BREITKREUZ'S RESPONSE TO E-MAILS ON THE PM's HANDGUN BAN

BREITKREUZ'S RESPONSE TO E-MAILS ON THE PM's HANDGUN BAN
Date: Dec 13, 2005 11:37 PM
GARRY BREITKREUZ'S RESPONSE TO E-MAILS ON THE PM's HANDGUN BAN


Thank you for contacting me with respect to the Prime Minister's
announcement to ban handguns. Does he not realize that criminal
possession of a handgun has been illegal for more than 70 years? This
most recent misguided proposal will do nothing to keep criminals from
getting handguns or to reduce violent crime.

The real news is that the most recent Statistics Canada homicide report
showed that in 2004, 70 percent of the accused murderers had a prior
conviction for a violent offence: 8 for homicide! Canadians should be
asking the Prime Minister: Why are convicted murderers being let out on
our streets to kill again instead of in prison where they belong? There
were 622 murder victims in 2004 - a 12 percent increase over 2003
including an increase in almost all categories of family homicides.
Seventy-two percent of these murderers used something other than a
firearm. The government's priority should be to reduce the root causes
of violent crime rather than its current obsession with the methods used
by these criminals.

Paul Martin has presided over the public purse for all of the last
twelve years, ignoring the realities of violent crime, pouring $2
billion dollars into another phony firearms law called the gun registry
and starving law enforcement in the process. Our police officers have
been losing the fight against violent crime for the last 43 years. The
number of Criminal Code incidents per police officer has more than
doubled since 1962. Canada's violent crime rate has more than
quadrupled over the same period. We have reached the point now that
violent crime is higher in Canada than in the United States. Why hasn't
that made the front pages?

Our firearms policy will effectively return our gun laws to the way they
were before 1995 - except for the mandatory minimum sentences that we
propose to increase. Then I personally promise that I will start the
task of fixing all the flaws in federal firearm laws by requiring that
they be subjected to a public safety test administered by the Auditor
General of Canada. My proposal includes a sunset clause on all gun
control laws that have been proven by the Auditor General not to be cost
effective at reducing the criminal use of firearms and improving public
safety.

Yours sincerely,

Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.
Yorkton-Melville (SK)
Conservative Firearms Critic
House of Commons
Room 452D - Centre Block
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Phone: (613) 992-4394
Fax: (613) 992-8676
www.garrybreitkreuz.com