Don’t Play Politics with Women’s Lives Says Equality Coalition

Don’t Play Politics with Women’s Lives Says Equality Coalition

Women Tell Leaders to Support the Gun Registry and Women’s Safety

Ottawa, April 28, 2011 ­ Women across Canada are endorsing an open

letter to party leaders urging them to preserve the long gun registry

to prevent an increase in gun deaths of women and children. The Ad Hoc

Coalition for Women’s Equality and Human Rights, representing 42

women’s groups, unions and human rights organizations, is calling on

women to sign on to support the long gun registry as a tool for

women’s safety.

“We issued this letter to say to party leaders, don’t play politics

with women’s lives,” said Paulette Senior, CEO of YWCA Canada, the

nation’s single largest provider of shelter for women and children

fleeing violence, “the registry is here to stay. That was confirmed

when Bill C-391 failed. And it failed because Canadians understand the

long gun registry is a modern database that police use every day for

their own safety and always before they go on a domestic violence

call. People got the message that ending the registry is not in the

best interests of women living with violence.”

 “Women across Canada know the gun registry works,” said Barb Byers,

Executive Vice President of the Canadian Labour Congress. “Women know

it makes our communities and our workplaces safer. It’s that simple.

Doing away with it would make women less safe. It would make our

workplaces less safe, and it would make the jobs of police officers

and first responders less safe.”

Long guns are the guns most commonly used in spousal homicides,

especially when women are the victim. The Domestic Violence Death

Review Committee found firearms to be present in 47% of domestic

homicides in 2007. Since the registry’s creation, gun deaths in Canada

have fallen significantly. In 1995, 1125 Canadians were killed with

guns. In 2007, the latest year for which figures are available,

Statistics Canada reported 723 deaths due to firearms. By 2009, the

rate of murders with rifles and shotguns had dropped by more than 62%

from 1995.

Police and physicians on the public record in support of the long gun

registry include the Canadian Association of Police Boards, the

Canadian Police Association, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of

Police, the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians and the

Canadian Paediatric Society.

Supporters are invited to sign on to the Open Letter at

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/supportguncontrol/