WHAT’S KILLING CANADIANS?
NFA PRESIDENT ASKS: “WHERE SHOULD GOVERNMENTS SPEND YOUR MONEY TO
‘SAVE JUST ONE LIFE’?”
Gun control advocates in Canada and the USA argue for spending millions of scarce taxpayer dollars on questionable gun control schemes by saying, “If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.” But National Firearms President Sheldon Clare says, “If saving lives is the real priority, then common sense dictates that we first ask, ‘What is killing us?’ Once we do that, then we would want to know, ‘Where can spending the publics’ money save the most lives?’ The attached chart shows that guns are the least of our worries. Errors in the health care system are killing 65 of us a day – incidents using firearms are less than one a day. Maybe spending the taxpayers’ hard-earned money on useless government schemes to control innocent firearms owners isn’t so smart?”
Clare continued, “The data demonstrates that the best way to save lives is to reduce the number of errors being made in our health care system. There may be a public safety advantage in trying to keep better track of known criminals or the mentally ill; people who have been proven by the courts to be too dangerous to own guns. But not by trying to control or ban inanimate objects like firearms or knives or by placing useless controls on law-abiding gun owners who are much less likely to commit a homicide than the general public.”
In Canada from December 14, 2012 to March 27, numbers reported by the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) show that 6,575 people died due to medical errors and hospital-induced infections. During that same 100-day period, 157 people were murdered; more than half of those by knives. All levels of government in Canada spend more than $100 million a year on gun control programs that do next to nothing to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals or prevent homicides. The question has to be asked: Where could our money be better spent to help save lives?
Prior to 1995, the federal government spent about $15 million a year on the nation’s gun control programs that have been proven to be just as effective as the oppressive licensing regime brought in by the Liberals and now supported and enforced by the Conservative Government. If saving lives is the highest priority for Canadians, then tens of millions of their dollars are being wasted by continuing to implement the fatally flawed Firearms Act derived from former Bills C-17 and C-68. In 2002, during his successful run for the Canadian Alliance leadership, Stephen Harper said, “C-68 has proven to be a bad law and has created a bureaucratic nightmare for both gun owners and the government,” and thus reaffirmed Reform Party Leader Preston Manning’s original promise that it was a bad law and should be repealed. “Our members are still waiting for him to keep his original promise,” concluded Clare.
Canada’s National Firearms Association is this country’s largest advocacy organization promoting the rights and freedoms of all responsible firearm owners and users.
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For more information contact:
Blair Hagen, Executive VP Communications, 604-753-8682 [email]Blair@nfa.ca[/email]
Sheldon Clare, President, 250-981-1841 [email]Sheldon@nfa.ca[/email]
Canada’s NFA toll-free number – 1-877-818-0393
NFA Website: www.nfa.ca
Media Release – Stats March 2013 How Canadians Die 2009-final
