The Association of Women Shooters of Canada was formed to share women's interest and knowledge in firearms and shooting, to convey women's participation to the general public and encourage even more women to try their hand at the sport, and to make our views heard in political debates concerning gun control. We are proud to declare that our members hail from all ten provinces and one territory.
Women participate in all types of shooting activity in Canada: hunting, recreational shooting of every kind, collecting, even police and military shooting, and, of course, competitive shooting from the club level to the World championships and Olympic Games.
Canadian women shooters have been champions in many international events and they are well known in Canada. Miriam Bedard is a double gold medalist from the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillihammer, Norway. Susan Nattrass won six, (yes six) World Trapshooting Championships and garnered the Lou Marsh Award as Canada's top athlete. Linda Thom won a gold medal in Sport Pistol in the 1984 Olympic Games and was awarded the Velma Springstead Trophy as Female Athlete of the Year. Sharon Cozzarin won gold and silver medals in the 1991 Pan American Games. Sharon Bowes came 4th in Air Rifle in the 1984 Olympics, won gold in the 1986 and the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and the 1987 Pan Am Games. Kerry Lathwell was the World Ladies Practical Pistol Champion in 1984. Christina Ashcroft has won gold, silver and bronze medals in several international shooting competitions. And the list goes on.
Women have constituted approximately 10 per cent of Canadian shooters historically, and that number has been growing not only in Canada but in other countries as a result of women's shooting events being added to the Olympic Games and various other important events such as the Pan Am Games, the Asian Games, the African Games, and most recently, the Commonwealth Games.
The fact that women are involved in significant numbers with the recreational use of firearms has even been recognized by the National Film Board of Canada. That respected organization is making a documentary about women and firearms. The film is not at all political in nature; it is not about gun control. It simply documents the activities of women across Canada and their involvement in the Canadian and international recreational firearms community.
Women in Canada have long been involved in a positive way with firearms. But even we were not fully aware of the extent of this involvement until, with the formation of the Association of Women Shooters of Canada, other women, such as the Tofield Gun Grannies, have contacted us and told us about their activities and their organizations.
Of considerable concern to women shooters is the attempt by the anti-gun lobby to label gun control a women's issue. Women are presented as being little more than potential victims of male violence. The violence is presented as being primarily the result of the misuse of firearms. Not only is this untrue and insulting, it is also dangerous rhetoric as the actual threats to women's safety and well-being are ignored by the anti-gun lobby and their colleagues from some women's shelters and victims groups.
The posturing contends that the presence of firearms in a household constitutes a threat. If that were the case, then the presence of knives and other objects in a household would constitute even more of a threat since knives and other means of injuring and killing are much more often used in domestic violence than are firearms.
One need only examine the actual figures on domestic homicide in Canada to see that the issue of firearms has been very much exaggerated by the anti-gun lobby which in reality is far more concerned with prohibiting private ownership of firearms than they are with women's safety.
The fact is that 21 women were killed by the use of firearms in domestic homicides in Canada in 1994, out of a total of 65 women killed by spouses or ex-spouses. (Juristat)
Society's heightened awareness of domestic abuse has led to the establishment of community facilities to deal with the problems. As far as the use of firearms is concerned, under existing law women who feel threatened can call police and have firearms removed from their household. Women who feel threatened by partners who are not resident in their household but have prohibition orders against them can have police remove firearms from the household of the person who is the subject of the order.
In fact, the law and police are now so sensitive to reports of threats with firearms that deliberate abuse of the system is taking place, especially in divorce situations. A woman need only claim that she has been threatened with a firearm or that a man who has threatened her possesses firearms and the police are likely to intervene and confiscate the firearms.
Women are more likely to be protected from the use of a firearm against them in a domestic situation under existing law than they are to be protected from any other means of harming them in that situation. This is particularly ironic since these other means are used much more frequently than firearms, yet firearms are being singled out for even more onerous restrictions.
According to Statistics Canada, in the year 1992, while 69 women died as a result of homicide using firearms (this would include all situations, not only domestic ones) as many as 176 women were victims of homicides committed with other weapons. Clearly, if one were interested in saving women's lives in situations of homicide, one should not focus on the incidents that involved firearms as they are in the minority.
With regard to domestic homicide in particular, it is important to note that the race of both the victim and the murderer is a significant factor. If one wishes to understand this phenomenon, one must consider the fact that:
"Native people are vastly over-represented in homicide offences in general, and in family related homicide, relative to their representation in the Canadian population. While Native people [sic] make up approximately 3 percent of the total population, they accounted for 19 per cent of the suspects and 15 per cent of the victims in all homicide offences over the 1974-1987 period, and 23 percent of suspects and 22 per cent of victims in homicides involving family members." (Statistics Canada)
As far as the likelihood of this situation being in any way changed by further gun control legislation, it should be noted that homicides committed by First Nations People using firearms generally involve hunting rifles or shotguns as the weapon. It is highly unlikely that any legislation will remove hunting rifles or shotguns from First Nations People.
Clearly there are social factors which far outweigh the issue of firearms and it is terribly simplistic and wrong to focus on firearms as a significant factor in domestic violence.
Moreover, we should speak of domestic violence as the issue, not simply domestic homicide. A far greater number of women are abused and beaten in domestic situations than are actually killed. The suffering, physical and emotional, of these women and their children is ignored when the focus is on murder and, even then, only on murder with a particular implement. It is interesting to note that these concerns are not expressed by the anti-gun groups from women's shelters.
Two reports issued in recent years, Changing the Landscape - ending Violence, Achieving Equality and The Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women don't mention firearms at all in their recommendations. The latter report, which cost the taxpayers 10 million dollars, had tremendous input from all sorts of women's groups, and is a milestone in women caring about women. Both reports yield recommendation after recommendation for making all aspects of daily life safer and better for women. It is very important to note that neither of these reports felt it necessary to say anything about gun control. Clearly, it was not considered a significant factor.
As women users of firearms, we are particularly troubled by this misrepresentation of firearms as a factor that has a negative impact on women's safety. We especially deplore the fact that this distracts from the real issues that affect women's health and safety. For example, the anti-gun lobby gets very worked up about the 69 women who died from homicide by firearms (1992) but is silent about the 4,830 women who died from breast cancer in the same year. The fact is that a woman is even more likely to die at the hands of her doctor than she is from a firearm (80 accidental surgical/medical deaths of women in 1992).
If women's health and safety is truly of concern then one might reasonably consider taking the enormous amount of money that the government is so eager to spend on universal firearm registration ($85 million is the government's estimate and that is at least $400 million lower than many other estimates) and using that money in ways that will actually benefit women. For example: research on breast cancer, treatment programs for abusive men, treatment programs for alcoholism (alcohol is almost always involved in incidents of domestic violence) are all ways which will help women far more than additional firearms legislation. Indeed, the government's priorities for the ways in which our taxpayers' money is spent should be infuriating to those who care about women's health and safety.
Another issue that should be of concern to those who care about women's health and safety is the issue of self defence. The Association of Women Shooters is not necessarily advocating the use of firearms for self defence but it would be foolish not to recognize the fact that incidents where firearms are used for self defence do occur in Canada.
It may come as a shock to learn that Canadians use firearms to protect themselves against human threats every 27 minutes and against animal threats every 11 minutes. (In fact, the ratio of self defence incidents to total deaths from firearms, including suicides, is 40 to one.) A proportion of the lives saved are obviously women's and children's lives.
When the Minister of Justice says that firearms should not be used for purposes of self defence, he is actually discriminating against women who are far less likely than men to be able to defend themselves effectively in any other manner.
The Prime Minister and Mrs. Chr‚tien, in their residence at 24 Sussex Drive, surrounded by surveillance and armed RCMP guards nevertheless found it necessary in the early hours of November 5th, 1995 to defend themselves by their wits and whatever was at hand (an Inuit soapstone carving). What are ordinary Canadians, particularly women, to do?
Experience shows that criminal behaviour increases if perpetrators feel there is little chance of meeting meaningful resistance and conversely it is more restrained if offenders believe that there is a likelihood of an effective defence against their predations.
For example, in Great Britain after extremely restrictive gun controls were enacted in 1988, armed robberies, burglaries, and home invasion burglaries (incidents where perpetrators know there is someone home but go ahead and rob the home anyway, frequently overwhelming, terrorizing, and/or injuring the occupants) increased substantially while private gun ownership fell off dramatically. Moreover, the law had no effect on the increase of violent crime.
Similarly, the experience in Orlando, Florida a few years ago demonstrated that a deterrent to would-be perpetrators is knowing that civilians may be armed. In response to an increase of violent rapes, the local police advised women to purchase firearms and learn how to use them. This advice was highly publicized by the media. Many women purchased handguns and took courses in how to use them properly. The number of rapes dropped greatly. Interestingly, not one woman had to fire a shot or even draw her gun. The knowledge that potential victims were prepared to defend themselves was effective in itself.
Another example, closer to home, occurred in Victoria, B.C. in the 1980s. As is widely known, Victoria has a large population of retirees and elderly people. Muggings became a problem, with elderly women targeted in particular. In this case, the police chief asked citizens not to resist when robbed, explaining he wanted to prevent injuries to the victims. The number of muggings increased after the appeal. Then one day an elderly woman successfully beat off an attacker with her cane. This incident was widely reported. The number of muggings dropped off sharply.
This is not to say that all women should carry canes nor that people should rush out and buy a gun for self defence. What these experiences do point out is attitudes among criminals. When perpetrators think they will meet resistance, armed or competent resistance in particular, they avoid putting themselves at risk. On the other hand, if they feel that there will be little or no resistance from their potential victims, they are more likely to attack.
Bill C-68 is unnecessary. Existing legislation is more than equal to the task of regulating firearms and their use in Canada. In fact Bill C-17, passed into law in 1991, was only completely proclaimed in the middle of 1993. Evaluating the effect of such extensive legislation will take years. The Auditor General, in his 1993 report, criticized the poor quality of research on the effectiveness of gun control.
Moreover, Bill C-17 specifically addressed incidents of violence against women including the deaths of 14 women students at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and domestic violence involving firearms. Criminologist Philip Stenning of the University of Toronto has indicated in his recent paper, Solutions In Search Of Problems: A Critique Of The Federal Government's Gun Control Proposals, that further legislation is quite unnecessary.
We regret that the Association of Women Shooters of Canada was not given the opportunity to appear before the Senate Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs to express their very strong opposition to Bill C-68. We are particularly concerned that a number of anti-gun groups which purported to represent the interests of women were invited to appear. However, we do hope that the concerns we have expressed in this written presentation will be given serious consideration.