Mass shootings caused by “masculinity”, says a report commissioned by an investigation into Nova Scotia

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The newspaper makes little mention of the April 2020 massacre, in which a 51-year-old man driving a copy of a police car killed 22 people.

Publication date:

May 3, 2022 • 3 hours ago • 3 minutes reading • 154 comments RCMP officers prepare to detain mass gunman Gabriel Wortman at a gas station in Anfield, NS on Sunday, April 19, 2020. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS / Tim Krochak

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Against the backdrop of criticism that the Nova Scotia Mass Victims Commission was too restrained to criticize police action in the wake of Canada’s deadliest mass shooting, the investigation this week turned a different focus: the role of “masculinity”.

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“Our research shows that mass shootings are a gender issue: they are essentially related to the relationship between men, masculinity and weapons,” the report said this week.

“Mass shootings and masculinity” prepared by two sociologists from the University of California, told commissioners that mass shootings are inherently “masculinity-based” and that in addition to limiting gun ownership, governments must pursue “cultural change.” .

The Mass Victims Commission is convening hearings this week over the April 2020 active shooting incident in which a 51-year-old man driving a copy of a police car killed 22 people in rural areas of Nova Scotia.

In addition to investigating the details of the massacre and police response, the commission also has a mandate to investigate “gender-based and intimate partner violence.”

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It should be noted that the perpetrator of the massacre had a long history of violence against his civilian partner Lisa Banfield. His killings in April 2020 began after a dispute in which he shot at Banfield and tried to lock her in one of his copies of police cars (she escaped and eventually survived the massacre).

1. The mass shooting in Nova Scotia caught the attention of police 10 years before the killings

2. Questioning his decisions, the head of the RCMP during the mass shooting in NS took 16 months off after that

Another expert report received by the commission examines the statistical link between gender-based violence and attacks on mass victims. “There is new evidence of a very real public risk of ‘private’ violence,” said the report, which was commissioned by researchers at Monash University in Australia.

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But the University of California report does not address any of the specifics of the shootings in Nova Scotia, but only briefly touches on mass shootings in Canada as a whole. Rather, it focuses almost entirely on mass shootings in the United States, where the phenomenon is known to be much more common than in the rest of the world.

The 44-page report says that mass shootings in the United States do not always correlate with the percentage of state-owned gun ownership (Alaska, one of the most armed states, also has one of the lowest levels of mass shootings). Thus, researchers cite numerous sociological articles linking gun violence to race, right-wing politics, and even “men’s overcompensation.”

“Gun possession, gun deaths and gun violence in general are gender-based phenomena,” it said.

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Researchers note at several points in the article that their theories may have little to do with Canada. While attributing American mass shootings to defense-oriented U.S. gun culture, the paper also said Canada appears to have a “pre-1970 U.S. gun culture” that treats mostly firearms as hunting tools. Not to mention that in Canada, unlike in the United States, the possession of firearms for personal protection is technically prohibited.

In one of the few direct references to the Nova Scotia massacre in the report, the authors write only that it “withstands easy classification.”

Hearings of the Mass Victims Commission first began in February and have drawn harsh criticism from the families of the victims of the massacre for their apparent reluctance to question police actions during the 13 hours of the massacre.

Perhaps most importantly, the investigation decided not to include evidence from the victim’s FitBit showing that she had a pulse for more than eight hours after RCMP members pronounced her dead.

Hundreds of documents related to the investigation have also been mysteriously removed from the Mass Victims Commission’s website, including testimony from RCMP members criticizing the lack of staff in selected units and even internal allegations that one member allowed the shooter to “escape”. .

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