Why liberals kill more people than guns
By Pete Vere
web posted October 20, 2003
I found a great T-shirt while surfing the web over the weekend. It said, "Guns don't kill people, abortion kills people." I hope it arrives in time for my parents' next visit. You see, my mom is a civil lawyer, not unsympathetic to feminism and a Canadian. By contrast, I am a canon lawyer, a traditional Catholic and a legal resident of the United States. To the chagrin of my father, also a lawyer, bickering over gun control or abortion is a favorite past-time when talking to my mother.
While going another round over the phone with mom the other day, she appealed to the obligatory statistics. You know the ones – basically the number of violent gun crimes in the United States versus the number in Canada. Of course, liberal proponents of the nanny state feel these statistics vindicate their position. Perhaps these social leftists feel residual guilt over having abandoned their children to daycare facilities as they pursue their career. I know not. But never mind personal responsibility and civil liberties, social liberalism makes for a kinder and gentler state.
Or does it? After stumbling upon this T-shirt, the time was ripe for my own statistical analysis – not for my sake, but for my mother's. Tough love works both ways in the parent-child relationship; just as friends don't let friends vote for Bill, good sons don't allow their mothers to parrot Hillary. But enough musing about my family; when compared to the statistics on gun violence, the abortion issue speaks for itself. In short, liberals kill more people than guns.
According to some statistics I picked up from a number of American proponents
of stricter gun control (therefore they must be true since liberals don't
lie about these things), in 1995 there were 35,957 gun related deaths in
America. The number of gun homicides numbered 15,835. Given America's population
of 264 million, this is approximately one gun homicide for every 16,672 members
of the American population. Canada, with a population of 29 million, suffered
1,189 gun related deaths during the same year, of which 176 were homicide.
Thus the gun homicide ratio north of the border is one for every 164,773
people living in Canada – about one tenth that of the United States.
In contrast, according to the 1997 United Nations' Demographic Yearbook,
people in Canada procured 70,549 abortions in 1995. This is approximately
one abortion for every 411 Canadian residents. Stated another way, for
every gun homicide in Canada, there are 401 abortions. The Canadian child
in the womb will no doubt take comfort in the kindness and gentility of
the strict gun control laws governing our socialist state – that
is, if she survives to birth. One should not assume. Just ask the 70,549
victims of Canada's liberal abortion policy.
The statistics for the United States are no less telling. In 1997, under the ever-compassionate leadership of Bill and Hillary, 1,210,883 American babies were aborted. Statistically, this represents one abortion for every 218 residents of the United States of America. While the American ratio of abortions to gun homicides is much lower than in Canada, it is no less lopsided: 76 to 1. Of course, we seldom hear this statistic from liberal statists.
So next time you run into a liberal proponent of the compassionate nanny
state, which usually means restricted gun ownership and unrestricted abortion,
remember the T-shirt. Guns don't kill people, abortion clinics do. 
Pete Vere, JCL is a canon lawyer and a Catholic social and religious commentator
from Sudbury, Ontario. He now writes from Florida, where he and his family
enjoy no state income tax along with life within walking distance of the
Gulf of Mexico. His work has been published in numerous Canadian and American
Catholic publications.
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