Date:
Tuesday, February 21, 2006 Three recent issues of the Canadian Firearms Journal have stirred things up. A small number of people (five, at the latest count) have reacted with hostility to our presentation of the idea that a woman should be able to protect human life from criminal violence if she so chooses. Interestingly, over half of such email messages to the NFA have been "anonymized"-- that is, they have been sent to a web site that remails them in a form that makes it difficult to find out who sent them. We do not take anonymous letters seriously, and we are suspicious regarding the identity of the senders. We operate openly, and have no respect for those who hide their identities. We wonder if those emails came from government bureaucrats.
Of course, a number of people have also written to us approving of what we are doing--including a 70-year-old woman in the Maritimes.
If you don’t like the idea of allowing qualified women (as well qualified as RCMP constables) to have and use handguns, I challenge you to offer a better solution to the problem of women being attacked by violent criminals. That problem is growing rapidly, as your daily paper is telling you, and there is little time available to come up with a real-world workable solution for our increasingly-dangerous nation.
That is the issue. We are now living in a time of steeply-rising violent crime rates. Not just "gun-crime" rates--all violent crime rates. As the NFA predicted, severe gun control laws are increasing the rates of every type of violent crime--gun crime, knife crime, assaults, sexual assaults, the works. That has happened in every jurisdiction, world-wide, where severe gun control laws have been tried as a method of reducing the violent crime rates.
Severe gun control laws increased violent crime rates in the U.S. during the American flirtation with severe gun control laws (1964-1990). They have pushed British violent crime rates to levels higher than those in the U.S. in every category of violent crime, and the British rates are still rising. They have been steadily pushing up those rates in both Canada and Australia, countries that have, rather stupidly, copied the failed British system, and those rates are still rising.
"That seems crazy. How can severe gun control laws have that effect?"
It's quite simple, when you look at their real effects. Severe gun control laws take legally-owned firearms away from law-abiding owners, who register their firearms. They don't take any firearms away from any violent criminals--who do not register their firearms, do not buy firearms from legal sources, and do not get involved in any of the paperwork and restrictions that you and I have to put up with.
Now take a look at the actual effect of that sort of pattern. The government is disarming the victims, and giving the violent criminals a guarantee of their personal safety while they are committing violent crimes.
Does that increase the violent crime rates? Of course it does; how could it have any other effect?
So--more violent crime (with guns, knives, clubs, fists…), and we are all aware that women are the preferred victims of violent criminals. Women are easier to rob and murder, and they are also the prime targets of the rapist.
I have a challenge for you. A woman is facing a violent criminal. She has just realized that she is about to be raped, robbed, beaten, or murdered. What do you advise her to do?
Yes, this is a horrible question. It is also a very real question, as you know from reading about women who have been attacked in your home area. So, again I ask, what do you advise her to do? I challenge you to come up with a solution for this problem.
Scream?
Plead for mercy?
Punch him in the chest?
She cannot call the police, because he won't let her do that. Screaming will cause him to hit her. Pleading for mercy won't work; he's already gone too far to back out now. Hitting him will be dangerous to her safety, and will probably be ineffective.
There is no one else present, because he planned it that way.
So--what do you advise her to do? If you do not like the idea of armed and competent women, spreading a shield over all women by their mere existence, what do you advocate as a method of protecting women from criminal violence? If there are even a few armed women, criminals hesitate to attack any woman--because they do not know which women are armed, and which are not.
In my view, it is necessary to let any woman who can meet the required standards of proficiency with a firearm and knowledge of relevant laws required of an RCMP Constable, and who has no criminal record, to apply for--and get--a type 3 authorization to carry a handgun. Promptly, if she needs one immediately.
My proposal is that the type 3 ATC, which is there in the law but issuance of which is currently always refused, should quickly become a reality instead of the myth that it is today.
The Americans issue such permits, routinely, in 50 states now--and it works splendidly. A woman who resists attack with a handgun is, according to U.S. official statistics, 2.5 times less likely to be injured or killed than a woman who submits to her attacker. Obviously, women can protect human life from criminal violence--if they are allowed to have the tools necessary to do it.
Our firearms control bureaucrats make sure that a woman cannot carry a legal handgun, although the law clearly allows them to issue the type 3 authorization to carry [Firearms Act section 20]. By refusing her, they guarantee the personal safety of any criminal who wants to attack her. Personally, I think that is appalling. Why do they care more about the safety of the criminal than the safety of the woman?
The American system forces the criminal to realize that any woman he wants to attack may have a handgun, and therefore may be able to arrest him and hold him for the police, or, if he resists arrest, stop him. Obviously, a woman who is at the scene of the crime during the crime is in a far better position to arrest or stop a violent criminal than a police officer who could not arrive before the criminal had left the scene.
In every part of the United States where such permits are granted, violent crime rates have fallen, and stayed down. It seems that violent criminals are also cowards, or at least very concerned for their own safety. They do not want to tackle an armed woman.
Our crime rates are going up. Perhaps it is time to give women a chance to drive them down.
Personally, I have long been convinced of the intelligence and good character of women. In the days when I was supervisor of the electron microprobe laboratories of the University of Alberta, I hired, trained, and recommended for better jobs after training, a number of women technicians--in an era (1968-1988) when many men, including some university professors, considered women unsuitable for technical jobs. I disagreed with that opinion, and the women liked the higher-paying technician jobs. All they needed was a chance, and they proved themselves trainable and competent.
Also, as a long-term firearms instructor (1951-2005), I am thoroughly aware of the fact that it is usually easier to teach a woman to shoot well than it is to train a man to the same degree of expertise. Women don't have the "That isn't how John Wayne does it!" attitude.
If a female RCMP constable who has no criminal record, is proficient with a handgun, and knows the relevant laws is not a menace to society, then I see no reason to regard any other woman with the same qualifications as a menace to society. I personally respect her knowledge, proficiency and standards.
I do have a deep loathing for a bureaucrat who refuses to issue a woman a type 3 authorization to carry on ridiculous grounds. The grounds that he can use, under regulations issued as Orders in Council by our federal government, are:
1. In the opinion of the bureaucrat, she should be refused because her life is not in "imminent danger" [regulation 2 (a)]. That's nonsense, of course; she can be murdered within ten minutes of being refused, and neither she nor the bureaucrat can know or predict the level of her danger.
2. In the opinion of the bureaucrat, she should be refused because "police protection" is "sufficient in the circumstances" [regulation 2(b)]. Again, that is nonsense; "police protection" usually consists of police arriving after the crime against her has been committed and the criminal has left the scene. Their arrival any earlier is something that just cannot happen in most circumstances, because she cannot even call them until he leaves. She can call them after he goes--if she is still alive.
In my opinion, it is absolutely ridiculous to give bureaucrats the power to refuse applications on such grounds. How could their opinions possibly have any connection to the real world?
It is highly unlikely that anyone else will be present when a woman is being attacked by a violent criminal. His purpose may be rape, robbery, assault, or murder--but the choice of time and place is always his, and his alone. He will choose a time and place where interruptions are unlikely.
It is also unlikely that she will be able to call for assistance before he leaves. Therefore, unless she can protect herself from his criminal violence she will become just another bad statistic. Personally, I'm fed up with reading bad statistics in my daily newspaper. Our government makes life risky for women--and safe for violent criminals. In my opinion, it is time to reverse those priorities.
Another sore point arises from the federal government's licencing scheme. Before a woman can get a firearm licence (possession and acquisition licence, or PAL), she has to take a Canadian Firearms Safety Course. Then she has to apply for the PAL.
If she is a woman who is in imminent danger from a man who is stalking her, it is often because she has dumped him and left him, and he refuses to respect her decision. She may be justifiably terrified of him, but our society does not recognize her legitimate fears or allow her the means to protect her own life and the lives of her children from his criminal violence. The police will not, cannot, and do not provide a sentry to stand watch over her, even if they know that her fears are justified. She stands alone.
Because he is twice her size, she decides that she needs a firearm so that she can arrest him the next time he violates the court order to stay away from her. She takes the course, and starts to fill out the application for a PAL. Item 18 requires her to tell the bureaucrat who will process the form the name and address and contact information for the man she has dumped and left. It also contains this paragraph:
- "The signature of your former spouse, common-law partner or other conjugal partner is not legally required. However, if their signature is not provided, the Chief Firearms Officer has a duty [emphasis added] to notify them of your application."
Chilling, isn’t it? The government wants to warn him that she wants a PAL. And regulation 4(1) says that the CFO "Shall, at least 15 days before issuing" a [PAL] to her, "give notice of the application...to each current or former spouse of common-law partner…"
That gives him a minimum of 15 clear days to kill her before she can possibly be able to protect herself from his criminal violence.
Additionally, the CFO is forbidden to issue her PAL until "at least 28 days have elapsed since the application was made…" There is no limit on how long he can delay issuance without formally refusing to issue. A formal refusal would allow her to haul him into court for unlawful refusal. Many bureaucrats use that loophole to refuse to issue by refusing to decide whether or not to issue. Such delays can run on for months or even years.
Why does our government stack the deck in favor of violent criminals, and against Canadian women?