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A Statistical Analysis Of The Impacts Of The 1977 Firearms Control Legislation

Evaluation Document

Programme Evaluation Section
July, 1996
ED1996-1e

Notice: The information contained in this document is considered accurate the date of publication. The information has not been updated to reflect any changes to the Firearms Act and related regulations

The information may be reproduced, in whole or in part and by any means, without further permission of the Department of Justice Canada. No such reproduction shall indicate that the Department of Justice is in any way responsible for the accuracy or reliability of the reproduction, nor shall any such reproduction indicate that it was made with the endorsement of, or in affiliation with, the Department of Justice Canada.

Executive Summary

This evaluation report focuses on the effectiveness of the 1977 changes to the Criminal Code specifically designed to address the problems of firearms deaths and injuries as well as crimes involving firearms.

Evaluation:

The Treasury Board Secretariat of the Government of Canada specifies that evaluation in the federal government is the responsibility of the Deputy Minister of each Department and Agency. The federal Evaluation Policy specifies that evaluations are to be completed by officials who are independent from the programs and policies to be assessed. The Evaluation Section of the Department of Justice is a separate entity which provides independent assessments of the performance of Departmental policies, programs and operations. The unit has a direct reporting relationship to the Deputy Minister on all evaluation matters.

In undertaking this function, the Evaluation Section often engages the professional services of consultants to undertake field work which can be used for completing evaluations. For this project, we engaged Prairie Research Associates Inc. to compile and analyse data from a variety of sources, and to construct rigorous statistical models to test the impacts and effects of the 1977 and 1991 legislative amendments. This evaluation report, prepared by the Department of Justice, draws heavily from the work completed by Prairie Research.

Background:

Gun control has evolved in Canada over a long period of time, dating back to at least 1892. In 1993, the Auditor General of Canada, while noting that Canada's gun control program is both controversial and complex, recommended that the Department of Justice undertake an evaluation of the program in order to provide Members of Parliament and the Canadian public assurance that the objectives of the legislation are being met. In particular, he proposed the need for a rigorous statistical analysis of the impacts and effects of the Firearms Control Initiative on changes in rates of firearms deaths and crimes over time. This study is one of the most comprehensive statistical analyses of the impacts of any legislative initiative undertaken in Canada to date.

Methodological Approach:

The guiding questions for this study were: (i) what observed changes have occurred over time in the incidence of firearms related deaths and to what extent can these changes be attributed to firearm control legislation; and, (ii) have there been changes in the incidence of firearms offenses over time and to what extent can any changes be attributed to the firearms control legislation.

The relationship between gun controls and firearms related deaths has been studied for many decades. In the last 20 years, social scientists have used increasingly sophisticated statistical methods in an attempt to infer whether regulating access to firearms reduces the incidence of homicide, suicide and accidental deaths involving firearms. Much of this methodological research has been completed in the United States.

These studies have generally conformed to one of three approaches: exploratory analyses; time series analyses; or, structural modelling. The statistical modelling strategy for this study is comprehensive, proceeding from exploratory analysis through time series modelling and then to structural modelling. Each stage of analysis presents a successively more elaborate test of the basic proposition; namely, has gun control affected the incidence of firearms related deaths and/or criminal misuse in Canada? During the course of the study it became apparent that the 1991 legislation could not be assessed. Therefore, the findings of this evaluation report are directed to the 1977 legislative amendments.

Synopsis of Findings

As with any large scale study, it is difficult to provide a synopsis of findings. In this particular case, a summary of the findings can be somewhat misleading, because the results from the different analytical models are, at times, contradictory. As a result, we strongly recommend a reading of the entire report in order to gain a comprehensive sense of the findings. In this regard, we note that anyone looking for a straightforward answer to the question "has gun control met its objectives?" will be disappointed. There is not a simple "yes" or "no" response.

Initially, an exploratory analysis of the data showed a number of different patterns, some of which are inconsistent. With regard to homicides, the exploratory analysis suggested that the trends in both total and firearms homicides at the national level have been declining steadily since between 1975 and 1978 depending upon the specific region examined. However, in all regions of Canada, there has been a steady decline in fiream homicides since the 1977 legislation was implemented.

With regard to suicides, the time series steadily declines after 1978 both nationally and in Western Canada and Ontario. For firearm suicides, there is a distinct change from an increasing trend prior to 1978 to a decreasing trend since 1978.

Nationally, robberies have increased steadily during the period between 1974 and 1993. However, robberies with firearms have declined over the same period. In general, the use of firearms has continued to decrease, reaching an historic low of approximately 25 per cent of all robberies in recent years.

The next stage of analysis involved more rigorous statistical analysis of these time series. The ARIMA time series modelling produced a number of different results some of which were inconsistent. For example, the models indicated that the 1977 legislation may have had a statistically significant impact on homicides involving firearms when viewed at a national level and in Ontario. But, the same patterns were not evident in other regions.

With regard to suicides, the models suggested that the legislation had a delayed impact (i.e., modelling the legislative impacts for 1979 with the introduction of the FAC system) in patterns of suicides in Ontario, Western Canada and for Canada as a whole. Firearms accidents show a similar pattern. The analysis suggests that nationally, the legislation has had a delayed impact. Similarly, the models suggest that the legislation has reduced the rate of firearms accidents in Western Canada. But, the same patterns were not evident in other regions.

Taken together, the results of the exploratory and time series analyses suggest that the 1977 legislative amendments have had some impacts. However, the results of this stage of investigation demonstrated the need to construct structural models which could assess the simultaneous impacts of gun control, social and economic factors, and other influences.

In response, structural models were constructed for this study to incorporate into the analysis social, demographic, economic and institutional variables, as well as a measure for the introduction of the gun control legislation. In constructing and testing these models, we found two primary sources of estimation error: multicollinearity and aggregation bias. Using currently available data and analytical techniques, any statistical analyses of legislative initiatives including gun control will be subject to these same phenomenon.

Having noted this, the structural models constructed for this evaluation suggest that the 1977 amendments have reduced the rate of homicides in Canada by approximately 55 per year. However, these models do not demonstrate a clear effect with regard to the incidence of suicides involving firearms. This finding is in conflict with the prevailing literature which suggests that there is a relationship between firearms availability and suicides using firearms.

The models also show a relationship between the 1977 amendments and the incidence of accidental deaths involving firearms, although the model presents a number of inconsistencies. Further, we also note that we were unable to collect data regarding firearms safety courses for inclusion in the model. In terms of criminal misuse, we were unable to obtain consistent data over a long enough period of time to undertake structural estimates of the impact of the gun control legislation on the incidence of robberies involving firearms.

One of the most significant findings was that although this study was comprehensive and very detailed, the lack of available data limited the analysis and as a result the evaluation findings. And, in this regard, it is strongly recommended that the ground work and planning for the evaluations of the 1991 and 1995 legislative amendments be done now in order to ensure, to the extent possible, that the necessary data are available.