Murderous rampages? In Canada? We have a crazy once every couple of years, but let's be honest here: controlling guns won't reduce gun violence in canada because gun violence is already pretty darn low. Investing in meantal health, although a very noble thing to do considering the abslutely poor quality of life that mentally ill people have to endure, won't reduce gun violence much either. Mostly because gun violence is almost negligible in canada. There was 172 homicides made by firearms in 2012. That's about 33% of all homicides that year. Since 1972, the firearm-related homicide rate has decreased 45% (while the non-firearm-related homicide rate has decreased 22%). In 2012, about half (46%) of all homicides committed with a firearm were gang-related.
Neither gun control nor treatment of mentally ill people will reduce gang-related gun violence. Gangs illegally buy guns from the US, they don't get them legally in canada. They are not mentally ill (not by the medical definition of it, at least). So for as long as we'll share the longest open border in human history with the number 1 gun producer/consumer in the world, guns will illegally enter the country and find its way into our hardened criminal's hands. Even an Australia-style complete ban on guns wouldn't change that. We're not an island surrounded by sharks and crocodiles like Australia.
If we want to throw money at a problem to save lives, the choices are plentiful, and we could save lots of lives for not so much money: clean water for northern native communities, more prevention of drinking and driving, more safety courses for people who work in dangerous jobs (fishing, construction, etc..), better cancer detection programs, the list goes on an on.
I will not say that 172 death per year is just another statistic; those were people with families and loved ones (mostly). But reasonnably, we can't reduce the amount of gun-related homicides to 0 in canada. We just can't. Both anti-gun and pro-gun will have to get to that conclusion. And either we accept that resources will have a lot more impact somewhere else (other than gun control) in our society, or we just waste them. The system as it is mostly works: we control who can legally own a firearm through the PAL/RPAL system, so criminals and mentally ill people (mostly) can't access firearms, and criminals have to resort to illegally importing firearm from US.
Now can we let S-223 rest in peace please. It's like the attention-starved child of bills. If we don't talk about it, it'll go away. I promise!