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Editorial: Time to pull trigger on handgun ban
We ban pit bull dogs because they are a dangerous breed.
We ban certain pesticides because they are toxic.
We have banned smoking in most indoor places.
Heck, we have even banned sexually active gay males from donating their organs.
The list of bans to make our streets, homes and lives safer could fill volumes.
But when it comes to a ban on handguns, we are reluctant to pull the trigger.
All manner of reasons, statistics and Charter rights are rushed to the fore when a call for a handgun ban is raised.
The gun lobby will trot out its silly adage – guns don’t kill, people kill – while politicians afraid to lose votes talk around the issue.
All of this is cold comfort to the families who have lost loved ones to the stray bullets from handguns that in Canada today are as available as a Tim Horton’s doughnut.
The latest innocent victim of street gunplay is Hou Chang Mao, a 47-year-old father of two, who was shot while stacking oranges at the Toronto grocery store where he was working.
He was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead upon arrival.
His death comes less than a week after 42-year-old John O’Keefe was caught in a deadly crossfire as he was returning home after a night out with friends. O’Keefe, a father of one, was not the intended target.
B.C. has also seen its share of innocent victims getting killed by guns.
In addition to the blood on our streets, businesses are suffering as people stay away from restaurants and areas where gang bangers gather to shoot it out.
Enough is enough and the time has come to say no to handguns in Canada.
The minority that wants to play with their dangerous toys in shooting clubs can find a way to do it, without owning the weapons. Let the clubs own them and the shooting enthusiasts can rent them.
Registered owners and collectors should be forced to turn their handguns in and if they need to be compensated, give them a tax credit.
The Canadian Shooting and Sports Association, which has 15,000 members, says banning guns would be a monumental task. It estimates that the federal government will have to pay owners and collectors about $2 billion.
Most Canadians would have no problem forking out for this if the government was willing to impose a mandatory 10-year sentence without eligibility for parole for anyone caught with a handgun.
If a person commits a crime with a handgun, he or she should be sent to jail for life.
Let’s see if our thugs like that.
Toronto Mayor David Miller is absolutely right when he says: “We can choose to act… We can choose to say handguns are so dangerous and kill uninvolved people that we’re going to close the loopholes in our law and end the ownership of handguns in this country.”
Miller is calling for a united front to force the federal government to take action.
But our federal government, afraid of losing its gun lobby support, is looking the other way.
“You don’t make headway against firearm crime by going against innocent firearm owners,” Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told The Canadian Press.
This is the same legislative poppycock that has been around for decades.
While our politicians dither, the firearms industry is laughing all the way to the bank by increasing the lethality of their killing machines.
Today’s handguns have been developed to hold more ammunition, fire bigger bullets and be easier to conceal.
One gun manufacturer boasting “the most powerful handgun in the world,” has made weapons that fire bullets which can penetrate the highest level of body armour worn by police officers.
Is this gun being made for the collector or the criminal?
The call to ban handguns is not inspired by a generalized hatred of guns.
It is a response to the question that most Canadians are asking today: How many more have to die before we do something?
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