Up in Arms

Tricia Levo calls him "The Dragon."

The Dragon shot her mother in 1992, leaving her completely paralyzed, unable even to breathe for herself. The Dragon made life miserable while growing up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

The Dragon, Allan Levo, was -- is -- her father. After pleading guilty to attempted murder, he served about three years in prison. He was on day parole by 1996, received full parole by 1998 and is now living in Peterborough, Ontario.

"He was just like this monster that comes in and makes everybody’s life miserable," says Tricia Levo today, nine years older and wiser, but still not healed from the experience that she witnessed at age 18, along with her younger brother, at a busy social gathering.

Tricia says she grew up with weapons lying around the house. Before her brother was born, she was "Daddy’s little boy" -- he taught her to fish, to fight, to shoot. She describes him as an "abusive alcoholic." And although she says she has heard "horrible stories" about how he physically abused her mother, she didn’t witness that. Tricia, now 27, recalls only one severe beating that left her mother black and blue. Mostly, Allan Levo was verbally and emotionally abusive.

In May of 1992, Gayle Levo asked for a divorce. The response was typical of many domestic abuse situations: "I’m not going anywhere and neither are you," Tricia recalls her father saying. A few days later, the two kids and Gayle were at a local hall. He came in and spoke to a friend, left, and returned about 15 minutes later. He stood before his wife, saying, "All right, we’ll play this game one more time."

He was holding a 357 Magnum.

He pulled the trigger. Click -- it was an empty chamber. The next pull wasn’t so lucky for Gayle.

The issue of gun control in Canada began most notoriously on December 6, 1989, at Montreal’s �cole Polytechnique, when 14 women were massacred. That same year, a 16-year-old with $10 who answered two questions correctly could obtain a Firearms Acquisition Certificate, which permitted the purchase of as many rifles and shotguns as he or she wanted. These guns did not have to be registered, thus police had no information about who owned the estimated six million firearms in circulation.

Since that year, more than 15,000 Canadians have lost their lives to bullets. Every year in this country more than 1,000 people are hospitalized with gunshot wounds -- inflicted by themselves or others.

The injuries can be devastating. Gayle Levo, 51, requires round-the-clock assistance, including help with everything from washing and dressing to eating. She has a power wheelchair she operates with her head. Even the luxury of a private telephone call is unattainable, as she requires an attendant to interpret her whispered words.

High-profile shootings and these alarming statistics led then-Justice Minister Allan Rock to the creation of the Firearms Act. Like all such legislation, it was controversial from the start. There was a strong lobbying effort by gun advocates, but 70 per cent of Canadians supported the act and it was declared law on December 5, 1995.

So why are we still hearing so much about it?

As if passing the law wasn’t enough of a hurdle, enacting regulations proved to be equally contentious, with opposition coming from some of the provinces -- Alberta took the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which unanimously upheld its constitutionality. During the 1997 federal campaign, the Reform and Conservative parties pledged to repeal the law.

The Firearms Act includes the following measures:

- registration of all firearms by 2003 and a national information system;

- strict licence screening for all gun owners who possess firearms (renewable every five years) by 2001, and continuous eligibility checks;

- a ban on semi-automatic military assault weapons and short-barrelled handguns;

- controls on the sale of ammunition;

- stricter penalties for firearms misuse; and

- stricter controls on import, export and tracking of guns.

The licensing will provide information on gun owners, while the registry will provide information on the guns they own. Applicants are thoroughly screened and must pass a firearms safety course. This is not unlike driver’s licences and car registration.

A good portion of the credit for the law’s existence belongs to Toronto’s Wendy Cukier and her Coalition for Gun Control. Easily the most public voice for gun control, she continues to work tirelessly at making Canada a safer country for all.

Cukier takes strength from the polls, which show that most Canadians still support stricter gun laws, along with legal and law enforcement associations, women’s groups, public health groups and suicide watch groups.

However, while many people assume the fight has been won, "the opponents never give up and they are just relentless," she says. "In some ways my job is harder now because people don’t understand what the risks are. It’s really difficult if you don’t continue to push for something, if you don’t continue to let your Member of Parliament know that you want them to support it. If all they’re hearing from is the gun lobby people complaining... it’s really difficult."

Much of the work is behind the scenes, Cukier says, but people can write their MP. People can also show support by keeping up with the news and responding to stories with letters to the editor and phone calls to radio and television stations. Becoming a member of the Coalition for Gun Control is another positive and proactive option. Cukier notes that although the gun lobby is a minority, it’s a well-organized and vocal minority that has help from its American counterparts. Cukier’s coalition receives no government support and relies on donations and individual memberships.

Cukier says one current source of concern is that the government is planning to amend the legislation later this year. Though the amendments are mostly administrative, "its reopening creates huge opportunities for the opponents," she says. It leads to the possibility of certain sections being watered down. Cukier emphasizes that gun control advocates believe the fight is over, whereas the firearms supporters remain very active and look for any opportunity to gain any advantage.

Canada is not alone in taking this stricter direction, she says. "We see a lot more of what’s going on in other countries, and the trend internationally is clearly, clearly, clearly strengthening gun control in most other countries. The United States is the one big exception," Cukier says. "Unfortunately, we are dominated by American media and we compare ourselves to the U.S., but if you compare us to Europe or Australia or South Africa, even, it’s clear that everyone’s moving toward stricter controls, not looser controls."

Nowhere is the issue of gun accessibility more critical than among children and adolescents. UNICEF recently reported in "Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations" that Canada has one of the worst records of preventable child injury and death among the world’s richest nations. We rank ninth.

In 1992, 153 children between one and 19 died from firearm injuries in Canada. Of these, 130 occurred in the 15-to-19-year-old age group, with more than 100 the result of suicides. In fact, gun deaths accounted for 11 per cent of all deaths in this age group. Furthermore, 41 per cent of completed suicides in that age group were committed with guns. Another eye-opening comparison shows that more deaths resulted from firearm injuries than accidental falls, drowning and fire combined. Even cancer, which claimed 96 lives that year, killed fewer in that age category than guns.

Of the 23 deaths that occurred in the one-to-14-year-old age group, most were accidental. They outnumbered choking deaths. They outnumbered accidental poisonings and falls combined.

The most important factor in the shootings is the availability of a gun, says noted Toronto pediatrician Katherine Leonard. Leonard has studied and written extensively about firearm mortality with children and adolescents, which she says has been a much bigger problem than most people realize.

"One of the reasons I think people don’t realize that, is that there’s so much attention paid to the sort of inner-city, homicide, drug-related firearm problem in the United States. We don’t really have that here," she says. What we do have here in Canada is an alarming number of attempted suicides by firearms -- the very great majority of them successful.

Of the overall firearm deaths in Canada, the leading cause is suicide, Leonard notes. Because suicide is a taboo subject in our society, they don’t make the press, they usually don’t end up in emergency or hospitals. "It’s kind of a quiet problem that people don’t hear about or read about."

Leonard says that developmental stages of childhood and adolescents make young people vulnerable to the risk of having a gun available in the home. Youths are impulsive, cannot understand the permanence and severity of such injuries, have a natural curiosity about objects in their environment, may see a gun as a way of impressing their friends and often feel invulnerable.

Studies show another significant fact: a firearm in the home increases the likelihood of a successful suicide attempt by an adolescent, she says.

In Canada, about 23 per cent of homes have a gun. This ranges from a low of 15 per cent in Ontario to a high of 67 per cent in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The rates for homicide and suicide by firearm are also higher in rural areas. "You hear about people who are really fearful about coming downtown. Actually, while we do have a few very well-publicized incidents, from a statistical standpoint it’s more likely you’ll have a firearm shooting in a rural area than in an urban area," Leonard says.

The reason? Again, availability. Studies show that suicide and homicide by firearm are higher in areas where there are a higher number of homes with guns. More people store weapons in their homes in rural areas than urban. And although it’s not accurate to say that if it is available it will be used, it IS more likely to be used.

"It’s a highly lethal and relatively easy-to-use weapon," Leonard notes. "If you’re drunk and you are mad at your wife and a rage seizes you and you attack her with your fists or a baseball bat or a knife, she’s much less likely to die than if you assault her with a firearm."

For those who argue that the law is little more than a waste of money, consider this:

- 3,000 gun licences have been refused or revoked since the new law took effect;

- About 19 per cent of gun sales processed through the call centre were identified as having potential problems and were sent for more in-depth investigations. To date, 440 gun sales have been refused.

- In April, 1999, in Quebec, the Firearms Interest to Police database matched several cases of domestic abuse to "valid licence holders." Their licences were revoked.

To see other examples of how the new law is working, see the coalition’s website at www.guncontrol.ca.

Leonard is quick to point out that stricter gun laws will not solve all of society’s problems, but it is a start.

"It’s not to say that gun control is going to change human nature and everybody’s going to be all peace, love and tie-dye. But by reducing the availability of a very lethal method, one can reduce the likelihood of mortality from an incident like that," she says.

Cukier, who teaches Information Technology and Justice Studies at Toronto’s Ryerson University "part-time" and has volunteered near full-time hours for the coalition for 11 years, knows the issue is far from over.

"The main challenge for us is making sure government knows that this is still important to Canadians, and that Canadians who support the legislation keep communicating that, because the gun lobby is certainly not quieting down in terms of its opposition.

"That’s our biggest challenge -- making sure people don’t forget."

(Barbara Turnbull is a writer in Toronto, Ontario. She was shot in 1983 and became high-level quadriplegic. She makes no apologies for her gun-control advocacy efforts.)