Mr. Speaker, you would think this bill was about guns. To me it is not. It is about matters of life and death. It is about what kind of society we want to live in and it is about what kind of society we want to leave our children. It is about progress as a civilized nation. That is what it is about.
I have seen in the campaign against this legislation the kind of lobbying I usually associate with the United States, the kind of lobbying done by the National Rifle Association, based on misinformation, half truths and out and out lies.
I keep hearing about law-abiding gun owners and yet I keep hearing about law-abiding gun owners who intend to defy the law. There is something contradictory in that. I keep asking gun owners who come to see me to talk about this legislation what will diminish their pleasure in partridge shooting because their gun is registered. I have not heard a good answer to that. I do not think there is one.
Reform members keep telling us they want to support grassroots democracy, that they want people to have more say about how their elected representatives vote in the House.
They know perfectly well that 90 per cent of their constituents support this legislation and support the very aspect of it they make the most noise against, the registration of guns.
The NDP has sat in the House for the time I have been here, since 1988. It has had a party policy in support of stronger gun control. I sat in the House, as did the member for Halifax and numerous members who are here, listening to the NDP, including its leader who now intends to vote against gun control legislation. We listened to those members accuse the previous government of legislation that was not tough enough, not strong enough. Now they have tougher and stronger legislation and they intend to vote against it.
I have to talk about the kind of feedback I have had from meetings of those who are against this legislation and against gun control. I have heard out and out misrepresentation of this legislation. I have heard over and over again: "This legislation means a police officer can come into my house at any time without a warrant, inspect my home and seize my guns". No it does not. Let us get the facts out if we are going to debate a bill. The bill gives the police no right to come into anybody's home and take anything without a warrant unless they believe there is an illegal gun in there.
Let me talk about the contradictory messages I am getting. The Ontario Association of Anglers and Hunters is opposed to registration. Its members wrote a very impassioned plea to our
local newspaper asking for the support of another organization in their campaign for the universal registration of hunting dogs for the protection of the dogs. Is that not a contradictory message?
Let me remind people out there why we are doing this, why guns make our society violent, less compassionate, less safe. The vast majority of gun related deaths and injuries are not the result of shootings at the corner store, the drug deal gone bad, or the bar. The vast majority of deaths and injuries by guns are in the home. It is a greater problem than the criminal misuse of guns in the streets.
The largest proportion of homicides occurs in the home. Of the 1,400 deaths per year caused by guns, fully 1,100 are suicides; over 200 are homicides and the remainder are accidents. The greatest threat of homicide is not at the hands of strangers on the street, in the corner store or even in the break-in at home. The majority of gun homicides-86 per cent-is caused by family members, friends or acquaintances.
Guns are a particularly serious threat to women. If I take this bill seriously there is very good reason. Some members have already said that a woman is killed every six days. She is killed in her home 67 per cent of the time. From 1981 to 1990 almost one-half of women killed were killed by spouses or ex-spouses. A further 27 per cent were killed by acquaintances. Almost one-half of women killed by their partners are shot with a gun. Yet the members from the Reform Party can sit there when we talk about a serious issue like the deaths of well over 1,000 people a year and say: "Pow, pow" as if it is a little game.
Seventy-eight per cent of the guns used in these killings of women are legally owned. Police are likely to have intervened in domestic violence before it comes to the point of homicide. However, right now without a registration system they have no way of knowing before they go into a violent situation in the home whether there is a gun there. That is one reason police associations and the Association of Chiefs of Police support this legislation.
Domestic and other intimate assaults are 12 times more likely to result in death if a gun is used. Yet members on the opposite side of the House think this is not a serious problem for our country.
We also know that young people contemplating suicide sometimes act impulsively. If firearms are not readily available, lives can be saved.
I want to talk about a 15-year old teenager who attended a meeting with the justice minister. He said that he had gone home from school one Friday afternoon determined to kill himself. Not too long after a friend of his who was worried about him decided to check on him. By doing this, his friend prevented him from killing himself.
The young man told the justice minister and other members at the meeting that if there had been a gun in the house, he would have been dead before his friend had arrived. As it is, he is a 15-year old who is still in high school, doing well and has a great future ahead of him.
This legislation, if it prevents one death like that of this 15-year old boy, will be worth it. We cannot forget our children. Since 1970, 470 children have died in accidents with firearms in their own homes. These are largely guns owned by their own families.
I am also particularly supportive of the measure to include handguns in the prohibited weapons category. Let me give a ridiculous example.
Recently, the city of Chicago banned the sale of spray paint because the cost of cleaning the graffiti on buildings is exorbitant. For us as a society, the cost of death by firearms is exorbitant. A similar ban on handguns will help prevent some of those deaths.
This bill is about what kind of a society we want. Frankly, I want to move forward into a future where violence, power and physical control are not the things that determine how we govern ourselves and how we live. This bill is a progressive step forward to that better future.