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The shootings at Montreal's Dawson College in
September 2006 reignited the controversy over the firearms
registry and prompted the Conservative government to review its
earlier pledge to scrap the registry. This paper is a timely
effort to evaluate the effectiveness of the 1995 firearm
legislation. In 1995, the government assumed that, by controlling
the availability of firearms, the registry would reduce total
criminal violence, not just gun violence, suicide and domestic
abuse. I argue here that this legislation is fundamentally flawed
because it relies upon public-health research to justify its
moralistic approach to firearms. Public-health advocates have
exaggerated the danger of citizens owning firearms through
pseudoscientific research methods. The federal government's
moralistic approach to public safety is compared with a more
practical and consultative provincial program that is more
successful.
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