as we (legal responsible firearms owners) keep on treating this issue as a public safety issue, which it is not, it’s the shiny bauble they use to distract us from their real desired end game, we can’t expect the electorate to change their view of the sitting government at the voting booth. Until we explain it to them for what it really is, as an attempt by Justin Trudeau, who in 2013 told an audience of women in Toronto how he, “admires the Chinese limited dictatorship system of government”, to recreate Canada in his desired image of a Chinese style dictatorship, will the current government be seen for what they are, a group of evil tyrants who want to acquire and maintain absolute power over the citizens of this country forever. If those opposed to us want to play the “make them fear the gun owners for votes” game, we need to respond in kind and develop our own “make them fear the coming Liberal/NDP tyrannical dictatorship, which requires the public to be completely disarmed first, for votes” game. That message will do more for us with new Canadian voters (many of them living in the GTA/Golden Horseshoe which has voted Liberal the last 3 times out) than promising we’ll stop the gang bangers and drug/gun smugglers. Most of them never see a gang banger or drug smuggler/dealer, but they will have vivid memories of the totalitarian dictatorships they left behind when they emigrated to Canada. Many of our new Canadians fled their countries of origin for just that reason, and now they have to be educated to understand what the Liberal/NDP end game really is. Don’t let the Liberals continue to control the narrative (the shiny bauble of public safety) related to their gun grab plans. We need to go on the offensive. Now. Today.
I think CANADA should have a North-American wide 2A, CONSISTENT with U.S.A. so that same rules apply ON THIS CONTINENT. And the ANTI GUN HYPERVENTIATORS should go fuck themselves.