People are being shot on the streets of Toronto.
More than a dozen people have been killed over the past month in the city alone, leaving politicians and police scrambling to come up with a plan to stop the bloodshed.
A recent victim was a campaigner against violence and was the father of 10:
A father was gunned down last night in the same Scarborough apartment building courtyard where he weeks ago staged a ”Stop-the-Violence” barbecue, residents said. …
Police said there was an altercation, and he was shot more than once by a man.
“He was shot several times” is the non-PC way to put it. My first thought is that if he had had his own gun he might have survived. Maybe he’d only have been shot once. Or not at all.
I know the neighborhood at Markham Road and Eglinton Avenue.
The very first house I ever bought was 4 miles away. If I still lived there I would be appalled, and I think the people who live there now should be appalled. I would also be afraid because I was legally prevented from effectively defending myself. Who would defend me and my family?
Obviously, not the police – even though the guarantee of police protection is why Canada decided this law-abiding man could, and should, be disarmed.
The Toronto Police were not able to protect this father of 10, though that promise is implicit in exercising the power to prohibit him from simple and effective self-defense.
Under Canadian legal assumption, the Toronto Police should be condemned for this death. They ungrammatically advertise that they exist “To Serve and Protect.”
In this case they neither protected nor served. That they’ve promised to do so is folly, and that they should be held to this idiotic standard is only appropriate because they’ve embraced it.
The Toronto Police think increased street gun-violence arises from handguns smuggled in from the United States, or being stolen from law abiding Canadians.
Police Chief Bill Blair has said gang rivalries have been intensified by increased access to guns that have either been smuggled from the United States or stolen from gun owners in Canada
Maybe; though accepting this theory means recognizing restrictive Canadian gun laws as useless.
Maybe, though criminals would find another source if all the guns in the US vanished tomorrow and all the registered guns in Canada had already been stolen. Canada’s borders are generally porous, after all.
Maybe, even though private possession of handguns has, for all practical purposes, been banned in Canada since the Plains of Abraham.
Notwithstanding, you can sympathize with Chief Blair’s angst-ridden search for a reason for the failure of the gun-ban outside the virtue of Canadian law. He could never have become Police Chief in TO without getting behind the gun-registry program.
A program that has spent over 2 billion dollars, and has obviously failed.
Those Canadians who have registered their guns have been charged about 140 million dollars for the privilege. Every man woman and child in Canada, therefore, had to cough up a difference of about $60 in order to eradicate gun crime.
Cheap. If effective.
The politicians need someone to blame when the number of shootings goes up despite their assurances of increased protection in exchange for decreased freedom and higher taxes.
But, this “increased handgun violence due to outside forces” meme is senseless and indefensible.
For all practical purposes, private possession of handguns has never been an issue in Canada. The costly registration program didn’t change the law regarding the weapons in question. They were already banned.
So, if one would blame increased smuggling, one must also demonstrate why that makes the slightest sense.
There is no logical reason for increased smuggling of handguns from the US. Why does Chief Blair think it relevant to mention it? (This exercise is left to the student. Hint: Gerhard Schroeder at election time.)
There isn’t even any evidence for the Chief’s contention in his own department’s statistics.
According to Toronto police statistics, about 1,200 guns have been seized so far in 2005, consistent with previous years
His own employees statistics demonstrate either; a) they are incompetent, or b) their Chief is a liar, or b1) he is a fool.
The Toronto Police cannot simultaneously claim Toronto thugs have increased access to guns (maybe from the US, or maybe stolen from law-abiding Canadians), and that they can’t find any of those guns.
If you conduct a hugely expensive gun confiscation/registration effort and that is followed by an increase in gun crime, you’ve either got to modify your reasoning or blame outside forces.
The most gun-restrictive city in the United States, Washington D.C., has the highest rate of gun crime. If any reality deprived do-gooder on either side of the 49th could ever take a hint Canadians and Americans could learn from each other.
As it stands, we have elitist BS artists in ascendance.
Update: 11:49AM, 27-Aug-05, from Christie Blatchford. Apparently the victim wasn’t quite the model citizen initially reported. This information reduces the irony content, but changes nothing else. Replacement irony would be if he was shot with his own illegal gun.