From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #546 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Cdn-Firearms Digest Monday, October 6 2003 Volume 06 : Number 546 In this issue: OFFICERS NAB HATCHBACK POACHERS Column: Registry hasn't affected our firearms-murder rate The Quiet Epidemic: Shrouded in shame and silence, suicide grows ARMED STANDOFF IN HOBBEMA ENDS PEACEFULLY Shots fired in bar on Barton ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 10:06:21 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: OFFICERS NAB HATCHBACK POACHERS PUBLICATION: The Winnipeg Sun DATE: 2003.10.05 EDITION: Final SECTION: News PAGE: A5 ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos by Jason Halstead 1. Natural Resources officers remove the unlucky geese from the Tercel. 2. One suspect is led away. BYLINE: TAMMY MARLOWE, STAFF REPORTER - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OFFICERS NAB HATCHBACK POACHERS - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talk about fowl play. Two sitting ducks are facing several charges after they were busted for allegedly shooting geese in the city -- from the back seat of their car. Police said they received a call about 10:40 a.m. from a truck driver who spotted someone shooting geese on Brookside Boulevard at the intersection with Oak Point Highway, near a Petro Pass gas station. Cops found two men in their 50s sitting in a red Toyota Tercel, and when officers looked in the rear portion of the car they also found four dead and dying geese. The men had allegedly been shooting from the back seat of the hatchback, and had apparently been bringing down the birds with shots from the rear passenger window. Provincial Natural Resources officers were called in and officials removed the geese from the rear of the Tercel. Police officers took the duo into custody and searched the rest of the vehicle. They seized at least two firearms, which appeared to be shotguns, from the scene. Winnipeg police Sgt. Dave Barr said the provincial Natural Resources branch will be laying charges against the men. Several criminal charges for weapons offences and bylaw infractions were also pending last night. At press time, Barr said the men were released, and no other information was available. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 10:07:23 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Column: Registry hasn't affected our firearms-murder rate PUBLICATION: Times Colonist (Victoria) DATE: 2003.10.04 EDITION: Final SECTION: Comment PAGE: A14 COLUMN: Lorne Gunter BYLINE: Lorne Gunter SOURCE: CanWest News Service - -------------------------------------------------------------------------= Registry hasn't affected our firearms-murder rate - -------------------------------------------------------------------------= In 1998, when the Liberals opened their vaunted gun registry, 151 Canadians were murdered with firearms. Last year, firearms were used to murder 149, as Statistics Canada reported Tuesday. Anyone tempted by the headlines that followed StatsCan's Tuesday release - -- such as the National Post's "Gun-death rate hits all-time low" -- to point to the registry as the cause of these "historic" low numbers, should pause first and consider the above statistics: 151 firearms murders before the registry, 149 now. Net effect of intrusive, error-plagued, billion-dollar registry? Zero. Total firearms-murder numbers jump around annually within a range of 150 to 180, largely dependent on the murderous exploits of drug and biker gangs and organized crime. In 1999, there were 165 murders by gun, 183 in 2000, 171 in 2001 and, of course, 149 last year. The effect of gang wars and drug wars on these totals can been seen clearly in the statistics from Quebec. In 2000, there were 38 gang-related homicides in that province, which at the time was witnessing a turf war between the Hell's Angels and their rivals the Rock Machine. Last year there were just six gang killings in Quebec. In a country such as ours, with thankfully very few murders of any sort, a drop of 32 gang killings in just one province in just two years can have a significant and visible effect on overall homicide statistics. Nationwide, gang "hits" fell from 72 in 2000 to 45 in 2002. Since most gang killers use guns, gun-murder rates will drop noticeably as a result. The rate of gun murders to overall murders can also shift in either of two ways: by gun murders falling or overall murders rising while gun murders remain constant. The latter is largely the case in these most recent numbers. There were 558 total murders in 1998, the year in which there were 151 gun murders. Last year, when there were 149 gun murders, there were 582 total homicides. In other words, the "gun-death rate" is not down because there are fewer gun deaths since the registry opened; it's down because there are more non-gun murders being committed. Perhaps you remain unpersuaded by such number-crunching. Perhaps you think any reduction in gun murders is worth keeping the registry going. Why? Is there something especially heinous about a gun murder versus a murder by another weapon? If the people who murder merely switch to other weapons, but keep on murdering, the registry has not helped reduce murder in Canada. Yet modern gun control advocates have so mythologized gun violence, they seem to see it as somehow worse than violence with other weapons, as if it doesn't matter that violence and murder have stayed the same or increased, gun crime has fallen, and that makes the registry worthwhile. I used to mark English composition papers at the University of Alberta and I remember reading in one that gun control was "necessary now more than in previous centuries because being killed by a bullet is more fatal than being killed by a sword." That sort of loopy logic, though, is all too prevalent. And to their credit, neither Wayne Easter, the federal solicitor general and the minister responsible for the registry, nor Wendy Cukier, chair of the Coalition for Gun Control, have fallen into this trap -- this time. Both say that while they were encouraged by the latest gun-murder stats, it was too early to credit the registry for the drop. I doubt, though, that there will ever be a drop in gun murders that can be pegged to the registry, not only because the system does not work, but simply because we must be approaching about the lowest possible number of gun murders in a country this size. Statistics Canada revealed Tuesday that the proportion of gun murders to total murders "has generally been decreasing since 1974," just as total homicides "have generally decreased since the mid-1970s." The decline predates gun control in Canada. The first controls, at least on shotguns and rifles, were implemented in 1977, three years after the trend to fewer murders began. Moreover, handguns now are used to commit two-thirds of Canada's firearms homicides, up from one-third in the past decade or so. But handguns have had to be registered since 1934, proving conclusively that registering guns cannot and will not prevent murders or violence. If it could, handgun murders should be the rarest form, not the most common. We also know, though, that two-thirds of those arrested for murder in Canada have previous criminal records. That fact, coupled with the rapid rise in handguns as the firearm of choice in gun murders, indicates that murderers are not law-abiding people in the first place. They will not register their guns, no matter what the law. And, they are going to murder one way or another: If they can't go to the local sporting goods shop and buy a shotgun to kill someone, they'll buy a black market pistol smuggled in from the U.S. Harassing upstanding sport shooters with a colossally wasteful gun registry will never make Canada safer. Hunters, gun collectors and target shooters are not the problem, and never were. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 10:09:33 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: The Quiet Epidemic: Shrouded in shame and silence, suicide grows PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen DATE: 2003.10.04 EDITION: Final SECTION: Saturday Observer PAGE: B1 / Front BYLINE: Andrew Duffy and Ian MacLeod SOURCE: The Ottawa Citizen ILLUSTRATION: Colour Photo: (See hard copy for illustration).; Photo: CTVNews / Patti Ricciuti lost a 15-year-old son to suicide: 'People think that if they don't talk about suicide, it's going to go away.' NOTE: Ran with fact boxes "The Quiet Epidemic" and "Thestatistics", which have been appended to the story. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Quiet Epidemic: Shrouded in shame and silence, suicide grows in Canada - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The epidemic kills an average of 3,700 Canadians a year: men, women, teens and the terminally ill. They come from all walks of life. They're doctors, fathers and students. But you will rarely read about this quiet epidemic or hear politicians rail about the need for action. That's because suicide remains shrouded in old taboos, misconceptions and shame. According to the World Health Organization, the annual loss of life by suicide equals all other violent deaths combined: all war casualties, all homicides. The WHO estimated that 815,000 people worldwide died by suicide in 2000, one every 40 seconds. In Canada, the national suicide rate is the highest in the Western Hemisphere with a death toll equivalent to the crash of one fully loaded jumbo jet every month. Canadians are seven times more likely to kill themselves than be killed by someone else. The vast majority of the dead -- about 80 per cent -- are men. The epidemic has a long history in Canada. Suicide rates rose dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s, then levelled out during the 1980s and 1990s. But the rates remain close to their peak levels. Although not contagious in the traditional sense, suicide has killed more people in Canada over the past two decades than other powerful epidemics, such as HIV/AIDS. Despite the scope of the problem, Canada still does not have a national suicide prevention policy even though the federal government produced two national task force reports, the most recent in 1994. During the decade of inaction since, more than 37,000 Canadians have died of suicide, about as many as those killed during the Second World War. Meanwhile, countries with lower suicide rates, including the United States, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, have put national prevention strategies in place. Mental health officials in this country, such as Dr. Antoon Leenaars, a Windsor psychologist and one of Canada's leading experts on suicide, have worked for more than a decade to overcome the Canadian failure. They have been striving to persuade politicians that the epidemic is ignored at a terrible price. "Suicide is obviously a major public health problem, but it's something that we can do something about," says Dr. Leenaars. "This is needless death; this is not death that is part of the natural process." Health Canada, in a report released last October on mental illnesses in Canada, concedes as much, concluding: "Suicidal behaviour is an important and preventable public health problem in Canada." The human cost of suicide is staggering. It claims an average of 10 Canadians every day and shatters the lives of many thousands more, the parents, relatives and friends who must cope with the suicide deaths. More Canadians die by suicide each year than in traffic accidents and by murder combined. But it is the latter violent deaths that make headlines. Moreover, the official number of suicides recorded in Canada underestimates the actual scope of the epidemic. When coroners are confronted with drug overdoses, for instance, they code the deaths as suicide only in cases where there's clear evidence the act was intentional. The Health Canada report on mental illness noted that "the actual number of suicide deaths may be considerably higher" than officially reported in Canada. The Canadian epidemic bears troubling characteristics. Consider: - - There are more suicides per capita in Canada than in the U.S. even though Americans have much more ready access to firearms. - - Young Canadian males are 50 to 60 per cent more likely to kill themselves than their American counterparts. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teens in Canada, after traffic accidents. - - Canada's Inuit have among the highest identified suicide rates on Earth. Meanwhile, suicide is the leading cause of death for natives in Canada between the ages of 10 and 44. - - For every suicide, there are at least 10 attempted suicides, which cost the health care system millions of dollars a year. In 1999, for instance, 22,887 people were discharged from Canadian hospitals after being treated for suicide-related or self-inflicted injuries. - - A 1996 New Brunswick study estimated that every suicide costs about $850,000 in health care services, autopsies, funerals, police investigations and in indirect costs from lost productivity and earnings. Incredibly, men are four times more likely than women to kill themselves. Suicide is, in fact, the leading cause of death for men aged 25 to 39, taking more lives every year than cancer, heart disease or traffic accidents, according to Statistics Canada. Despite these facts, suicide remains shrouded in silence. Yet that may be changing, thanks to the courage of people such as Patti Ricciuti. Ms. Ricciuti has appealed for an open, frank examination of the problem in the wake of her son's suicide. Last year, Jason Ricciuti, a 15-year-old Kelowna boy, hanged himself in his hotel room during a November hockey tournament. He had been caught with a small amount of marijuana and threatened with a suspension. "People think that if they don't talk about suicide, it's going to go away," Patti Ricciuti told the Citizen. "But I feel it's just so wrong. We can't sweep things under the rug. We can't make changes and we can't help people if we can't talk about it." Many experts agree with Ms. Ricciuti. Dr. Leenaars, for instance, is convinced that hundreds of suicides can be prevented each year if depression and suicide were regularly discussed in schools, in doctors' offices, in jails and on First Nations reserves. Suicide results from a complex series of biological, psychological and social influences. Yet the vast majority of suicides involve treatable problems: depression and substance abuse. "I think the research is very clear that suicides are, many of them, preventable," says Dr. Leenaars. While four provinces have suicide prevention plans in place, the federal government has so far resisted calls to create a national suicide prevention strategy. Federal officials say not enough is known about which programs work. They want more evidence before launching a comprehensive program. Yet there is evidence that national suicide prevention strategies are effective. Finland, a country that suffered the world's worst suicide rate during the 1980s, launched the first comprehensive national suicide prevention campaign in 1992, enlisting psychologists, police officers, social workers and medical personnel to identify those at risk and intervene. It set as its goal a five-year, 20-per-cent reduction in the incidence of suicide, and by 1996, it had achieved an overall reduction of 18 per cent from the epidemic's peak in 1990. "We lose close to 4,000 Canadians every year to suicide," says David Masecar, president of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. "It's not like our government doesn't know the numbers. It's not like they don't have the information; it's not that they're unaware of what they could be doing. It just seems to be a very poor commitment on their part." Mr. Masecar says the toll of suicide is particularly terrible among native and Inuit communities where the vast majority of suicide victims are young and male. Their deaths tend to be impulsive and desperate acts, born of isolation, poverty, substance abuse and physical abuse. The federal government has commissioned two major studies of the problem. The most recent, Acting on What We Know: Preventing Youth Suicide in First Nations, was published in March, but did not receive any coverage from the mainstream media. "I would call it both an epidemic and a tragedy for aboriginal youth. I don't think the average Canadian is aware of the extent of the problem," says Dr. Cornelia Wieman, a member of the panel, and one of only three aboriginal psychiatrists in Canada. The federal government has agreed to act on some of the report's recommendations. Dr. Wieman says panel members are "adamant" that their report not be added to government shelves. "I sense a reluctance to just wade into the whole issue because it's not clear-cut," she says. "When you look at suicide, and specifically aboriginal suicide, you're looking at issues that are not just biological. There are many things that contribute to the suicide problem: poverty, isolation." While there is still no overarching federal plan to confront the epidemic of aboriginal suicides, governments have helped some communities to act. One such community is Wapekeka. During the 1990s, the small, isolated First Nation in Northern Ontario lost 16 young people to suicide, but in the past four years, since community leaders introduced a comprehensive program, there have been no suicide deaths. "There's a fear of contagion, that if we talk about suicide, we're going to incite more people to commit suicide. But we know in most cases, that's not true," says Dr. Wieman. Still, there's much about suicide that remains little understood. Why, for instance, does suicidal activity peak each year, not during the dark days of winter, but during the spring? Why do some clinically depressed people kill themselves while the vast majority survive? Is there a "suicide gene?" Canadian researchers are increasingly in pursuit of answers to such questions. Two leading Canadian universities, the University of Toronto and McGill University in Montreal, have established suicide research centres. The McGill Group for Suicide Studies includes Canada's first dedicated brain bank for research into the neurobiology of the suicidal mind. Researchers there are asking the question: What sets the suicidal mind apart? Their work, which shows that the brains of suicide victims are physically different than "normal" brains, is already changing the way many people think about suicide. "Suicide is not only the extreme response to unbearable stress," says Dr. Gustavo Turecki, a psychiatric geneticist and the group's director. "Most people who commit suicide do so because they have a given biological predisposition, as well as a given psychiatric problem. By looking at only one aspect, let's say social factors, you're only looking at one part of the picture." Susan Hess, 59, a mother of five who lives in Windsor, is one of hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose families have been buffeted by depression and suicide. Her daughter, Leah, suffered from undiagnosed depression and anxiety from the time she was a child; she was considered a serious behavioural problem at school. She attempted suicide as a teen. "She hated her life, she wanted to die," says Ms. Hess, a member of an Ontario group dedicated to removing the stigma from mental illness, a condition present in more than 80 per cent of suicide victims. Convinced her daughter suffered not from a behavioural problem, but from a chemical imbalance, Leah's mother fought long and hard to have her tested and re-tested. After she was finally diagnosed, and prescribed anti-depressants, Leah's personality changed dramatically. She overcame the blackness that crippled her and graduated from high school four years ago. Now 22, she works part-time at a respite centre for physically challenged children and is a volunteer at a seniors' centre. "She was saved," says Ms. Hess. But Susan Hess has also lost a loved one to suicide. Her husband, Gerald, killed himself 17 years ago. Gerald Hess was 42 years old, a dentist and a father to a large, young family. "I always explain it as being in the eye of a hurricane," says Ms. Hess. "I knew something was going on, but I didn't know what it was." Gerald suffered from prostate pain that kept him away from work for three months. His wife believes the pain and idleness led to a fatal bout of undiagnosed depression. He took his life one sunny afternoon in the family garage, allowing the car to run while he sat in the driver's seat. Two of his children discovered his body. "I remember the intense hatred and the intense love I had for him at the same time," Ms. Hess says. "I also remember looking up at my kids and saying, 'This is not your fault.' And they told me, 'Mommy, this is not your fault.' Those were the first words we exchanged." She says her husband was never able to discuss his depression because he was embarrassed by it. Then, after his suicide, people would only whisper about his death. Ms. Hess can't stand the quiet. "I have always told people, 'Don't whisper, don't stop your conversations because I'm there. Depression is a health problem. Suicide happens more than you know. We should talk about it.' " Tomorrow: Suicide: The male scourge - - - - The Quiet Epidemic Today: Introduction to an epidemic. Sunday: Suicide: The male scourge. Oct. 6: The evolution of a taboo. Oct. 7: The science of suicide. Oct. 8: Suicide survivors. Oct. 9: Death in the family. Oct. 10: Suicide studies: Emerging topics in the field. Oct. 11: A return to Wapekeka: How one First Nation overcamea tragedy. Oct. 12: Prescriptions for change. - - - - The statistics As a cause of death, suicide in Canada ranks: - - First for men, 25 to 39.- Second for men, 20 to 24, and the third for women the same age.- Second for women, 30 to 39.- Second for teenagers, 15 to 19.- Third for boys, 10 to 14.- Third for women, 40 to 49.- Third for men, 40 to 54. Source: Leading Causes of Death at Different Ages, Canada, 1999. Statistics Canada ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 10:10:41 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: ARMED STANDOFF IN HOBBEMA ENDS PEACEFULLY PUBLICATION: The Calgary Sun DATE: 2003.10.06 EDITION: Final SECTION: News PAGE: 16 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ARMED STANDOFF IN HOBBEMA ENDS PEACEFULLY - -------------------------------------------------------------------------= A stand-off near Hobbema between police and an armed man turned violent but was contained by specialized RCMP officers from Edmonton and Red Deer. The stand-off occurred after cruiser responded to a complaint of an intoxicated man at a Samson Reserve home on Saturday. "When (the two officers) exited their vehicle, they observed a male standing outside a shed holding what appeared to be a shotgun," said Cpl. R.G. Hindy. The officers ordered the man to put the gun down but received profanity in return, prompting them to retreat to the safety of their vehicle. The man then opened fire and struck the car. The officers drove back to a safer distance, where they could still hear rounds being fired but none struck the car. Emergency Response Team officers, which were dispatched from Red Deer and Edmonton, arrested the man with no further incident. Emil Johnson, 58, of Hobbema, has been charged with attempted murder, pointing a firearm, careless use of a firearm and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public peace. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 10:12:30 -0600 (CST) From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Shots fired in bar on Barton PUBLICATION: The Hamilton Spectator DATE: 2003.10.06 SECTION: Local news PAGE: A04 SOURCE: The Hamilton Spectator BYLINE: Josh Brown - -------------------------------------------------------------------------= Shots fired in bar on Barton - -------------------------------------------------------------------------= A Hamilton man faces multiple charges after firing shots in an east end bar early yesterday morning. Police were called to the Dizzy Weasel Pub and Grub on Barton Street East near Gage Avenue about 2:15 a.m. after a man fired a shot in the parking lot and three more into the ceiling of the bar. Police said the man left the bar after getting into a fight with two women only to return moments later with a gun from his car. "The man was not known to the women," said Detective Ron Collingwood. "In fact, nobody at the bar said they had seen him before." The man fled after firing the shots but police found him about a block away. Members of the Emergency Response Unit used a Taser to subdue him after he ignored orders to surrender. The Taser fires two darts with wires attached to a battery that emits a 50,000-volt charge. Police found the gun in an alley. "It was concealed by a fence and not visible to the public," said Detective Dave Long. The gunshots didn't injure anyone but a woman needed stitches after being hit with a beer bottle. Management at the Dizzy Weasel had no comment but did reopen for business yesterday morning. The man was taken to Hamilton General Hospital for treatment of wounds left by the darts and then to central police station. Charged with assault, assault with a weapon, threatening death and intent to cause bodily harm using a firearm is Richard Walker, 25, of Hamilton. jbrown@thespec.com 905-526-4620 ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #546 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:akimoya@cogeco.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) 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