I know.
As a rural physician, and more specifically as a coroner, I have marvelled at the absolute disconnect between public discourse on gun control with its seeming single-minded focus on illegal hand guns, gun-related crime, gang violence and homicide, and my reality on the ground, which is suicide by legally owned long guns. Such a focus on crime has, in my view, prevented us from taking a very real opportunity to reduce firearm death and disability associated with suicide and...its prevention. Eighty per cent of all firearm fatalities in Canada are due to suicide.
In rural Lanark County, just south of Ottawa, where I live and practise, gun crime is practically unheard of. However, suicide by long gun is not at all uncommon. This is where this government and those that follow it must focus their efforts. Reducing accessibility to firearms, particularly for those at risk of self-harm or intimate partner violence, is where we need to focus our attention. It will obviously not solve the problem, which is complex and multifactorial, but it will be a small but important step in the right direction of reducing the tragic legacy of death by suicide.
I presented in May or June, and I'm not going to go through that again. You have all the data from StatsCan, I'm sure. What our association would call for is greater research. StatsCan is great, but it would be great to have research on how guns are used in terms of suicide, intimate partner violence and homicide so that we can focus our efforts on getting a bang for our buck—that sounds awful—in terms of appropriate action towards reducing firearms access and death. We believe there needs to be a much more rigorous screening of those individuals at risk. We also believe that physicians should play an important role by incorporating the well-established practice of reporting those individuals at risk. We do it for flying, for driving, and for people who have shown a tendency towards child abuse. Why not for guns?
There may be no clear subset of people where these efforts can be identified and focused, but I think we can all agree that the actively psychotic individual with paranoid delusions who wants to murder the Government of Canada probably shouldn't own a gun. I think we can agree that somebody who's involved in intimate-partner violence should not have access to a gun. That's where we, as a profession, and we, as a society, need to make that small but important step in mandatory reporting of individuals at risk.
Thank you.