Last year Ottawa hit a record number of incidents of gun violence, surprising in a country that has been seeing an overall decrease of weapons violations since 2008. “The huge spike in shootings points to a mini ‘arms race’ among street gang members who are arming themselves with guns as they fight over drug territory,” says the Ottawa Police in a CBC interview.
According to data from Statistics Canada, Ottawa saw 68 firearms violations and 207 total weapons violations in 2014. Isolated, these numbers are not surprising. Trends in the data show total weapons violations in Ottawa have been fairly stable since 2008, and total firearms violations in Ottawa have been slowly increasing since the same year. The surprise comes in the massive increase in cases of discharging a firearm with intent, from 4 incidents in 2013 to 19 incidents in 2014. That’s a 365% increase. In comparison, Canada only saw a 20% increase for the same offence.
A Tough Problem
Nancy Worsfold, Executive Director of Crime Prevention Ottawa, says that despite knowing where the shooting are coming from and why, primarily low income neighbourhoods, it’s still difficult to determine the best way to solve the problem, saying, “We’re all challenged by gun crime and gangs, but we don’t approach them all the same. She believes the best way to tackle these types of offences is to act proactively. “Public opinion polling indicates Canadians prefer crime prevention to law enforcement,” she says.
The Coalition for Gun Control also believes that combating gang violence needs to have an “integrated strategy” designed to address violence at its roots. Their mandate states that we need to do several things such as addressing the culture of violence that glamorizes guns, and addressing the root causes of violence. We also need to ensure that all citizens feel safe in their communities. This is important because insecurity is often a motive for people to procure weapons.
Another challenge of this type of crime is, “Everybody knows who the shooter was but nobody’s talking,” says Worsfold. “This is the main challenge of higher risk neighbourhoods.”
Skewed Statistics
Professor Irvin Waller, President of the International Organization for Victim Assistance, says that although victimologists have made several breakthroughs in terms of victim rights and reparations in the last 30 years, much still needs to be done. “These unacceptable measures of violence must be measured better,” he says. In Canada there is often a discrepancy between the violent crime statistics generated by the police and those generated by Statistics Canada. “Here in Canada we have not invested in getting good data,“ says Waller. “The important thing is not where the crime is going but what we’re going to do about it.”
The fact that Ottawa is seeing an increase in violent gun crime means more guns are on the streets. Last year Ottawa police seized 53 guns used in the commission of crimes, however only two were used in gang shootings.
To deal with the increasing violence, Ottawa has increased the capacity of their guns and gangs unit. But despite the record number of shootings, Ottawa only had seven homicides, a rate that has been declining for many years. Ottawa police credit the low homicide rate to the care of paramedics and hospital staff.
As one can see from the above graph, although the increase in violent gun crime is unsettling, Ottawa remains a relatively safe city outside of the gang element. The average citizen is likely not to be put in the position of having to deal with a shooting unless by exorbitant circumstances.