Subseries 6 - Gun Control

0.2 m of textual records

In the Spring of 1975, I was invited by the Solicitor General’s Department to participate in a task force study of gun control, under the direction of Roberto Gualtieri of the Privy Council Office, to see what legislative or other changes should be made by the federal government (file 2). I submitted my report to the task force at the end of the summer of 1975, having worked with a research assistant, Arnold Herschorn, over the summer (files 3-5). With the government’s permission, the study was published in the Criminal Law Quarterly (files 6-7). My principal recommendations were that there should be tighter control of handguns and that a licence should be required before a long-gun could be purchased.

The task force’s work led to a cabinet submission, government legislation, and regulations (files 8-11). In 1976, I appeared before a House of Commons Committee on the proposed legislation and my article was reprinted in Hansard (file 12). I also gave evidence before a coroner’s inquest in Toronto on the need for legislation (file 13).

In 1980, I did further work on the subject when I was asked by the Consortium on North America to deliver a paper at Harvard University on gun control in Canada (files 14-25)). Father Robert Drinan, a congressman, gave an American perspective on the issues (file 15). I was able to get funding for the research through the Solicitor General’s Department (files 22-25, 28). The paper was eventually published in the book of essays honouring John Edwards and in my Century of Criminal Justice. I did a full-page article for the Globe on the paper and various commentaries on the CBC (files 27 and 30).

I did not participate in the public debate on the long-gun proposals in 1995, although I sent my articles and my views to the Deputy Minister of Justice to do with as he pleased (file 31). I was sceptical about the utility of the registration of all existing long guns when the real long-term danger continues to be handguns. My solution was to require registration when people used long guns off their property.

Open