Now that your attentions are diverted from the real problem we face with violence in our schools, the desperation that an element of our youth face, or the mere fact that we will always have a criminal element in society running an underground economy made larger only by the number of things we prohibit...
LET'S BAN HANDGUNS...Puuhhhllllleaaase!!!!
Typical lefty bleeding heart response. I'm not huge on guns. In fact, two years ago I turned down a chance to go to a shooting range in Las Vegas, later learning that I missed the golden opportunity to fire an Uzi, a 357 Magnum and an AK-47 - at nothing less than images of stereotypical muslim cut-outs. (tongue planted firmly in cheek, heavy sarcasm font.) Apparently I missed something close to the Zed and the Gimp scene from Pulp Fiction.
But, I did shoot a .22 calibre rifles when I was in Boy Scouts - at a shooting range in the basement of a High School no less! Simpler times I guess? I think it's important to note that I grew up in conservative London Ontario, not Evansville Indiana or some such place. After Toronto's second-ever school related shooting, I'm troubled that Toronto's Mayor simply keeps re-iterating his desire to infringe personal rights and ban handguns, as if the guns being used in crimes are legal or registered in the first place.
Guns are already licensed at this point and I believe, registered - or at least they were at one point in Canada. In the past, the Mayor has said that the guns being used in crimes are largely coming in from the US where handguns will never, ever be banned. Not even American liberals, serious ones anyway, would ever suggest banning handguns, so this issue dies at the border. Which is exactly where the problem lies - aside from the social causes. So the Mayor's strategy - as well communicated as it is, is sadly off the mark, please pardon the pun. We may as well have a turnip as Mayor given the chance of success of such a strategy.
While I agree that much of the responsibility for addressing this problem lies at the feet of the Canadian federal government, I believe Mr Miller needs to speak to different people in Ottawa and address different problems than he is with his lame, unimaginative and to date falling on deaf-ears "Ban Handguns" message. The problem is with our porous borders and our pathetic federal criminal justice system, which lacks skills, funding and manppower in terms of enforcement CSIS? RCMP -who? The US has made a cottage industry from law enforcement! We're also plagued by judges who seem incompetent of reading the winds of public opinion and applying that sentiment to their sentancing.
If Mr. Miller is serious about getting guns off the street and I believe he is, he must push for more support to enforce EXISTING laws from federal law enforcement agencies. Who is Canada's DEA, ATF or FBI? If it is the Toronto Police that is responsible, then perhaps funding should be redirected from hassling pestulant squeegie kids to hassling dangerous gangsters with violent rap sheets. The power to redirect those resources lies within the Mayor's office. Rudy Giuliani didn't just wait for the Feds to clean up Times Square and if that is what our Mayor is claiming he'd like to, then he should genuinely get tough, not put on a tough-guy act when times are tough.
It's ironic too because in the past, the left has traditionally argued for the decriminalization of some things that others consider detrimental to society-at-large. I'm talking mainly about Marajuana, which most honest and educated political scientists will tell you ought to be decriminalized and I frankly agree. I'm not saying decriminalize handguns either - licensing has an impact, as the City of Toronto ironically will also tell you when it comes to Massage Parlours. So the Mayor essentially finds that licensing suffices for handjobs but not for handguns? Or he just believes that prostitution ought to be legal? I didn't see that in his platform, did you?
And here is my conclusion and its probably stating the obvious. City Hall is really good at pointing the finger at others while doing very little to innovate or find solutions to problems that they actually have control over, particularly under this administration.
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