Police reported 743 homicide victims in Canada in 2020 for a rate of 1.95 per 100,000 people.
Handguns were also involved in 60 per cent of homicides, other violations causing death and attempted murder involving a firearm, as well as 54 per cent of firearm-related sexual offences.įirearm-like weapons such as a pellet gun or flare gun accounted for 23 per cent of all firearm-related violent crime in Canada in 2020. In 2020, handguns accounted for 75 per cent of all firearm-related robberies. Rifles and shotguns, meanwhile, tend to be more commonly used in rural areas, including 46 per cent in the rural south and 39 per cent in the rural north. Handguns were more commonly used in urban areas, where they made up 63 per cent of firearm-related violent crime in 2020. The majority of firearm-related violent crime in 2020 was robbery, at 29 per cent, or major assault, at 23 per cent. "This information is sometimes not recorded by police services, recorded inconsistently or, in some cases, the information is simply not available." "Of particular concern, there is currently little information available to determine the source of firearms used in crime: for example, whether a gun used in a crime was stolen, illegally purchased or smuggled into the country," the report says. Provinces also do not require investigators to send guns used in crime for tracing, although even this process has varying success rates, StatCan says. There also is no consistent definition of a shooting among police services in Canada, nor is there consistent criteria to determine whether a shooting actually occurred.Īs well, there are gaps in the nature of firearm-related violence in Canada, including the extent to which organized crime is involved, and whether there are any patterns in ethnicity, Indigenous identity except in the case of homicide data, and socioeconomic factors involved. One of these gaps is the limited information collected on the details of particular firearms, such as their exact type, who owned it, how it was stored or whether the owner is licensed, the agency says. "It is important to recognize that there are limitations in our knowledge about firearms used in crime," the report says. It remains to be seen exactly what will be in the bill, but a number of gun-control measures promised by the Liberals remain outstanding, including the federal government's program to buy back banned firearms.ĭespite the figures, StatCan stresses that there are gaps in its reporting. The federal government also plans to table new firearms legislation on Monday. The report comes following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas last week, which resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers. The number of victims of these offences increased from eight per cent of all firearm-related violent crimes in 2009 to 21 per cent in 2019 and 22 per cent in 2020. What has changed, however, is the type of firearm-related violent crimes that police are reporting, namely discharging a firearm with intent, pointing a firearm and use of a firearm in an indictable offence, the report says. This was the case for both periods analyzed by StatCan, which the federal agency said means handguns are not disproportionately contributing to the overall growth in firearm-related crime.
Handguns remain the most serious weapon used in the majority of firearm-related violent crimes in Canada at 59 per cent.
In 2020, police reported 8,344 victims of a crime where a firearm was present, representing 2.8 per cent of all victims of violent crime in Canada that year.
This number dropped to 19 in 2013 as violent crime also fell overall, before returning to 29 in 2020. The report shows that the rate of firearm-related violent crime in 2009 stood at 29 per 100,000 people. Released on Friday, the report compares instances of firearm-related violent crime in two periods ranging from 2009 to 2014, and 2015 to 2020. After falling for several years, rates of firearm-related violent crime are on the rise in Canada, the majority of which involve handguns, a recent report from Statistics Canada shows.
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