DAVID OLMSTEAD, LIBERAL MLA
MACTAQUAC
DECEMBER 2, 1998
Mr. Speaker:
As I rise today in the beautiful Chamber of this Assembly, I extend my compliments to you and your staff and to Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor. We are well served by Her Honour, with her graciousness and hard work. My daughter, Kate, came home after the Opening last week after meeting the Governor exclaiming about her wonderful smile. I pay tribute to all of you in the context of your roles in self government, the most valuable of our institutions. It is a great privilege to represent my constituency of Mactaquac here and I treasure the relationship among all of us who work here, colleagues all, from the Lieutenant Governor to the pages and the Commissionaires. In particular, I thank Eric Swannick and his staff of the Library, who put up with my ways and keep me supplied with subversive literature.
It gives me special pleasure and pride to welcome to the Assembly Camille Theriault in his new capacity as our leader and Premier.
Welcome also to the newly elected Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Speaker, we stand at the advent of the new federal Firearms Act and the controversy rages on, generating, it seems, more heat than light. But there are ideas and principles at stake in the issue of gun control and an examination of them can shed light and, I hope, a little heat too, for there is cause for passion.
Some in this Assembly will be unhappy that I am raising this matter here and now . This is partly because gun control is seen as a federal matter and we should duck it for that reason. It is exactly like another issue which was provincially ignored for decades on the ground that it was a federal matter, but which is manifestly a provincial issue now that of our aboriginal people. Gun control is a provincial matter and not only because the Province will have to enforce the new law. It is a matter I and many of my constituents feel strongly about and or my own self respect I must say what I think.
The Firearms Act and Regulation have profound cultural implications for our people, perhaps I should say my people, and in this I mean all those New Brunswicker's of every ethnic group who come from a sporting or subsistence firearms tradition. The Firearms Act engages that tradition, that culture, in ways that range f rom basic and ancient principles of the English Common Law system through Canadian constitutional issues to the events of our every day lives. (It also engages the provincial purse, which should interest those otherwise not interested.) I shall try to show how our culture is engaged. Along the way, I suggest, negative conclusions about this law are unavoidable.
Ostensibly, the Firearms Act is directed at public safety and crime
control, seeking to do this by identifying for registration and strictly
controlling the use of every firearm in this country. In some way, it is
assumed, the criminal use of firearms will be thereby reduced.
This seems to be a worthwhile goal and registration would seem to be a
small price to pay for it. After all, we register our motor vehicles, do we not?
And who could object to gun handling courses? But there is more to the
Firearms Act than that, much more. It is not just attractive little pamphlets
like:
"The New Firearms Act: Here are the facts"
or "A Quick Look at Canada's Firearms Law."
These talk only of registration and are grossly misleading. The law is really
about a 193 section statute and 142 pages of regulations. The devil is in the
details. In the Regulations every aspect of owning, possessing and using a
firearm is controlled by licenses and authorizations and, of course, their fees.
What's covered? Identification and registration of firearms; transferring;
storing, displaying, transporting and handling (individuals and
businesses); authorizing transport of restricted and prohibited firearms;
carrying restricted firearms; importing and exporting by residents,
non residents and businesses; buying ammunition; shooting clubs and
ranges; gun shows; and aboriginal adaptations. All in mind numbing
detail (and I am a lawyer by training).
I have run into examples of application personally already. In shopping for a shotgun, I have had the annoyance of having guns repeatedly having to be unchained from the wall to handle them. If I want to sell my new gun, the purchaser and I have to find a "verifier" (unpaid) to "verify" the transaction and collect a $25 transfer fee. There are no verifiers so far, whom the federal Government rather presumptuously expects to be gun dealers. I used to target shoot my handgun a few years ago, but have not fired it for some time. I have other priorities right now. Under the new Act I will lose that gun, because the only legitimate reason for owning a handgun is for target shooting at a range. To keep it, I must not only belong to a club, but I must shoot and the club must keep records of my shooting. How much must I shoot to satisfy the requirements? That is nowhere stated and is presumably the arbitrary decision of some official. Surely how often I shoot (how I govern my recreational time) is my business! There is no thing else that we own that we are required to use to qualify for ownership, or the use of which on our own property is controlled, no matter how dangerous that thing might be, whether it is fast cars, booze or pit bulls.
There are other problems. For example, ranges and clubs now have unreasonable
insurance requirements imposed. For one thing, the insurance may not be
available and for another, the premiums will be beyond the reach of small
clubs and ranges, forcing their closure. Up until now adequate cheap
insurance has been avail able under the auspices of the Canadian Shooting
Federation and I know of no saf ety problems justifying the federal
requirements. There is another example, one which would be amusing if it did
not display such egregious hypocrisy.
Under the Regulations the only people who can obtain fully automatic replica
firearms are the movie industry, the very purveyors of the culture of gun
violence which so distorts people's image of guns! The reason given?
Why, the movie industry generates so much money! Well, as I shall show,
so do the shooting sports of target pistol and rifle shooting, trap and skeet and
sporting clays, and hunting, including the outfitting industry. That gun
regulators can at once promote movie gun violence and deplore the shooting of
students in Montreal is an outrage. (In this regard, I noticed the
following in a July 23, 1998 story in the Telegraph Journal on the decline
of hunting: "The real reason for the drop, however, may be that younger
New Brunswickers simply aren't as interested in hunting as thei r parents are.
In the computer age, many kids can with the push of a button become a digital
warrior with a full arsenal of super weapons at his or her command."
This view, that hunting is merely surrogate warfare, is a new one
and is dead wrong. That our children have abandoned the basic and enriching
natural activity of hunting for video warfare is not an advance)
Finally, I want to mention two more things: Firstly, like many others, I receive the Firearms Centre Newsletter, the whole tone of which is anti gun and which I find offensive. Secondly, I find that in the new, improved local Firearms off ice you get to talk to service people through a hole in a clear plexiglass barrier. The clear message? As someone interested in guns, I am a risk.
All this the Act and Regulations and associated publicity and practice is cl early designed to harass gun owners and radiates an animus toward guns and their owners. A recent example was in yesterday's Telegraph Journal: The communications manager for the Canadian Firearms Centre is quoted as saying: "They're taking risks if they wait till the last possible second [to register]. If you don' t have a licence after January 1, 2001, then you're not supposed to have firearm s, right? And it becomes a law enforcement issue." And boy, she can hardly wait.
All this is having and will continue to have effects, which I shall discuss. But generally, it is driving people away from their guns out of anger and resentment and out of sheer unwillingness to put up with what is seen as a humiliating regulatory regime. This is clearly intended by the regulators. Another fact or is cost. The program has so far cost $100 million with the prospect of a half billion by 2004. Can such expense be justified, especially here, where we des perately need money for health care and education and roads and on and on? Can it be justified, where the budgets of the RCMP and the Coast Guard have been cut ? The current fees will not be enough, so there will be pressure to increase them, making gun ownership prohibitively expensive to more and more people. The strategy is simple and tacitly unchallenged. Discourage gun ownership, so that w hen the next round of restrictions comes around (confiscation of semiautomatic rifles almost certainly next or compulsory storage of guns at a police station, or worse), there will be fewer people to protest. Ultimately, all registered guns will be confiscated. Thus, it not fear of registration per se that is upsetting; it is the implications of it that are feared.
That all this, including confiscation, will not achieve the ostensible ends seems obvious. The Act and Regulations will not affect the criminals, except insofar as they will consider the penalties for illegal gun use. Indeed, the illegal firearms trade in this province is already worse that it was. Further, disarming a population invariably increases crime, particularly the types of personal violent crimes that the regulators purport to be concerned about. For example, Australia stripped its people of most of its guns in 1996, claiming that this woul d "lead to a safer community". According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics , armed robbery increased 44% from 1996 to 1997; homicide increased 3.2%; assau lts 8.6%; unarmed assault 21%, home invasion robberies have significantly increased.
But there is more evidence than this and it has been compiled by John R. Lott, Jr. in his new book More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (University of Chicago Press, 1998). Lott is the John M. Olin Visiting Law a nd Economics Fellow at the University of Chicago and had conducted the most extensive data analysis on crime ever done, covering all 3,054 United States counties over 18 years. His findings are standing up to the most rigorous academic scrutiny and the often wildly dishonest attacks by the anti gun lobby. Lott points out that: "Most of us receive our images of guns and their use through television, film, and newpapers. Unfortunately, the images from the screen and the news papers are often unrepresentative or biased because of the sensationalism and exaggeration typically employed to sell news and entertainment." His study shows us reality, shows us how to assess statistics, and provides us with key question s to as our regulators. His primary conclusion is that laws which permit concealed carry of handguns sharply reduce violent offenses against the person, like murder, rape and assault. He proves that violent crime rates are highest in the states with the most restrictive gun laws; next highest in states that allow au thorities discretion in issuing concealed carry permits; and lowest in states w ith non discretionary rules. It is interesting, for example, that the rate of " hot burglaries" (burglaries where the householder is home) is almost 50% in Cana da and Great Britain, which have strict gun control laws. In the U.S. the burgl ary rate is 13%. Bad guys really are afraid of good guys with guns. It does not mean that they stop being criminals, but they turn to safer offenses with less risk to everybody and less cost. And everybody benefits, not just the gun owner who provides the deterrent.
So, we must ask: will the Firearms Act save lives or cost them? If someone is unable to commit suicide with a gun, will she do it in some other way that may be more dangerous to others, such as driving into the oncoming lane? If a lunatic cannot get a gun to kill students in a cafeteria, will he turn to fertilizer explosive and destroy the whole building and everyone in it? Will the human and material cost to victims of crime increase with the reduction of the criminal's fear even more than it is now in this country? Even without the new law, our guns have been useless for defence of ourselves or our property from criminals or even nuisance animals, because of gun and ammunition storage requirements and the bad guys know it.
The matter of mass public gun homicides is interesting. It is clear that the shooting of the Montreal students is foremost in the minds of the anti gun lobby in this country and is a major political factor for the regulators. However, Lott demonstrates that on a world wide basis, if you really want to eliminate such mass public shootings, you will pass a concealed carry law, which will reduce such events almost to zero.
So, to the regulators and all who support them, if you do not reasses your positions in light of Lott's data and analysis, I say to you now and I will continue to say that you do not know what you are talking about. Given that the premises of the Firearms Act are wrong, and wrongheadedly so, I think that it is safe to characterize the Act as a cynical attempt to further an anti gun agenda by making political capital out of distorted fears on the part of urban Canada at the e xpense of the rest of us, who by no stretch of the imagination are part of the threat they purport to be worried about. I note that the regulators have never met the criticism of the Auditor General of Canada and the Library of the Parliament Research Branch that the effect of the 1991 gun law has never been evaluated .
Many, and much, will suffer because of this law, this agenda, so hostile to so much of what we have been and what we are. Make no mistake about it, this is a cultural issue. The regulators and their allies, witting and unwitting, are attacking the culture of rural Canadians and the gun sports that derive from it.
Let's start at the most fundamental. The Anglo Saxon tradition has spent 1000 years in a long struggle to wrest power from the state. It was often an armed struggle. It resulted in democracies of one sort or another and we profess to believe in them, but it has never been asserted that we can walk defenceless in this world, at least not until recently, in this country. Now, in just a few years we will disarm ourselves and leave all weapons in the hands of the state. The illustrious Blackstone knew the risk. In recognizing the three great English rights of personal security, personal liberty and private property, he asserted the auxiliary right (among four others) of a right to arm in self defence. He cal led it a natural right of resistance and self preservation as well as protection from oppression. What can you show me in history that should make us feel comfortable with only the state being armed? To acquiesce in it is a betrayal of al l those who fought in the 1000 year struggle for freedom.
Next, let me assert that there always has been and continues to be a right to property in our tradition of common law. Sadly, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not protect it. But property rights are a matter of provincial jurisdiction under the Constitution Act, 1867, and surely the Firearms Act is an invasion of the provincial jurisdiction under the guise of the federal criminal jurisdiction. That it is an invalid invasion seems compelling once the crime reduction rationalization for the Firearms Act falls. Why do we tolerate it? Is it because we got the Canadian Firearms Centre? If so, we sold our birthright for a mess of pottage.
On a more practical level, shooting sports are economically important to New Brunswick. Hunting in particular converts wildlife into an economically important resource. Over 100,000 New Brunswickers hunt for subsistence or sport with an economic impact of over $67 million annually. Hunters contribute $645,000 annually in conservation fees to the Wildlife Trust Fund. Hunting results in 1.4 mill ion days of recreation. It is an important wildlife management tool, in some species (deer, moose) preventing overpopulation problems of disease, winter mortality and crop damage. Outfitters generate $9.2 million annually. Hunters suppor t specialized businesses, like sporting goods stores, shooting clubs (3,000 members), outdoor equipment suppliers, trade shows, and assorted small rural businesses.
Those are current figures. So what has been happening? In the last ten years, resident licence sales have declined by a third with a loss of licence revenue of $700,000 and other revenue of $37,183,000. Non resident licence sales have declined by 66% with a loss of licence revenue of $480,000 and other revenue of $11,446,000. Youth participation in hunter education and firearms safety has decl ined by 66%. Handgun sales are down 95% and long guns by over 50%. Although there may be other demographic causes of decline, by far the greatest cause is the oppressive gun control legislation.
Besides these obvious and significant effects on income and livelihood, the most pressing effects are on wildlife management. Without hunters, management programs will be crippled with attendant dramatically rising costs for nuisance control. It is well known, for example, that deer are currently doing severe damage to orchards in New Brunswick. Less hunting means more damage. Further, sportsmen started the conservation movement over one hundred years ago and have borne the lion's share of the expense ever since. Without them, much more habitat would have been, and will be, lost. Ducks Unlimited, for example, has spent $19,675 ,300 in New Brunswick on 206 projects totalling 34,409 acres protected. In 1997 , $724,400 was raised from 6,000 members in the Province with 2,188 additional acres protected. DU's projects foster habitat for 600 species, not just ducks. DU devotes 87% of its budget to conservation programs, including education, an exemplary record. The Miramichi Salmon Association raised $146,611 for its activ ities in 1997. The Atlantic Salmon Federation raised $2,485,242 in its 1996 97 fiscal year. The conservation contributions of the non sporting fraternity, both in memberships and money, pale by comparison.
I can hear the tired cries that these organizations merely raise animals to kill . It is sad that it is still necessary to point out that it is not about killing, but habitat. Those who sit contentedly eating their vegetables and their meat should realize and be humbled that they do so only at the expense of the habitat of creatures wild and free.
A far more insidious result of the Firearms Act is the criminalization of
large numbers of law abiding New Brunswickers. I cannot exaggerate how
offended we gun owners are by this law. I have already described how
hostility to guns, and by extension, gun owners, radiates from this law.
We are not to be trusted with guns without harrassing regulations. We
must be subjected to the monitoring of recreational shooting to ensure
that it meets some arbitrary level of frequency.
We are stigmatized because we delight in the pleasures of fine guns and
gun sports and the writing about them in such publications as The Double Gun
Journal, or Peterson's Shotgun magazine, or Sports Afield or the Grouse
Point Almanac. We, who have spent some of our finest hours in the woods
or in woodcock and partridge covers with our fathers and mothers and
siblings, resent bitterly the notion that this was somehow unworthy. We
resent the interference with teaching our children about guns and the
enjoyable, challenging gun sports. We are not just Bubba, the rural
redneck of popular imagination. We are also politicians, farmers,
woodsmen, lawyers, business men and women, sales people, mechanics,
carpente rs and doctors. We work and pay taxes; we are parents and
spouses; we are the people; and we are not criminals and we are
manifestly not the problem. This law will make many of us criminals,
knowingly or unknowingly, whether by unintentional breaches of
complicated regulations or by taking our guns underground or by
otherwise flouting the law. And I warn the powers that be that they
will rue the day that so many stalwart citizens are driven to this.
You do not have to be a political scientist to see the malignant potential of
seriously alienating such people.
There is much that we can do to resist or overcome the ill effects of the
Firearms Act. I will just briefly mention a few here. The Provincial
Government should resist it on economic and social grounds. Shooters
must do more to promote the very positive values and pleasures of their
various gun sports, especially as family activities. Our Department of
Natural Resources and Energy is already doing good work, such as
reaching out to women in its very popular Becoming an Outdoors
Woman courses.
Wildlife Biologists must become more aggressive
with the anti hunting zealots, whose ultimate thesis is absurd.
Hunters must promote ethical hunting and discourage the slobs, who
tarnish the image of the sport. Orion the Hunters' Institute and its'
publication Beyond Fair Chase is but one example of this effort.
I probably should point out here that slobs attach themselves to any
activity, for example motor vehicles, snow machines and ATV's,
and it is obvious that those slobs do alot more damage in the way of
death and injury in our society.
Why, one may ask, is motor vehicle
use sacrosanct, when it is f ar more dangerous than gun use?
Are we really going to spend money on enforcing this gun law, when
our police do not have the time or the numbers to enforce safety rules
against child and adult users of snowmobiles and ATV's with their
terrible record of mayhem? Hunting, by the way, is one of the safest
recreational activities. For example, in 1996 there were only two
non fatal accidents for a rate of 1.6 per 100,000.
But the essence, significance and value of hunting is a topic for another day. In the meantime, suffice it to say that hunting has been convincingly championed by great thinkers. Just read Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac and Ortega y Gasset's Meditations on Hunting. And for a really mind expanding time, read th e scholarly and exciting Woman the Hunter by Mary Zeiss Stange.
We Canadians take a rather simpleminded pride in our belief in multiculturalism. We have even enshrined it in our Constitution. The Firearms Act flies in the face of that belief. Guns have been a necessary part of the culture of my people for generations.
For us, in Dr. John MacKay's words, guns have symbolized safety, security and independence. My kinfolk of my father's generation used them for subsistence and many New Brunswicker's still do.
It is wrong, it is wrongheaded, it is mean spirited, and it is outrageously arrogant for the regulators and their supporters to stigmatize our culture. It is oppressive. And do not forget that it is another part of our culture to believe that it is right to resist oppression.
If anyone would like to contact David Olmstead, then he can be
reached at:
David Olmstead, MLA
Mactaquac
New Brunswick Legislative Assembly
P.O. Box 6000
Fredericton, NB
E3B 5H1
Tel: (506) 363 3862
Fax: 363 4994