[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc06nT2gvjw[/youtube]
For years, Mayor David Miller has written to prime ministers (first Paul Martin, now Stephen Harper) to demand a ban on handguns as part of a broader effort to end gun violence. Today, Mayor Miller kicked off an internet-based petition campaign that he is promoting on his Facebook group Ban Handguns in Canada…Sign the Petition and YouTube in the hope of engaging Canadians from across the country in the anti-gun lobby.
While cynics will denounce this as ineffective buck-passing, Mayor Miller says in his video that “every single country in the world that has strict gun laws has lower rates of homicide by gun, suicide, has lower rates of accidental death and has lower rates of domestic violence using handguns.”
Morally, I find Mayor Miller’s argument extraordinarily compelling but I also think a handgun ban will have an impact. Though illegal guns will continue to exist, it’s just too easy for people with bad intentions to steal a legal gun owner’s collection. When we’re dealing with a weapon that is so deadly (and manufactured to be such), the interest of an athlete or collector just doesn’t trump the public interest of safer communities.
The broader approach to community safety championed by Mayor Miller is available here. Even the Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy found nice things to say about it in a March 2008 column titled A jobs program that works.
30 comments
Uh oh – cue the gun nuts to show up here any moment now…
I wonder if the Mayor thinks banning Explosives in the middle East might be a good idea as well?
The parts of the Middle East that would benefit from a ban on explosives don’t have an effective rule of law. We have an effective rule of law in Canada. Therefore, a ban on handguns here would be enforceable, whereas the ban in your analogy would not.
I myself am ambivalent about this.
How can you ban something that is already illegal???
The Mayor is blaming the Feds for something HE has lost complete control over. Drugs and Money are the ROOT of the gun crime. Hasn’t any one watched “No Country For Old Men” yet? Stop the drugs then the money drys up and so do the guns…The more drugs the more money the more gun crime the more evil,”he who has the guns make the rules”It’s the same all over the world,what makes T.O. so special?
The murder of two innocent bystanders in Toronto over the course of one week was the trigger for his reaction, of course, and it was made even worse when one of the accused killers allegedly used his legally-registered handgun to shoot at a strip-club bouncer, and accidentally killed an innocent passerby.
And that’s all David Miller needed to go over-the-top once again, and to tar all legitimate handgun owners with his nonsensical brush.
News flash to the mayor: Less than one-half of one per cent of all the shootings in Canada are committed by someone with a legally-owned handgun.
That leaves 99.95% committed by whom? Certainly not the good guys.
Across the pond in Great Britain, the ownership of handguns was banned over a decade ago but, at this very moment, three people are getting shot every day, or nearly 1,000 people a year  with one out of 10 of them being a child.
Criminals don’t care about nation-wide gun bans. Criminals don’t care about gun registries.
What Canada needs to ban is criminals with guns and you start by locking up these punk idiots for life.
Only then will you get their attention.
OK I will take the gun nutbar case this time Spacers….
Russ> try and get the correct numbers when spouting off like from the Government of Britian where I quote from the Home Office “Contrary to public perception, the overall level of gun crime in England and Wales is very low – less than 0.5% of all crime recorded by the police.”
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/gun-crime/
Gun crime as reported in stats on their site shows that gun crime is down and the number of shooting victims in the UK was 59 last year and has stayed around that number for the last 10 years; a far cry from your numbers. Even if you add in Scotland it still is very low and the UK has 20 million more people than Canada!
Statscan shows that the murder rate by guns in Canada has ranged from a low of 152 to a high of 223 over the last 6 years.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal01.htm
So, I don’t know about you but If I was a betting man I would say you have your argument backwards.
Lets just ban handguns anyway as they have zero legitimate use. A place with no guns is a safer place period. You can ban guns and still put the bad guys in jail by the way, they are not exclusive concepts.
You’re welcome everybody. : )
Can someone clarify what the proposal would include that is new? Is it currently legal in Canada to carry a loaded handgun around? If this is already illegal, would the ban mean that it would in addition be illegal to own any handguns, period? Also, how is a ban on handguns actually enforceable? In the case of the recent shootings, would there have been any way to remove the guns from the criminals before they actually committed a crime with them? The coverage of this story I have read so far has not included much on these specifics.
Michael: the idea, like the writer alludes to, is to get rid of all guns so they can’t be stolen or fall into the wrong hands. It might not get rid of every gun but even if one person’s life is saved by making these killing machines completely illegal, it would be worth it.
And that’s all David Miller needed to go over-the-top once again, and to tar all legitimate handgun owners with his nonsensical brush.
What’s legitimate about owning a handgun?
Nothing.
The “value” of owning a gun by collectors or “sport” shooters is far outweighed by the value of having no legal guns available to be stolen (seriously, if you want to shoot a gun, use an air pistol or a bb gun).
A handgun for protection?
A total myth.
Anyone who claims a legal handgun is useful for self-defence is either lying, ignorant of the law, or disobeying the law. With Canada’s gun storage laws, there is simply no way to comply with the law (eg. gun and ammo must be stored – locked – separately from each other) and profess keeping a gun for protection.
Charelton Heston must be rolling over in his grave.
Simply put…there is no real need for hand guns. Like anything else that is illegal, people who want them will find them…why not just make it a little harder for them. We also shouldn’t over look the fact that accidents can happen. Don’t know who these guys are, but this video sums that up clearly!!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Va1LBOwigIs
Jane
Charlton Heston must be rolling over in his grave.
I was wondering if they had to pry anything from his cold, dead, hands…
[i]Gun crime as reported in stats on their site shows that gun crime is down and the number of shooting victims in the UK was 59 last year and has stayed around that number for the last 10 years; a far cry from your numbers. Even if you add in Scotland it still is very low and the UK has 20 million more people than Canada![/i]
I might be missing something, but according to the website you posted “firearms were involved in 566 serious or fatal injuries in 2006/07”, not 59.
McKingford hey I`m a gun nut. What kind of nut are you?
Shame on you Mr. Miller for using those poor grief stricken individuals to help further your political career. Shame on you! You know very that a nationwide handgun ban will not put a stop gun violence in this country. How about trying to tackle the scum bag hoodlums who are committing these crimes instead of trying to sucker punch legal handgun owners who use them for sport, competition and fun. Oh by the way Jane handguns are not illegal.
It would be better to have a specialist task force formed whose sole purpose is to crack down on illegal possession of any firearm.
I served in Northern Ireland four times in ten years in the seventies. All guns including fireworks were banned in that country in 1969 and to this day that ban has not made any difference. In the early days people were killed by the bullet on a daily basis, some of them were my close friends.
This task force could have similar powers as we did to enter and search suspect property, autos and persons without a warrant. Advertising financial rewards on television for information of people possessing illegal guns or where illegal guns would be found would work. Stiffer penalties is a must.
I was living in England when the handgun ban came into effect, gun crime still exists.
Mr. Miller if handguns were banned tomorrow, I wonder what you will have to say to the family members of the next person that will die by the bullet in your city.
A ban is really a fruitless effort.
My deepest sympathies to the recent victims of gun violence.
I’m not particularly pro-gun, in fact I’m not concerned about whether collectors can or cannot have guns.
The bigger issue I see here is that Miller is using the gun ban as a way to obfuscate his terrible record on keeping gun crime down in our city. The gangsters that carry guns around are not legally licensed firearms holders. If you stopped them on the street and found guns, they could be charged. Furthermore, most of the guns coming into Canada are smuggled in through the US.
Miller knows that crime is a big vulnerability of his in the next election, so he’s doing what any good politician would do – trying to pass the blame for the issue onto someone else, namely the federal government. It’s no different than McGuinty blaming Flaherty, and Flaherty blaming McGuinty for Ontario’s current economic woes.
How about anyone caught with a loaded hand gun is automatically sentenced to 5 years in jail – no parole.
The other comment I would make – while the ban is a good idea, the reality is, politically, it’s never going to happen with the Conservatives in power. The Conservatives get their seats from rural and suburban ridings, where support for firearms is important for winning votes (even in rural Ontario seats). That urbanites in Toronto want a gun ban won’t be of any concern to Conservatives, as they’ll never win any seats in Toronto anyways.
Which goes back to my point – there are more effective ways for Miller to be spending his time and political capital if he actually wants to reduce gun violence.
Now that the pro/anti handgun debate has been nicely settled . . .
It’s interesting to see the mayor trying to drum up support for his agenda in this way. I don’t think it is going out on a limb to say that the “one cent now” buttons failed to accomplish that goal.
Our mayor has some good ideas, but seems to struggle in getting anything done when cooperation from a higher government is necessary. Unfortunately, this sort of help seems to be needed more often than not.
BigBrother: 566 is the total number of “serious or fatal injuries” caused by handguns in England and Wales. Only 59 were fatalities; the other 507 were injuries of various sorts. This is spelled out on page 39 of the PDF. The numbers are quite a bit higher in Canada, in spite of our much smaller population.
Hmmm what ever happened to freedom of speech? I posted here at 3 this morning and I still wait for it to appear ….
Ed. Note: Your earlier comment was swept up by Spacing Toronto’s automatic spam blocker. That has now been corrected.
What is with this nonsense of rejecting this proposal because “a nationwide handgun ban will not put a stop gun violence”? Why is it either all or nothing? Can we not ban guns because it will ‘merely’ LESSEN the presence of guns, rather than completely vanquishing them? This binary logic doesn’t make sense to me. And it seems absurd to attribute any move a politician makes to political expediency when it’s convenient.
Plus, it astonishes me that any readers of Spacing are pro-gun ownership.
Lets say a handgun ban was put into affect one year ago. The only shooting that -for sure- would never have happened was John O’keefe’s murder.
So what? Therefore let’s not ban handguns; it’s not worth it?
Alexander, it also astonishes me that anyone would dare to deviate from our leftist ideological unanimity here at Spacing. We should consider banning these people from the site, so we can reassure ourselves of our own riggteousness and correctness without interference.
Like I said, I don’t think a gun ban is a bad idea, but I don’t think it’s going to be particularly effective. Miller should be spending his time trying to lengthen gun crime sentences so that the criminals aren’t back on the streets to re-offend. It’s not an issue of whether a gun ban would save lives – it might well save lives. But it’s an issue of if you’ve got limited political capital to use (in Miller’s case, very limited), you should use it in the way that *most* affects gun crime, not the one that makes your left-leaning supporters feel warm-and-fuzzy.
If 99.5 percent of murders are performed by “illegal” handgun owners, but you must go through legal means to purchase one, I wonder: where do illegal gun owners get them from?
Hey, maybe they get them by taking them from legal owners. Law-abiding people who never intended to do anything wrong, but who inadvertently provide access to a tool used for killing. How stupid for anyone to suggest having fewer guns available would be a good idea.
And I don’t remember Miller ever saying this was his only solution, just one solution. Michael Bryant said the same — it’s one tactic. So is the gangs and guns taskforce for the Police. So is advocating for tougher border controls to prevent smuggling. I think Miller’s spoken on all those issues, and supported them.
I’d like to flip this on its head: why should you get to have a gun in Candada? For what purpose?
“So what? Therefore let’s not ban handguns; it’s not worth it?”
Actually, that’s probably true. Banning handguns has cost implications in enforcement terms – there may also (IANAL) be costs incurred to compensate legal gun owners whose property has been deemed illegal retrospectively.
Government dollars are rarely transferable from one project to another the way one would like, but if CBSA had their numbers boosted to perform more checks on cars and trucks coming into Canada, it’s likely they would seize more guns which would be used in the commission of crimes. These guns might have started out as legal guns as Bored says but few of them were legal *in Canada* but were instead originated in the US.
Personally, I would ban new collector permits and ban collectors from both acquiring additional handguns and from reselling guns they have within Canada – if they want to dispose of them then they can either hand them over to the police for scrap value if working or to museums if of historical note. This would squeeze out legal guns over a longer period but would probably be easier to get done.
However, there are other issues such as whether finding a gun in TCHC accommodation be grounds for eviction. In Ireland local authorities can request exclusion orders to expel drug dealers and other anti-social individuals from social housing.
It’s not enough to attempt to interrupt supply, we have to do something about the demand too and the consequences for possessing illegal weapons. Unfortunately the people who demand action on guns rarely have anything to say apart from that if we solved poverty we wouldn’t need increased enforcement. Well by that logic if we solved poverty we wouldn’t have to ban guns either.
Ms/Mr tdotg, I said it astonishes me because I thought it’s such a bizarre position, to advocate gun ownership, and I presumed it was very uncommon in Toronto general, let alone on this site; not because I refuse to accept that Spacing readers hold such an opinion and I think they should be banned.
Isn’t most gun related crime related to organized crime? Isn’t most organized crime based on the illegal drug trade? (Didn’t drugs win the drug war?)
We might want to revisit the idea of getting rid of gun violence by lowering the amount of organized crime. Because making drugs illegal has increased organized crime, why not try the opposite?
“I refuse to accept that Spacing readers hold such an opinion and I think they should be banned.”
Better tell Pages to start checking for weapons permits before allowing patrons to purchase the mag. Maybe have an undercover in hunting gear go in just to make sure they are complying.
First and foremost, I’d like to clear up some myths. There *are* legal reasons for owning a handgun. The most important one is for self-defense. Hold on! Don’t freak out just yet!
Let’s say some guy named Robert can’t use his legs. Robert comes back from work, or physio at around 8 or 9 PM. Let’s say someone, for whatever reason, mugging, sick humor, or hate, decides they’re gonna kill Robert. The attacker runs at Robert with a bat. Robert tries to run or stop the man, but the attacker cracks Roberts skull open. Bob never had a chance. The closest policeman was 10 blocks away. By the time the policeman got to Robert, he was dead.
That isn’t right. Let’s do that again, but change something. Robert is coming home from physio, and the comes at Robert, bat in hand. Robert can see the aggressive attacker coming, and draws his pistol. Robert tells the man to stop. At this point the attacker can either leave, or keep coming. If the attacker leaves, then Robert phones the police to tell them there’s a maniac in a blue parka near the corner of Simcoe and Pearl Street. If the attacker keeps coming, Robert is forced to shoot. Once the attacker stops or goes down, Robert calls the police an ambulance to tell them there’s a man in a blue parka who’s been shot on the corner of Simcoe and Pearl Street. Robert stays there until the police arrive, and explains everything to the officer who was 10 blocks away. They bring him to the station to make sure nothing sideways happened, and afterwards he goes home, shaken but alive.
Things may or may not have happened the way it was written, but Robert sure had a much better chance with a pistol.
Before you worry that Robert might get angry and kill people, ask yourself how many people you killed because you got angry at them? People who are licensed to carry (pistols) often tend to show unparalleled restraint. In countries where citizens can carry (pistols) legally, there are more self-defense shootings than crimes. Armed citizens also tend to have better aim with their sidearms than police do. Almost no innocent bystanders are shot by citizens, even though there are more self-defense shootings than police shootings. By no means whatsoever am I knocking the police. They have a very difficult job, and I have a deep respect for law officers.
You don’t have to believe me. For all you know, I might be lying. But if you check all the things I said, you’ll find out they’re true. Please, if you took the time to watch the mayor’s video, take the time to check some facts.