Photo: Nicholas Johansen
The scene of a deadly shooting in Kelowna on March 25, 2020
During the first year of the pandemic, violent gun-related crimes increased in rural southern British Columbia faster than anywhere else in Canada, according to a new report from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Center for Community Justice and Security Statistics.
Between 2019 and 2020, southern British Columbia rural areas saw a 34% increase in violent gun-related crime. This places the BC region ahead of northern rural Ontario and rural Alberta (both about 32%), as well as the Northwest Territories, which experienced a 23% jump.
Violent gun-related crime was largely due to an increase in “certain types of crime,” such as intentionally firing a firearm, aiming a firearm, and using a firearm in a felony, he said. the report.
The upward shift in rural armed violence is an acceleration of an increase that began in 2014 after years of decline. On average, the rates of these crimes between 2015 and 2020 increased compared to those reported between 2009 and 2014.
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, police across Canada reported 8,344 victims of violent crime with a handgun.
And while the south of rural BC saw the largest increase in gun-related violent crime, other regions of the country recorded much higher overall rates.
Saskatchewan, Manitoba and all three territories reported the highest rates of violent gun-related crime in 2020.
In urban areas, the majority of victims of violent gun-related crimes involved a handgun (63%). In rural areas, rifles and shotguns were the most widely used, accounting for 43 percent of these crimes. Meanwhile, pellet or flare guns were involved in 30% of crimes in rural areas, compared to 20% in urban areas.
According to the report, rifles or shotguns and fully automatic firearms are still rare in Canada.
In 2020, police reported a total of 743 homicide victims in Canada; in 277 of them, a firearm was used to commit homicide.
The province with the highest rate of gun-related homicides in 2020 was Nova Scotia. This was related to the April 2020 massacre that left 22 dead. Following this, the federal government amended the regulations to ban more than 1,500 models and variants of assault firearms.
Gang activity was confirmed or suspected in 39% of all gun-related homicides in Canada.
According to the report, one in four women victims of violent gun-related crimes was the victim of a current or former spouse.
Canadian law requires that a person hold a valid license under the Firearms Act to possess or possess a firearm or to purchase ammunition.