Guns, Drugs and Crime: Canada's Violent Crime Rate a Shock!

Canada Blames Us -- Gun-control folly here, up north, across the pond... John R. Lott Jr. Aug. 19, 05.

John Lott, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and The Bias Against Guns" (Regnery 2003).

If you have a problem, it's often easier to blame someone else rather than deal with it. And with Canada's murder rate rising 12 percent last year and a recent rash of murders by gangs in Toronto and other cities, it's understandable that Canadian politicians want a scapegoat. [. . . . ]

Many things affect crime: The rise of drug-gang violence in Canada and Britain is an important part of the story, just as it has long been important in explaining the U.S.'s rates. (Few Canadians appreciate that 70 percent of American murders take place in just 3.5 percent of our counties, and that a large percentage of those are drug-gang related.) Just as these gangs can smuggle drugs into the country, they can smuggle in weapons to defend their turf.

With Canada's reported violent-crime rate of 963 per 100,000 in 2003, a rate about twice the U.S.'s (which is 475), Canada's politicians are understandably nervous.

While it is always easier to blame another for your problems, the solution to crime is often homegrown.

Jamaica struggling to cut its alarming murder rate -- New head of national security faces a raging crime wave The Miami Herald, and that was October 31, 2001

Surpassing 900 murders this year, Jamaica's chronic cycle of crime and civil disorder won't be broken until the people finally become sick of it, a top police official says.

Jamaicans ``must decide not to tolerate it any longer . . . .

[. . . .] In addition, the government is placing more police officers, along with soldiers, on the streets to patrol the areas of Kingston where many of the killings have taken place.

[. . . . ] According to the police, drug and gang violence accounted for nearly 200 of the 900 killings, many of them in Seaga's West Kingston; Domestic murders are put at 273, and reprisal killings at 287. Although only eight killings were directly tied to politics, police say political tension, which includes reprisals, may be the source of hundreds of deaths.

Search: deploying 700 troops from the national reserve on the streets to improve security

So our government for years has allowed Jamaicans to freely enter Canada and many brought their violence here. This violence was known about years ago. Some have been turfed out of Canada, I understand, for criminal activity but they return. How? False documents? Why, then, allow more, particularly Jamaican men, into Canada before they are thoroughly checked out? Buying votes?




Crystal meth pushers will face life sentences -- Crackdown comes as meth use rises: New law also targets chemicals used to make 'poor man's heroin' Peter O'Neil, Vancouver Sun, Aug. 11, 05


The menace of crystal meth -- Do not miss the before and after photos -- Show them to your teenager.

Below, there are 24 articles on the subject.

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