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Aug. 14, 2005. 01:00 AM

Linda McQuaig says it's a start but the cure lies in better social policy
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The state of Oklahoma recently passed a law preventing property owners from
banning guns from their own property. Among other things, this means that a
daycare centre won't be allowed to keep guns off its grounds. (Surely no
American is really free unless he can pack a gun in the car before heading
off to pick up his toddler.)

It's not easy living next door to a country with a hyper-active gun
culture.

Our southern neighbour is awash in firearms, with a total of 230 million
guns - roughly one-third of all the guns in the world. An estimated 500,000
of these U.S. guns are stolen every year, generating a huge pool of illegal
weapons just south of the world's longest undefended border.

Despite Canadian laws preventing guns from being brought across the border,
large numbers are smuggled into Canada.

By most accounts, these smuggled guns are contributing to the recent wave
of gang-related gun violence in Toronto.

There are no quick fixes to this problem. Curbing access to guns won't
fully solve it. Guns are just one method of killing. Even if they were
completely eliminated, determined killers would find other methods.

But guns are a particularly efficient method of killing, and their
availability means violent confrontations quickly become lethal.

Gun control has been quite effective in Canada, just as it's been effective
elsewhere.

Virtually every major industrialized nation has some sort of serious gun
control legislation. The one that doesn't — the U.S. — has a significantly
higher rate of gun-related murders.

Since Canada's gun control laws were toughened up in the 1990s, gun-related
deaths dropped from 1,367 in 1989 to 811 in 2002.

Despite this overall decline, handgun killings have slightly increased.
This is partly due to our relatively lax enforcement of existing gun
control laws and border controls.

Wendy Cukier, who teaches justice studies at Ryerson University, says that
Americans caught bringing guns across the border often end up with just a
fine or slap on the wrist — unlike the harsh treatment awaiting Canadians
caught taking drugs into the United States.

Of course, the real solution lies in addressing the social breakdown that
draws young people to violent gangs.

Last week, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente singled out poor,
single-parent families as a root cause "that nobody dares to talk about."

Actually, the right has been talking a blue streak about the evils of poor,
single mothers ever since Ronald Reagan launched his crusade against
"welfare queens," a punitive crusade that Mike Harris later brought to
Ontario.

What the right never acknowledges is that single-parent families don't have
to be poor.

The Scandinavian countries, with their extensive social supports and
child-care programs, have drastically reduced child poverty, by allowing
single mothers to get an education and a decent job.

The real thing no one dares talk about is how the North American focus on
tax cuts rather than social spending is driving up child poverty — and gun
crime.

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Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator.
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