EDMONTON – The worst mass murder in Calgary’s history, which saw five people in their 20s stabbed to death at a house party, has led to more conversation on whether stricter laws against knives could have prevented the crime.
The Brentwood stabbings come just a month and a half after a mass stabbing took two lives at a Loblaws warehouse in west Edmonton.
The attacks also come less than a week after a Toronto man was arrested for stabbing four people in an office building, which happened the same day as 19 Pittsburgh students were injured after a 16-year-old armed with two knives went on a slashing spree.
“It’s always been the case in Alberta, and actually throughout Canada, that knives are used quite frequently in the commission of violent crimes and in the commission of homicides,” said Greg Lepp, Assistant Deputy Minister with the Alberta Crown Prosecutor Service.
“So it’s something that we’re constantly seeing on a day to day basis in the courts.”
Numbers compiled by Stats Canada in 2008 showed that when weapons were used in a violent offences, knives were the most common choice at six per cent. Alberta had the second highest rate in the country.
Alberta premier Dave Hancock admits that a law such as a ban on knives would be very hard to enforce.
Current weapons laws include a ban on carrying a concealed weapon. It comes with a prison term of up to five years, but it can also be difficult to prosecute.
“One person might be coming from work where they use that every day and the court would say, ‘clearly this is a tool,'” said criminal defence lawyer Ian Runkle. “Whereas somebody who is perhaps engaged in criminal activity they might say, ‘okay, in this case it seems to be a weapon.'”
Runkle adds that the problem with further legislation against certain types of weapons is it won’t prevent those who want to commit a crime from getting their hands on something dangerous.
Still, when it comes to stabbings — despite all the recent incidents — some may take solace in the fact that one criminologist believes there’s no evidence of a trend; and Statistics Canada data backs him up.
“Most kinds of crime have been declining over time over the last 20 years,” said Simon Fraser University’s School of Criminology director Neil Boyd. “It’s not uncommon, though, to occasionally get a spate of these kinds of crimes.”
Boyd said homicide data in Canada has been kept since the 1960s, and percentages of types of killings have been consistent: one-third of all killings have been stabbings, one-third have been shootings (a combination of rifles and handguns), and one-third have been beatings or strangulations.
Because stabbings are a fairly rare occurrence, they tend to garner a lot of attention from media and public in general, said Boyd.
“Knives are unlike guns in that they can be used for all sorts of legitimate purposes, so access to a knife is a much easier kind of thing for people to contemplate than access to a gun,” he said.
“When you look at the kinds of knives used in stabbings – they run the gamut in terms of they’re not necessarily purchased and used specifically for the purpose of trying to kill somebody.”
With files from Erika Tucker and Tom Vernon, Global News
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