Canadian firearms owners

Firearms ownership is a significant part of modern Canadian life. Many Canadians own firearms for hunting or target-shooting purposes; this has been true for hundreds of years. With reasonable care and attention, firearms do not pose a significant threat to the public in the hands of the ordinary person. Owners of long-guns (rifles and shotguns) tend to be hunters; handgun owners tend to be target-shooters or collectors.

Canada has some of the strictest firearms laws in the world. Firearms are covered in the federal criminal law. Part III of the Criminal Code, Sections 84 through 117, is devoted entirely to firearms regulations. Provincial hunting regulations also cover firearms use. In addition to federal and provincial legislation, there are hundreds of pages of regulations that specify how these laws are to be interpreted.Note Anyone wishing to purchase a firearm must hold a valid Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC). To obtain an FAC, the applicant must pay $50, subject him or herself to a full character investigation by the police, pass a 3-hour firearms safety exam or course costing between $100 and $180, and wait a minimum of 28 days. In practice, the wait is often closer to 3 months. First-time applicants often must wait 6 months or more. Prospective hunters must also obtain a provincial hunting licence, which involves passing a second exam or course costing at least $75.

The purchase of a handgun, or any other firearm classified as a "restricted weapon," requires further permits and police checks. Canadians have required permits to purchase handguns since 1913, and handguns have been registered since 1934. For the past 20 years, the police have required all purchasers of restricted weapons to undergo police checks and to join a gun club. All restricted firearms are registered, and a police permit is required to transport a restricted firearm to and from the owner's home or place of business. In order to shoot the handgun or restricted rifle, the owner must apply annually for a carrying permit which will allow him or her to take the restricted firearm to an approved shooting range. This permit requires another thorough police check each year.

According to survey estimates, at least one household in four in Canada has firearms. A recent survey by Angus Reid found that 23 percent of households had firearms in 1991. Angus Reid, Firearms Ownership in Canada, TR1991-8a, March 1991. Funded by the Department of Justice Canada.Note There are 10 million households in Canada, which means that 2.2 million households have firearms (see table 1). This may be a low estimate as another recent survey found 34 percent of households had firearms, which would mean that 3.4 million households own firearms. Gary Mauser and Michael Margolis, "The Politics of Gun Control: Comparing Canadian and American Patterns," Government and Policy, 1992 vol. 10, pp. 189-209. Another national survey found that 28 percent of Canadian households owned firearms. Mauser, unpublished report, Simon Fraser University, 1995.Note Thus, there are between 2.2 and 3.4 million Canadian households with firearms. Since there may be more than one firearms owner in a household, these are minimum estimates of the number of individual firearms owners in Canada. As well, an unknown percentage of people have firearms but have not reported them to the interviewer. Consequently, the best estimate is that approximately one-third of Canadian households have one or more firearms. This means that, in 1993, there were between 3 million and 7 million individual firearms owners out of a total population of 29 million.

Click here to view Table 1: Percentage of Canadians Population That Reports Owning Firearms

Conservatively, there are at least 6 million firearms in Canada--5 million of these being long arms (that is, rifles and shotguns) and 1 million handguns. Angus Reid, op. cit., p. 4.Note These firearms are owned by Canadian hunters and target shooters. This estimate may be low. A survey conducted in 1993, funded by the United Nations, estimated that there were 7 million firearms (6 million of which were rifles and shotguns) in Canada. Estimates based on import/export figures are much higher: as many as 25 million firearms.

As table 2 and 3 show, Canadians own firearms primarily for hunting. Due to the differences in the nature of the game and predators across the country, Westerners tend to own more rifles than shotguns, while Central and Eastern Canadians tend to own more shotguns than rifles. A small number of households have handguns, almost always for target shooting. Even though self defense is legal, the police rarely allow self defense as a reason for owning a firearm. A 1987 survey by the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) provides corroborating evidence. It found that approximately 8.4 percent of the population 15 years of age or older hunt each year. The CWS estimated that a total of 1.7 million people hunt each year in Canada and that 23 percent of the population 15 years of age or older have hunted at some time in their life--a total of 3.7 million people. Fern L. Fillion, et al., Canadian Wildlife Service, The importance of wildlife to Canadians in 1987: the economic significance of wildlife related recreational activities, and The importance of wildlife to Canadians in 1987: the highlights of a national survey, Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1989.Note

Click here to view Table 2: Percentage of Firearms-Owning Households that Own Firearms of Each Type

Click here to view Table 3: Reasons Reported for Owning Firearms

Canadian hunters contribute significantly to the economy; they spend $1.1 billion on hunting annually. Canadian Wildlife Service, The importance of wildlife to Canadians in 1987: the highlights of a national survey, Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1989, p. 23.Note The bulk of this money is spent in small towns where it provides an important part of the local income. In addition to what they spend on hunting, Canadian hunters spend another $900 million on wildlife-related activities, primarily donations for improving or purchasing natural areas for wildlife. In total, they spend an estimated $2 billion annually on wildlife related activities. Canadians spend a total of $5.1 billion annually on wildlife tourism and conservation combined. Approximately 40 percent of this total is spent by hunters, who, by one definition, constitute less than 10 percent of the population. Approximately 8 percent of the total population actually go hunting in any given year, but approximately 23 percent of the population have had at least one hunting experience. Op cit., pp. 16, 20, 22-23, 33-34.Note

Click here to view Figure 1: Causes of Accidental Death in Canada, 1992

Target shooters, though less numerous, also contribute to the Canadian economy. There have been no published studies of their economic impact, but thousands of competitive target shooters travel around Canada each year to participate in various matches and competitions. Unpublished estimates are that competitive target shooters spend between $40 and $100 million on tourism annually.

Target shooters make a more subjective contribution as well. Four Canadian shooters have won gold medals in the Olympic Games. The winners in the past decade have been women: Linda Thom who won gold with a handgun at Los Angeles in 1984; and Myriam Bedard who won two gold medals in the biathlon in Norway in 1994, and was subsequently named the top female athlete of 1994 by the Canadian Press. In the 1994 Commonwealth Games held in Victoria, Canadians won 22 medals in the shooting sports, more medals than were won by Canadians in any other sport. Eight of these medals were gold, seven were silver, and seven were bronze. The shooting sports made a significant contribution to Canada's standings at the games.

Table 4 shows that firearms owners tend to be predominantly male, a bit older than average, slightly less well educated, but with a higher than average income. Hunters are more likely to be blue collar workers or farmers, while handgun shooters tend to be white collar professionals.

Click here to view Table 4: Comparison of Profiles of Canadian Firearms Owners and Overall Population, 18 years and older

As table 5 shows, a large number of firearms owners have taken classes in firearms safety. These relatively high percentages are primarily due to provincial courses in hunter training. Since the 1960s, all Canadian provinces have required new hunters to pass a course or exam in hunting and firearms safety. This is an unqualified success story. Firearms accidents, and in fact all accidental deaths related to hunting, have been on the decline since then. Starting in 1994, the federal government began requiring all FAC applicants to pass a firearms safety exam as well. These firearms safety courses are offered by a large number of fish and game clubs across Canada.

Click here to view Table 5: Household Firearm Safety Instruction

Very few people die in firearms accidents, as table 6 illustrates. In 1992, firearms accidents claimed 66 people (0.8 percent) out of the 8,801 accidental deaths in Canada. That same year, motor vehicles were involved in 3,462 deaths, while 2,138 people were killed in falls, 726 people were poisoned, and 706 people died by drowning (submersion/suffocation). More than twice as many people (154) died at the hands of their doctors, through "surgical or medical misadventures," than were involved in fatal firearms accidents.

Click here to view Table 6: Causes of Death in Canada, 1992

Click here to view Figure 2: Accidental Death by Firearm in Canada and the United States, 1933-1990

Firearms and criminal violence

It is a myth that the typical firearms owner poses a threat to public safety. Firearms may kill a small number of people each year, but they save lives as well. Firearms are used about three times as often in self defense as they are in criminal violence. Over the past decade, firearms have been involved in approximately one-third of all homicides, one-third of all suicides, and less than one percent of all accidental deaths. Since firearms are in approximately one-third of the nation's households, the presence of a firearm does not appear to make one's home any less safe than any other. Gary Mauser, "Firearms and Self Defense: the Canadian Case," presented to the American Society of Criminology, October 27, 1993.Note

Homicide

On an international scale, Canada has a relatively low homicide rate. In 1993, 630 homicides were reported in Canada, or 2.2 homicides per 100,000 population. As illustrated in figure 3, in 1990 the homicide rate for the Bahamas was 26 homicides for every 100,000 people, for Jamaica it was 21 homicides per 100,000, and the USA had 9 homicides per 100,000. On the other hand, a few countries have even lower homicide rates than Canada: Israel and Australia have 2 homicides per 100,000, while England, Japan, Switzerland, and Norway all have only 1 homicide per 100,000 population.

Click here to view Figure 3: Homicide -- An International Perspective

Historically, the Canadian homicide rate has declined slightly from the all-time peak reached in the late 1970s (see figure 4). Current homicide rates are 27 percent lower than they were during the late 1970s and 14 percent lower than they were during 1992.

Click here to view Figure 4: Homicide in Canada, 1926-1993

Murderers are not typical people. They are distinctly different from the general population. Murderers tend to be young males with a history of criminal violence who abuse drugs or alcohol. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, "Homicide in Canada--1993," Juristat Vol. 14, Issue 15, pp. 16-18. These are quite similar to the American percentages. See James Wright and Peter Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous, New York: Aldine, 1986.Note In 1991, Juristat reported that two-thirds of accused were known to have previous criminal records Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, "Homicide in Canada--1991," Juristat Vol. 12, Issue 18, pp. 14-15.Note (see figure 5). Unfortunately, Statistics Canada did not report the criminal records of either accused or victims in 1992 or 1993, although it plans to do so again in the future.

Click here to view Figure 5: Previous Criminal History of Accused Murders in Canada, 1991

Homicide is largely a crime by men against other men. In 1993, 87 percent accused of homicide were male, as were two-thirds (67 percent) of the victims. Almost one-half (48 percent) of the accused were between 18 and 29 years of age, as were 56 percent of the victims. More than one-half (56 percent) of the accused had consumed alcohol, drugs, or both at the time of the offence, as had 40 percent of the victims. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, "Homicide in Canada--1993," p. 16.Note

One-third (33 percent) of homicides occurred during the course of another offence. Two-thirds of these were committed during the commission of a violent offence (e.g., robbery or rape) while another third (33 percent) were committed during the course of a property offence (e.g., theft) or a drug offence. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, "Homicide in Canada--1993," p. 18.Note

There are few statistics available on ethnic differences in crime rates in Canada, unlike those available for the United States. The sole exception is for native peoples who are vastly overrepresented in homicide statistics. Natives make up 3 percent of the total population, but constitute 19 percent of all suspects and 15 percent of all victims. With regard to domestic homicides, these percentages increase to 23 percent of suspects and 22 percent of victims. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, "Homicide in the Family," Juristat Vol. 9, No. 1.Note

Click here to view Table 8: Percentage of Canadian Population Who Report Owning Firearms Compared With the 1992 Homicide Rates

As table 7 shows, firearms are typically involved in less than one-third of all homicides. This percentage has not changed appreciably over the past 20 years (see figure 6). There are between 2.2 and 3.4 million Canadian households with firearms, but in any given year, fewer than 250 homicides involve firearms. Gary Mauser and Richard Holmes, "An Evaluation of the 1977 Canadian Firearms Legislation," Evaluation Review, Vol. 16, pp. 603-617.Note

Click here to view Figure 6: Method of Committing Homicide in Canada, 1926-1993

Click here to view Table 7: Methods used in homicide

Between 1961 and 1990, Statistics Canada reported an average of 130 homicides with handguns per year. Of these handguns, fewer than four per year were known to be registered. The rest were either owned illegally by the accused, or the police had not determined the status of the handgun. Compiled at the request of Professor Taylor Buckner, Concordia University by Statistics Canada. Presented to Canadian Law Society meetings, Calgary, Alberta, 1994.Note Due to the unreliability of the registration system, after 1991 Statistics Canada discontinued recording whether restricted weapons were registered or not.

There is no direct link between the availability of firearms and homicide in Canada. Homicide rates are more closely linked with the native population and with the proportion of young men between 15 and 24 years old in a province than they are with the availability of firearms. Gary Mauser and Richard Holmes, op cit., p. 612.Note Table 8 compares the provincial homicide rates with the distribution of gun ownership. Firearms ownership is high in both Western and Eastern Canada, but the homicide rate is only high in those areas where there also is a high proportion of native Indians. In the Maritimes, where firearms ownership is as high as it is on the Prairies, the homicide rates are the lowest in the country. When the native homicides are factored out of the Western data, the homicide rates for the non-native population fall to that of the Maritimes. Philip Stenning, op cit.; Robert Silverman and Leslie Kennedy, op cit., pp. 213-214.Note

Other violent crimes

Firearms are involved in an extremely small percentage of violent crimes in Canada (see figure 7). Even in the unlikely event that all firearms were to disappear overnight, this would not significantly reduce violent crime. Violent crime is defined by Statistics Canada as including: homicide, attempted murder, robbery, aggravated assault, common assault, and sexual assault.Note Many sociologists and criminologists believe that violent crime is more closely linked with social breakdown than with firearms legislation. Ted R. Gurr, "Historical Trends in Violent Crime: Europe and the United States," in Violence in America, edited by Ted R. Gurr, Newbury Park: Sage, 1989, pp. 21-54; Gary Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991; Roger Lane, Violent Death in the City, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979; James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein, Crime and Human Nature, New York: Simon and Shuster, 1985.Note

Click here to view Figure 7: Firearms and Violent Crime in Canada, 1988-1991

Out of all violent crimes, firearms are most likely to be used in robbery, and even here, firearms are involved in fewer than 30 percent of all robberies (see figure 8). Figure 9 shows that while robberies have increased considerably since 1976, the incidence of firearms use is still about as frequent now as it was in the late 1970s.

Click here to view Figure 8: Firearms in Canadian Robbery

Click here to view Figure 9: RobberyMethods in Canada, 1976-1993

Suicide

Suicide is quite different from violent crimes like homicide and robbery, but it must be discussed here because three-quarters of all firearms deaths are due to suicide. Suicide is not an impulsive act. Given the ready availability of the means of self destruction, it is difficult to imagine how stricter gun laws could reduce suicide rates. Gary Kleck, Point Blank, pp. 223- 255.Note

Most suicides are committed by methods other than firearms. Less than one-third of the 3,700 people who commit suicide each year in Canada use a firearm. In 1991, 1,108 people (31 percent) used a firearm to commit suicide out of the total of 3,593 suicides. As figure 10 shows, the Canadian suicide rate increased considerably in the 1970s but has been relatively stable throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Click here to view Figure 10: Method of Committing Suicide in Canada, 1926-1992

The choice of a suicide method is indicative of the resolve of the decision maker. People who choose to use firearms to commit suicide, like those who choose to jump off tall buildings or in front of subway cars, have made up their minds they wish to die. People who choose slower, less certain methods are more likely to be asking for help, rather than choosing to die. Alan Marks and Thomas Abernathy, "Toward a Sociocultural Perspective on Means of Self-Destruction," Life-threatening Behaviour, 1974, Vol. 4, pp. 3-17.Note Firearm suicides tend to be older men and police officers. In 1991, men used firearms to commit suicide 15 times more often than did women. Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Health Information, Causes of Death, 1991, 1993.Note

Suicide rates are primarily affected by culture, not by the availability of firearms. Norman L. Farberow, ed., Suicide in Different Cultures, Baltimore: University Park Press, 1975.Note Figure 11 compares the suicide rates per 100,000 with the percentage of suicides by firearm for a wide variety of countries. As the figure reveals, Canada has a higher suicide rate than does the United States, even though the U.S. has twice as many firearms per capita. Firearms are involved in about one-third of Canadian suicides, but two-thirds of suicides in the United States involve a firearm. Suicide rates are highest in both Finland, where firearms are very difficult to obtain, and Switzerland, where all citizens are required to have firearms. In addition, Japan, with essentially no firearms, has a higher suicide rate (16 per 100,000) than either Canada or the United States. Not surprisingly, firearms are involved in less than 2 percent of suicides in Japan. World Health Organization, World Health Statistics, 1984, Geneva: WHO, 1984, pp. 183, 189; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 1989, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989, p. 820.Note

Click here to view Figure 11: Suicides -- Annual Averages, 1983-1986

How effective is firearms legislation?

Firearms legislation does not have an impressive record of success. Internationally, there is no correlation between firearms laws and the homicide rate. David B. Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1992.Note As figure 3 shows, Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Mexico, and the former USSR all have high homicide rates, and all of these countries make the legal ownership of firearms extremely difficult, if not impossible. Conversely, Switzerland, Israel, and Norway enjoy exceptionally low homicide rates. All three of these countries strongly encourage firearms ownership among their citizens. Additionally, two countries not listed here, Hong Kong and Singapore, both prohibit civilian ownership of firearms, but Hong Kong has a large and growing problem with criminal violence while Singapore does not.

How does Canada compare with the United States? It is common to contrast the strict firearms legislation in Canada with the firearms laws in the United States and attribute the much lower homicide rate in Canada to this difference. For example, an often-mentioned study compared Vancouver, B.C. with Seattle, Washington and claimed that the differences in firearms legislation explained the lower homicide rate in Vancouver. J.H. Sloan and A.L. Kellermann, et al., "Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities," New England Journal of Medicine, 1988, Vol. 319, pp. 1256-1262.Note However, B.C. and Canada had a lower homicide rate before the introduction of the present firearms legislation. Therefore, it is hard to imagine how the present laws could have caused this history of lower homicide rates. This study ignored important differences between these two cities, such as ethnicity, that might also be explanatory factors.

If Canadian gun control law were the principal factor driving the homicide rate, then all Canadian provinces should have lower homicide rates than do adjacent border states, because Canadian firearms laws are national in scope. An inspection of table 9 shows that this is not the case. While B.C., Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick do have lower homicide rates than the states adjacent to them, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Territories have higher homicide rates than do the abutting American states. Manitoba is anomalous; its homicide rate is lower than Minnesota's but higher than North Dakota's. This argument is developed at greater depth in Brandon Centerwall, "Homicide and the Prevalence of Handguns: Canada and the United States, 1976 to 1980," American Journal of Epidemiology, 1991, Vol. 134, pp. 1245-1260.Note

Click here to view Table 9: Homicide Rates for Adjacent Provinces and States, 1992 (per 100,000 population)

It is interesting to note that the Prairie provinces have higher homicide rates than do the adjacent States, even though the private ownership of handguns is 3 to 10 times greater in the U.S. As well, a few U.S. states (e.g., New York and Michigan) have firearms laws as strict or stricter than those in Canada, but still manage to have higher homicide rates than the adjacent Canadian provinces. It would appear that the difference in homicide rates is determined more by the sociology of the major urban centres in Canada and the U.S., than by firearms legislation or by the availability of firearms.

If the Canadian firearm laws acted to reduce violent crime, then there should be a noticeable change after the introduction of new legislation. Criminal violence should decrease, or at the very least not continue to increase at the same rate. While it is still too early to be able to evaluate Bill C-17, which was passed by Parliament late in 1991 and phased in over the next three years, there is ample time to assess Bill C-51, which was passed in 1977 and introduced in 1978. The conclusion of three independent studies of the effect of the 1977 legislation is that it had little or no effect. Sproule and Kennett examined the impact of Bill C-51 on the homicide rate using an analysis of variance and found no significant effect. C.F. Sproule and D.J. Kennett, "The use of firearms in Canadian homicides 1972-1982: the need for gun control," Canadian Journal of Criminology, 1988, Vol. 30, pp. 31-37.Note Mundt visually compared the trends across time in both Canada and the United States, before and after the 1977 legislation, on a variety of dependent variables. Robert Mundt, "Gun Control and the rates of firearms violence in Canada and the United States," Canadian Journal of Criminology, 1990, Vol. 32, pp. 137-154.Note He, too, was unable to find support for any effect of this legislation on Canadian homicide rates, armed robbery, fatal firearms accidents, or suicide rates. Mauser and Holmes used a pooled regression model to examine the impact of the 1977 legislation, but did not find a statistically significant effect on the homicide rate. Gary Mauser and Richard Holmes, op cit.Note

The Mauser and Holmes model also evaluated the impact of the 1977 firearm law within the context of the changing social and economic conditions. In addition to the firearm law, their model included the theoretically most important independent variables: a) unemployment rate, b) percentage of Status Indians, c) percentage of foreign immigrants, d) percentage of males between 15 and 24, and e) the percentage of cases successfully dealt with by the police. All variables were measured annually at the provincial level from 1968 to 1988. Every one of these independent variables were found to be statistically significant--except for the 1977 firearm legislation. The most important factors driving the provincial homicide rates were the percentage of Status Indians and the percentage of young males in a province.

While it may be difficult to show the impact of firearms legislation upon violent crime, it is relatively easy to show how such legislation effects law-abiding firearms owners. Figures 12 and 13 show the recent experience of Great Britain. The Firearms Amendment Act introduced in Great Britain in 1988 has had no visible impact upon violent crime, or upon robberies committed with firearms. However, it has decimated the numbers of legal firearms owners. David Kopel, op cit., pp. 82-86; Cadmus, "Economic Factors," Guns Review, April 1994, pp. 276-78; "A Matter of Policy," Guns Reivew, August 1994, pp. 628-630.Note These graphs also visibly show that firearms violence is not directly related to the number of people who legally own firearms. Violent crime is increasing, even while the number of legal gun owners declines.

Click here to view Figure 12: Legal Gun Ownership and Violent Crime in Great Britain, 1979-1992

Click here to view Figure 13: Legal Gun ownership and Firearm Robbery in Great Britain, 1979-1992

Firearms and self defence

Instead of saving lives, strict firearm legislation may actually have the perverse effect of costing lives. This might happen if legislation denies firearms to people who need them for self defense. Firearms are used to save human lives as well as to take them. This is particularly true in the Western provinces where bear attacks are relatively common, particularly during the summer and fall. No statistics are available about the total number of bear attacks, but fragmentary evidence suggests that wild animals do pose serious problems for people, at least in Western Canada. In B.C. alone, 2 people are killed annually by bears. The B.C. wildlife branch reports that there are about 7,000 complaints each year about problem bears from the public. These complaints result in about 1,000 bears being destroyed or relocated annually. In addition, there are hundreds of problem cougars reported each year, but it is rare for humans to be killed by cougars. For more information, see Garry Shelton, Bear Encounter Survival Guide, Pogany Productions, 1994.Note

As surprising as it may be, based upon representative surveys, the author estimates that Canadians use firearms to defend themselves against human threats about 32,000 times annually and against animal threats about 36,000 times annually. If firearms actually saved human lives in only 5 percent of these situations, then the use of firearms in self defense would save more lives each year than are lost through firearms misuse in Canada.

Public opinion surveys are the best data available to estimate the use of firearms in self defense because few relevant official records are readily available. As part of a larger study, a representative sample of the Canadian general public was drawn using stratified random sampling methods. Gary Mauser and Michael Margolis, "The Politics of Gun Control: Comparing Canadian and American Patterns," Government and Policy, 1992, Vol. 10, pp. 189-209. This study was funded by the International Council for Canadian Studies, a program of the Canadian Embassy, Washington, DC.Note Random digit dialling methods were used to generate unlisted telephone numbers, and professional interviewers conducted all interviews. The sample included respondents in all Canadian provinces, but excluded the Territories.

Respondents were asked a series of questions to investigate their use of firearms in self defense. First, respondents were asked, "Aside from military service or police work, in the past five years, have you yourself, or a member of your household, ever used a gun for self-protection of property at home, at work, or elsewhere, even if it wasn't fired?" If the respondent answered, "yes," a follow up question was asked, "Was this to protect against an animal, or a person, or both?"

As table 10 shows, approximately 3.1 percent of the Canadian adult population report that someone in their household used a firearm, at least once, in self defense in the past 5 years. Over half of these incidents (1.8 percent) involved protection against animals--most likely bears; but almost as many (1.6 percent) involved the use of firearms to defend against other people. These estimates are consistent with the results of an earlier study the author conducted in British Columbia. Confidence in the results of the national sample is increased because the results of the B.C. study are so close. These results are described more fully in Gary Mauser, "Firearms and Self Defense: the Canadian Case," presented to the American Society of Criminology, October 27, 1993.Note

Click here to view Table 10: Comparison of Firearm Use for Self Protection in Canada and B.C.

Admittedly, these are small percentages. Nevertheless, with over 10 million households in Canada in 1990, these percentages imply that there were approximately 312,463 Canadian households where at least one person reported having used a firearm to protect themselves or their family between 1985 and 1990. Calculating the typical 5 percent confidence limits for a sample of this size yields an estimate ranging from 296,840 to 328,086 incidents. Divide these figures by 5 (years), and one finds that firearms were reported as having been used between 59,368 and 65,617 times a year, or an average of 62,493 times each year during this period. Approximately half of these incidents involved a defense against human threats. Thus, there were approximately 32,255 incidents each year between 1985 and 1990 in which a Canadian used a firearm to defend him or herself against a human threat, and 36,286 incidents annually where firearms were used against animal threats (see table 11).

Click here to view Table 11: Frequency of use of a firearm in self protection in the past 5 years in Canada

Assume, conservatively, that only one person in a household used a firearm only once between 1985 and 1990 for self-defence purposes. Then, on average, there were 289 defensive uses of firearms per 100,000 population during this period, and 149 of these involved threats from humans. There were over 180,000 reported uses of firearms for protection against animal attacks between 1985 and 1990 and over 160,000 uses of them against dangerous people. Although the survey was not designed to assess regional differences, the threat of animal attack is probably more significant in Western Canada (British Columbia and the Prairie provinces) than it is in central Canada (Ontario and Quebec). Limited confirmation for this hypothesis can be found in the results of an earlier study conducted in British Columbia. Gary Mauser, "A Comparison of Canadian and American Attitudes Towards Firearms," Canadian Journal of Criminology, 1990, Vol. 32, pp. 573-589.Note This earlier study found, overall, slightly more defensive use of firearms and a much higher incidence of use against animals--2.5% for B.C. compared with 1.8 percent for all of Canada (see table 11). Further confirmation of these estimates is provided by the close agreement between this approach in estimating the frequency with which firearms are used in self defense in the United States and Gary Kleck's earlier findings. This comparison is described more fully in Mauser, 1993, op cit., pp. 8-9.Note

Another way to put these results in perspective is to compare the frequency of defensive use of firearms with the frequency that firearms are misused. As table 12 indicates, in 1992 there were a total of 1,516 firearms deaths in Canada (1,186 of these being suicides) and an estimated total of 35,696 firearm crimes that did not involve death. This year was selected as it was the most recent year for which all of these statistics were available for both countries at the time of this study. No fundamental changes have taken place since 1987 in any of these statistics.Note Canadians report using firearms defensively more that 68,000 times annually; therefore, firearms are used about twice as often in self defense as they are in criminal violence. If the use of firearms results in saving human lives in only 5 percent of these defensive situations, then firearm use saves many more lives each year than are lost through firearms misuse.

Click here to view Table 12: Firearm misuse in 1992

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