Gisozi memorial, Kigali, Rwanda (courtesy csmonitor.com)

“From a human security perspective, civilian possession of SALW [Small Arms and Light Weapons] poses a threat to individuals’ human rights. There is a strong correlation between levels of firearms ownership and death rates, and vulnerable parts of the population, such as the poor, children and women, are often victims of firearms, and this not only in conflict situations. SALW proliferation can also become a significant obstacle to development as it usually strongly disrupts economic, political and economic situations, such as health care resources. It is also crucial to stress the harmful influence of pre-existing or emerging cultures of violence in societies, which are both a cause and an effect of firearms availability.” – Regulation of Civilian Possession of Small Arms and Light Weapons [via smallarmssurvey.org, sponsored by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

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84 COMMENTS

  1. Yep us poor American’s were so much better off when we were British subjects and they wanted to disarm us. Civilian gun ownership lead straight to our downfall.

    I am fluent in sarcasm.

    • I hope they never outlaw sarcasm, the only thing I’ll have left to communicate with will be interpretive dance….

        • When I was a little boy I asked my dad why I had to keep walking in circles. He said, “Shut up, or I’ll nail your other foot to the floor!”

      • “I hope they never outlaw sarcasm, the only thing I’ll have left to communicate with will be interpretive dance….”

        The iconic ‘Middle Finger’ requires zero translation…

  2. Bovine Excrement.

    If such assertions were even remotely true, the US would already be post-apocalyptic. Instead, 350,000,000 firearms in the hands of 100,000,000 law-abiding citizens were not used for violent purposes today. Or yesterday. Or the day before that. Or any other day.

    • The very fact that they can make such assertions without people laughing right in their faces shows how safe the US and Canada actually are.

    • Truth is not a factor for these people. And they have purposely done anything they can to see to it that truth is not a factor for much of the general population – with great success as we all can see.

      It’s rather like being in the dark ages and trying to explain to people that the earth is round, when everyone clearly knew that the earth was flat. Just look down! It’s flat!

      We are in a manufactured new dark age, where global climate change is an imminent threat to all of mankind, where boys can’t be boys and men can be women, and Islam truly a religion of peace, some might say it’s the only one that is peaceful because crusades, where the state will provide free healthcare to all *and* make it cheaper, where Republicans are the great evil and the reason that Democrats are not succeeding in bringing prosperity to our society, where all immigrants to this country are only seeking to escape the violence in their country of origin and only want to come to the west to find work and… how far can this go?

      The people who believe that guns kill people, and that removing guns from all of society will solve the problem of people who would commit violence and murder (never mind that fact that the removing of these guns can only be accomplished by men with lots of guns… how this fact is lost on basically everyone is quite a puzzle of course), anyway, if all of these people believe the things in the paragraph above, it’s really not a stretch to see that they believe all guns can just be magically disappeared from society. Poof, super peace will be wonderful!

      • Agreed. Propagating misinformation and big lies is not new and it won’t become old (unfortunately). It goes far beyond the hoax of AGW, the hoax of global warming, the hoax of global climate change, to include the lies of the goodness of big government socialism and communism, etc. … One of the lessor reported issues is that of forced vaccinations and how safe they are. In 1986 the US passed a law shielding vaccine manufacturers from liability, and this is for a product used correctly by specialists no less. There is a tax on every vaccination sold which pays for vaccine injury legal cases that are won by the victims. The vaccine manufacturers have no responsibility or liability to anyone’s health. NVIC org. … I have no doubt there misinformation on other items which are hard for the lower information and lessor educated, the non-thinking, and the unprincipled, to grasp. Yes the Earth looks flat and the sun looks like it goes around the Earth, SO IT MUST BE, and the moon landing was a hoax as shown in a funny video on you tube. How many people believe something just because so-called experts say it, just because it is in mass media news and entertainment without a moment’s thought? I can only hope our freedom of speech is sufficiently un-oppressed so truth can get out there and more will have the truth. … I agree with Rush Limbaugh, paraphrasing: The founding of the USA on principles of individual rights is a miracle given the past of kings, tribes, tyrants, and dictators. I add bureaucrats. … May we live in God’s ways, may God bless the USA.

  3. If civilian gun ownership is posing a threat to my human rights then I can live with that,what I can’t live with is the government passing laws,and misinterpreting laws to take away my human rights (second amendment).

  4. Because as everyone knows… when there is trouble, people around the world cry out for Canada to come and save them

    • I don’t recall anyone specifically asking the US for help. Usually the government manufactures a crisis (sending arms to England while claiming to be neutral before entering WWI, imposing trade sanctions on Japan before Pearl Harbor “sneak attack”, bombing the Middle East and backing Isreal’s atrocities which were the real reasons for the 911 attacks) and “has to do something” to end the threat (entering WWI and lengthening the war causing more deaths along with tipping the scales of power in Europe that can be seen to have lead to the rise of the Nazis, entering WWII and ending the war in the Pacific by dropping two atomic bombs killing thousands of women and children along with starting an empire that has left troops occupying planet in the name of peace, and finally starting wars with countries based on lies that have no chance of being a viable threat to the US and ultimately causing the destabilization of said countries which can be seen by the rise of ISIS AND THEN give ISIS arms and gear and training).

      • Yes, let us lay all the world’s problems at our feet. Never mind the $BILLIONS in foreign aid we give to countries far removed from any current conflict. Or the countries that are likely avoiding conflict because the U.S. is their ally.

        • Did I say that the people of the US caused all the problems in the world? No. I did not. I will say that 99% of the time, when the US government gets involved in foreign affairs, things get worse, not better, and then use the bad consequences as an excuse to get more involved. LEAVE THE REST OF THE WORLD ALONE. Trade with them? Yes. Talk to them? Yes. Coerce them? No. Protect them? No. You all talk about the wisdom of the founding fathers. They talked about trading with all nations but not being an ally with any. Look at some history. See how the American people didn’t want to go to war, and how they were tricked into it by the government.

      • Oh God, you are so right Omer, how can you live in this hemisphere. I will personally get you a 1 way ticket to Syria if you like.

        Your narrow, uneducated views on WWI, WWII, and the middle east lead me to believe you are either the product of an east coast public education system or a madrasah. Perhaps you should study up on the US’s isolation movement that dominated the early 20th C., but never mind. Europe, and the West would have been so much better off had we not entered either world war. I recommend the historian Dan Carlin for your reference, maybe you’ll learn something about geo-politics.

        As for the rise of ISIS, you need to go to the wahabist movement created by the Saud Family and their British consultant Philby. See how Saud created these extremists to ensure their consolidation of power in the Middle East.

      • @Omer Baker: You need to look at all of history and not just pick out the parts that support your conspiracy theories. Plenty of countries have asked for our help. One example was Kuwait when Iraq invaded it. The Kurds in Northern Iraq are another example as are the rebels in Syria. Does that help your recollection just a bit? We did impose trade sanctions on Japan but why did we do that? You don’t mention that part. How about all the money and effort we put into helping Japan and Germany rebuild after the war? You conveniently don’t mention that either. Looking back it was definitely an error to get involved in Iraq. But it now looks like that was due to bad intel at the time. What about the atrocities committed against Israeli citizens time and time again? You conveniently don’t mention that or the atrocities committed against Jews over and over again throughout history. I, for one, certainly don’t blame them for wanting their own country where they can control their destiny instead of living in ghettos or waiting for the next pogrom. OTOH, they do have some challenges with the Palestinian population but if that group would cooperate instead of supporting suicide bombers I suspect that Israel would find solutions to their differences. The rise of the Nazis in Germany was due to the whole world trying to punish Germany for WWI, not just America. In fact, America was against the reparations but was outvoted by the other countries involved at that time. Many countries in the world look to us when they want help but hate us when we give it. We are like the rich bully on the block that the poor skinny kid does not want to ask for help but sometimes has to. You should go back and study history with an impartial view instead of with preconceived ideas and a chip on your shoulder.

      • Hey Omar, what the hell are you talking about WW1? (And everything else) The US did not give any weapons to England before WW1.
        Stop reading Howard Zinn and Muslim conspiracy theories. Your opinions are whacked.

      • “Usually the government manufactures a crisis (sending arms to England while claiming to be neutral before entering WWI…”
        England was buying arms. Why shouldn’t we sell?

        Germany had a history of aggression against America even before World War One. The Samoa Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_crisis , German military advisors in Mexico training bandits and revolutionaries who then raided America territory, during the Spanish-America a larger, more powerful German fleet harassed the American fleet blockading Manila. The Germans even landed supplies for the Spanish.

        During World War One, America was neutral, America would have stayed neutral, except the German empire began sinking American ships regularly and without regret in 1917. More importantly, there was the matter of the Zimmerman Telegraph, where it became public knowledge that Germany was encouraging Mexico to make war on America.

    • ^^^ Like!!^^^^

      Hmm, Canada…….. Where is that again???? I think I MIGHT have heard of that place……

  5. Being the most freely armed society in the northern hemisphere of the world really stunted the growth of our economic, political, and military power. /sarc

    • @Peter: Great reply. You hit the nail on the head with that one. Your short reply destroys the whole theory expressed in the article. Well done.

  6. “From a human security perspective, civilian possession of SALW [Small Arms and Light Weapons] poses a threat to those would attack an individuals’ human rights. . .”

    Fixed that

    • “From a human security perspective, civilian possession of SALW [Small Arms and Light Weapons] government poses a threat to individuals’ human rights.”

      There’s another way to fix that line.

    • ‘Efforts to regulate civilian possession of firearms often raise the questions of rights.
      While rights to legitimate national security, self-determination, and national sovereignty have been reaffirmed several times, there is no evidence of a general right to unrestricted civilian access to arms under any International Human Rights instrument.39 Even within the United States, where constitutional claims of the civilian right to bear arms are often invoked, courts repeatedly and unanimously have maintained that the US Constitution does not guarantee individuals the right to possess or carry guns. The Second Amendment only protects “the right to form militias under the control of state authorities” (independent of national/federal authorities). It does not impede local, state, or national legislatures from enacting or enforcing gun control laws’

      • Wait…gun control activists are willing to outright lie to further an agenda?

        Well. Now I’m REALLY upset!

        /sarc

      • “…courts repeatedly and unanimously have maintained that the US Constitution does not guarantee individuals the right to possess or carry guns.”

        Heller v DC Supreme Court decision:

        “The Court held that the right of an individual to “keep and bear arms” protected by the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states.”

  9. Historically speaking, birth rates have a very strong correlation_with death rates. Apparently life is an always fatal condition.

    • They can’t do that, the very act of repealing the Second Amendment is the GO button for us. But they are successfully boiling the frog.

  12. Either this guys studied papers safely in their offices in which case they never came across a situation were a weapon could have save their lives or they’ve been to the field but with some armed guys around them to take care of their security.
    In either case, this guys are as entitled to talk about weapons and human rights as dolphins are to talk about mountaineering …

  13. Wow. I guess owners of SALW (what a stupidly redundant term) are obstacles to true political and economic power, as well as progressive control of, well, everything.

    Works for me. I like being the boil on the world’s ass. I often say there is nothing quite so difficult to push around than a well-armed American.

  14. From the linked paper:
    “Even within the United States, where
    constitutional claims of the civilian right to bear arms are often invoked, courts repeatedly and
    unanimously have maintained that the US Constitution does not guarantee individuals the right to
    possess or carry guns. The Second Amendment only protects “the right to form militias under the
    control of state authorities” (independent of national/federal authorities). It does not impede local,
    state, or national legislatures from enacting or enforcing gun control laws. ”

    BS

    • And WTF business is it of a Canadian twerp what any portion of the US Constitution says, and what makes this jackass think anyone cares what lies he tells on the subject? Doofus, YOUR country is fu(ked up beyond all recognition, why don’t you “study” that, fool?

  15. It is also crucial to stress the harmful influence of personally owned “SALW” to the proper development of marxist nirvana.

  16. This is a Canadian source. Canada has a strong colonial tie to Great Britain still. This statement asserts the presence of firearms in local populations in the developing world makes the jobs of western NGOs more difficult as well a disrupts everyday society in terms of stable western puppets. When you have warring tribes skeptical of outsiders interrupting food distributions because they want control of a region it’s not the guns that are the problem. From colonial “enlightened” perspective the absence of guns allows the indigenous populations to become civilized, otherwise they may assert their right to their own tradition, religion, and/or way of life.

    I am disappointed a National committee of this type denies the existence of conflict in unstable regions and instead blames the presence of inanimate objects. I can understand their point, though, if you only think about Canadian lives and universal acceptance of their culture.

    • “I can understand their point, though, if you only think about Canadian lives and universal acceptance of their culture.”

      Quebec universally accepts Canadian culture?

  17. Once, again, deny the demonstrated facts and lie about he rest. This article violates every one’s human right to factually responsible information, perpetuates ignorance and impedes the development of society.

  18. Page 5:

    “The misuse of these arms by civilians government agents can cause major damage to people’s livelihoods, health and security as well as broader repercussion such as hampering economic, social and political development and the provision of health care. “

  19. Page 5:

    “The misuse of these arms by civilians government agents can cause major damage to people’s livelihoods, health and security as well as broader repercussion such as hampering economic, social and political development and the provision of health care. “

    That needed fixed, too. Don’t they have ANY competent editors on their staff? /sarc

  20. You know if I print all 26 pages of that bundled nonsense (no mention of the impact of criminals on humanity), wrinkling to break down its fibrous fiction, I might have, on my periodic mass volumetric evacuation days, enough material to wipe my ass. Unsure how the sewage system could accommodate both.

  21. Especially women and children… really… no men are overwhelming represented in violent deaths. Not even by a small margin. So much so that we consider it a state of nature. That’s why there is no Violence Against Men Act.

  22. That was the Canadian Liberal Government of 2003’s opinion of firearms ownership by Civilians. The Conservative government that followed had a different opinion:

    “It’s a tool that many people use in their lives, obviously in their livelihoods,” [Prime Minister] Harper said about firearms.

    “My wife’s from a rural area. Gun ownership wasn’t just for the farm. It was also for a certain level of security when you’re a ways from immediate police assistance.”

    Unfortunately, the new Liberal government recently elected is just the old one with a shiny new figurehead installed. Deep in its bowels are the same folks who wrote that nonsense PDF.

  23. I just wonder how America got to where it is today, since we have the highest gun ownership rate in the world.

    I just realized, one of the big reasons for the gun control agenda is to avoid looking at the failures of the multicultural dogma. Better to blame a cultures failings on gun ownership rather than things like lack of respect for women, lack of respect for property right, lack of rule of law. (Amazing how those three things tend to go together).

  24. “It is also crucial to stress the harmful influence of pre-existing or emerging cultures of violence in societies, which are both a cause and an effect of firearms availability.”

    Indeed, life was so idyllic and peaceful before firearms were invented. And I’ll bet the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 were glad they were only hacked to death with machetes and knives, rather than killed violently.

  25. “It is also crucial to stress the harmful influence of pre-existing or emerging cultures of violence in societies, which are both a cause and an effect of firearms availability.”

    Sooo…… privately owned firearms cause a “culture of violence” and are an effect of a “culture of violence”.
    That is some quantum gun control right there. Is the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade staffed by 6 year old children?

      • Damn. This place needs a “Like!” button. 🙂

        Don’t forget tattooed blondes with daddy issues and a few priors. A number of my worst (and most enjoyable) life decisions have come about because of those two things.

  28. The endless propaganda from the anti-2nd amendment crowd is driving me batty. Every day, we have to try to shout the facts loud enough to be overheard above the leftist media bullhorn in order to prove once again that their propaganda is a lie only to have to do it again the next day to rebut the same freaking lies. Will this ever end. Frustrating….

    • Try hearing it since the 1970s. I’ve rolled my eyes so much over the decades that I have to drop my head to see my monitor.

  29. Man every time I read garbage like this is the more I want to invent the replicator and just hand them out all over the world. Just to screw with their ability to control peoples access to weapons.

    Screw these statist and their control fantasies.

  30. Arms self defense Is the entitlement Of human rights. When human rights atrocities across the world have happened it isn’t harsh language they use to straighten those problems out Since World War 2 The concentration camps it wasn’t harsh language we used to get the Germans the Nazis to release those people it was an m1 garand! All these human rights activist Don’t know what human rights are all about to begin with. Because they live in the United States of America where they’re given human rights that they just Don’t recognize or appreciate worth of shit. You are the live in one of those third world countries where human rights is the last thing on the list for the populace. The only way to defend human rights Is with a human being with an armed Firearm End of story. All these water walkers Crusaders like to think that the earth is a place of human beings that can all get along with each other, that’s horseshit! You’re always going to have good and evil in the world the only way to regulate the evil is with a good man with a good firearm!, or woman! Lol. But seriously There wouldn’t be human rights if there wouldn’t be Firearms One goes right with the other

  31. “Two basic categories of adult-age males in America. Those who have assumed their Moral Obligation and Duty as Men and Citizens to provide themselves with and to Keep and Bear Arms for defense of self, family, other persons, property, possessions, and State and Nation as required — and those who make excuses.”
    Anonymous

  32. “There is a strong correlation between levels of firearms ownership and death rates”
    Okay. How about I just snap your pencilneck then. The only thing that makes sense is that we shouldn’t dump weapons into every civil war/rebellion that crops up just for kicks, as it is “highly destabilizing” and only ever leads to more brutal regimes replacing the old regime.

    • While human rights are certainly vitally important, “human rights” turns out to be a concept designed to trump individual rights.

      Is it too early to say “HUMBUG!”?

  34. I could point out the strong correlation between global warming and the decline of high seas piracy, but that would be equally strained.

  37. Knew my ears were popping for a reason, it’s because canada SUCKS SO BAD.
    FUCANUCKS – keep your whiney-a_ _ broken sh_t to yourselves.
    FUCANUCK Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
    We neither need nor want your opinion on how we operate.

    FU smallarmssurvey.org, we are looking into who funds your a_ _ , so we can find out who’s attempting to overthrow our Constitution. Your a_ _ better be registered to lobby.

  38. How can a human right stand in opposition to human rights?

    Derp-de-derp…

    Same old giraffe guano as usual… No matter how creative the words used to tell the lie, it’s still the same old lie…

  39. According to the United Nations, there is literally no individual right to self-defense at all and all countries that do not have strict gun control are violating human rights. No, their position is not that self-defense is a human right, but just gun ownership is not a right, but rather that self-defense itself is not a human right. Incredibly perverted thinking. A ignorant of the very deep and rich intellectual history of the concept of the individual right to self-defense (of which the concept of the right to resist tyranny and international law are both grounded in).

  40. A very excellent twist of reality, comedic to knowledgeable. I can see how those uninformed might buy into such a statement. Many would think, yes, I see, yep, more guns more trouble! Climate change caused the rise of Hitler, Trump is a Nazi and Guns have slowed our ability to advance as a civilization.

  41. …sponsored by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

    So, why is a department of foreign affairs and international trade sponsoring a take on human rights? Aren’t there courts for dealing with violations of rights, and departments of things like justice and similar tasked with dealing with that?

    It’s of a piece with a department of state having an opinion on an internal pipeline(!) based on environmental concerns.(!)

  42. Omer Baker said: “imposing trade sanctions on Japan before Pearl Harbor “sneak attack”,”

    We should have financed Japan’s imperialistic aggression against other countries, huh?

    As for the “sneak attack”, yes it was a sneak attack. There was no declaration of war by Japan, no severing of diplomatic relations, Japan was even in the middle of talks to maintain the peace while at the same time Pearl Harbor was literally being bombed. Yeah, that’s pretty much a sneak attack.

  43. “vulnerable parts of the population, such as the poor, children and women, are often victims of firearms”

    Men may overwhelmingly be the victims, but they couldn’t care less about the lives of people who are men or otherwise not from one of their favored groups. A few women and children died a comparatively marginal number of deaths, that’s the tragedy to these disgusting, immoral evildoers.

  44. Your right to possess a thing is an affront to your right to… what… I’ll wait.

    These people’s argument is literally that guns are bad. Yet they make fun of you for saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. Bah!

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