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   From: gunfilth@gun.net   
      
   US guns fuel Canada and Mexico crimes, UK gun crime remains rare   
   Published: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 07:23 in Mathematics & Economics   
      
   Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (29 July 2009) ?   
   Guns smuggled from the US arm criminals in Canada and Mexico, contributing to a   
   higher murder rate in Canada and more intense drug crime conflict near the   
   Mexican border, according to a study published today in a special issue of   
   Criminology and Criminal Justice, published by SAGE. However, authors Philip J.   
   Cook, of Duke University Durham, NC, US, Wendy Cukier Ryerson of the University   
   of Toronto, Canada and Keith Krause from the Graduate Institute of   
   International   
   and Development Studies Geneva, Switzerland highlight a dearth of empirical   
   evidence on gun crime available to criminologists. Gun violence in North   
   America   
   remains the subject of considerable speculation and debate. In their paper The   
   Illicit Firearms Trade in North America, the authors draw upon economics   
   concepts, examining gun crime in the context of each country's regulatory   
   framework.   
      
   The US is undoubtedly a major supplier of illegal guns (particularly handguns)   
   to both Canada and Mexico. But limited data hamper efforts to predict the   
   effect   
   of a successful crackdown on illegal firearms by US authorities, the authors   
   suggest. Both policy makers and law enforcement would benefit from research to   
   fill these information gaps.   
      
   The data that are available show that the majority of traced handguns recovered   
   from Canadian crime scenes originate in US. Another major source of illegal   
   guns   
   in Canada, and in many other countries is "leakage" from state stockpiles   
   (police and military) through theft, corruption or other means. For instance,   
   'insiders' illegally sold over 3000 firearms recovered in crime or surrendered   
   in amnesties to the Metropolitan Toronto Police Service.   
      
   Investigators have traced 90 to 95 percent of weapons in Mexico to the US, but   
   how did they get there? The guns sampled may not represent the bigger picture:   
   the figure reflects firearms submitted for tracing by Mexican authorities.   
   Authorities recover only a fraction of firearms from crimes and gun battles,   
   and   
   traces are only requested on some recovered weapons.   
      
   Central America, a region awash with weapons imported by both governments and   
   rebel groups during the civil wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, is   
   a   
   further potential weapon source to Mexico, as are Chinese, Russian, Eastern   
   European, or other sources. To date evidence is mainly anecdotal. Still less is   
   known about the third source of weapons, the Mexican security forces   
   themselves.   
   The Small Arms Survey 2008 showed that weapons diverted from police and armed   
   forces are a major and sometimes the main source of illicit weapons in many   
   countries.   
      
   Some weapons used in Mexican crimes such as grenades, RPGs and fully automatic   
   weapons are less easy to acquire in the US, and have probably arrived from   
   elsewhere. This contrasts with Canada, where very few cases detail handguns   
   from   
   anywhere but the US, other than arms illegally diverted from legal Canadian   
   supplies.   
      
   According to Cook, the specific impact and effects of illicitly trafficked   
   firearms are unknowns. "Although we know that armed violence can have a variety   
   of deleterious effects on perceived and real insecurity, public health,   
   economic   
   development, and political stability, we do not know how much of this can be   
   associated specifically with changes in the availability of firearms," he says.   
      
   Some values can be quantified: Previous research has shown that life expectancy   
   is lowered by 0.6 years for all Mexicans as a result of armed violence, with   
   the   
   US and Canada figures at 0.31 and 0.08, respectively. But firearms' negative   
   effects are highly context dependent, with factors such as demand strength,   
   types of weapons circulating, social groups with weapons access and reasons   
   they   
   possess them all contributing to the mix.   
      
   "The use of guns by criminal groups increases their relative power, and in the   
   dramatic circumstances we see in Mexico, contributes to subverting legitimate   
   authority and creating such fear as to have a substantial economic and   
   political   
   impact," says Cook.   
      
   The rate of gun homicide in Canada is statistically low and falling, yet public   
   perception is that gun crime is rising. When Toronto, a city with 2.8 million   
   people hit 52 gun homicides in 2005, it became "the year of the gun" in spite   
   of   
   the fact that the city had one of the lowest murder rates on the continent for   
   a   
   city of its size. Rates of homicide with guns are 6.7 times higher in the US   
   than in Canada, and the US has 5.1 times Canada's rate per 100,000 of gun   
   robberies.   
      
   The authors speculate US authorities would not only have to stem the supply of   
   smuggled weapons from the US, but also other potential sources to successfully   
   block the flow of deadly arms to criminals and criminal organizations.   
      
   Statements made by public officials are usually intended to influence public   
   opinion by offering conclusions, rather than to inform researchers' analyses,   
   the authors believe. They call for more data from criminal investigations and   
   gun tracing to be made available to researchers.   
      
   "A broader inquiry is warranted," says Cook. "The stakes are very high for   
   developing effective strategies for limiting the illicit movements of guns."   
      
   Another paper in the same issue on firearms discusses the UK and the   
   Netherlands, which have among the lowest occurrence of gun-homicide in advanced   
   industrial democracies. In Third Wave Criminology, guns, crime and social   
   order,   
   Adam Edwards of Cardiff University, UK and James Sheptycki, of York University,   
   Canada use these examples to illustrate the evolution of criminology in the   
   context of evolving paradigms from the sociology of science in the wake of   
   postmodernism, and towards a basis for action in the face of scientific   
   uncertainty.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)