After failing at home, the gun control lobby has gone international. And in light of Canadia's recent whining that the American gun culture was causing an increase in Canadian violent crime and gun seizures, the Globe and Mail takes a look at the actual numbers. And, big surprise, they deduce that it's all a bunch of hooey.

As Canadian politicians express alarm about a rising tide of guns smuggled from the United States, statistics obtained by The Globe and Mail show that federal border guards are seizing fewer firearms and Toronto police are pulling no more guns off the streets than they ordinarily do.

The Canada Border Services Agency says it has intercepted 318 guns so far in 2005, below the more than 1,000 seized guns that border guards have averaged annually during the past five years, and far fewer than the 1,500 seized annually in the 1990s.

And while Toronto Police Service Chief Bill Blair was widely quoted last week as saying his officers have seized more than 2,000 guns so far in 2005, civilians in his statistics department say the chief inadvertently "misspoke." Their official tally is only 1,151, consistent with the pace of seizures in recent years.

Others claim that Canadia's problem is not enough liberalism.

"It used to be that we had more places to encourage kids to get power, self-esteem, and respect in a socially acceptable way," said psychologist Robin Alter, who has spent 25 years working in Toronto's violence-plagued northwest.

But, she said, camp programs have been cut, affordable housing has not been built and single mothers are working two or three jobs just to get by. Years ago, youth workers sat around talking about ways to get children into programs that suited them, she said, but "that doesn't happen any more."

It is easy to blame the United States for gun violence, she said, "but we have some of our own problems we need to address."

Wow, it sounds like Karl Rove has been busy north of the border too.