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Stockwell Day shoots down handgun ban

By KATHLEEN HARRIS, NATIONAL BUREAU

The Ottawa Sun




Another innocent man murdered
Death prompts handgun debate




Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has rebuffed calls for a ban on handguns, insisting tougher jail terms, more police and strict border security will win the war against gun violence in Canada's cities.

Calling the death of an innocent bystander in Toronto "very tragic," Day said penalizing law-abiding firearm owners won't stop the scourge of street shootings.

"It would be counter-productive," he told Sun Media in an interview. "The handgun situation in Canada right now is very tightly controlled."

Day said handguns are legal only for police officers and armed security guards, legitimate target shooters, like Olympic athletes, and collectors.

The answer to preventing the spray of bullets lies in putting more cops on the streets, beefing up border security and mandatory minimum jail terms -- not targeting innocent gun owners in the fashion of the Liberal gun registry program.

ILLEGAL WEAPONS

Of the 108 homicides in 2006 that involved handguns, 102 were with illegal or unregistered weapons, Day said.

"The problem is not the approved collectors or the target shooters," he said. "We have to go after the criminals, we have to go after the smugglers, we have go after the people who manufacture handguns in Canada without serial numbers on them. This is where the focus needs to be, that's what we are doing and that's how you reduce the devastating effect of crime with firearms."

While this week's death in Toronto prove the gun problem remains "acute," Day says he believes Conservative measures are paying off.

"We've been in government two years and already we're seeing encouraging signs, notwithstanding these tragic incidents, of reduction of crime with illegal firearm activity," he said.

"Overall, gun crime with victims, that number is going down in the GTA because Chief (Bill) Blair takes the aggressive, going-after-the-criminal approach. That's how you do it, and that's why we have significantly increased our resources to that end. You don't spend millions of dollars going after innocent target shooters or antique collectors. You have to hit the streets and go after criminal youth."

But Liberal justice critic Marlene Jennings said the Tories are taking a major step back by killing the gun registry.

'REAL GUN CONTROL'

"We think the number one priority at this time has to be to preserve what we already have, which is the gun registry," she said. "We need to ensure the Conservatives stop dismantling the registry by stealth. If they succeed in doing so, we won't have anything to enforce real gun control."

Toronto NDP MP Peggy Nash said a handgun ban could stop weapons from being abused by owners or becoming vulnerable to theft. But calming deadly street violence must come with a focus on prevention instead of locking up perpetrators longer.

"Telling a grieving mother that someone's going to jail is not going to bring their child back," she said. "While we want to make sure criminals are dealt with, there also needs to be a focus on prevention."

Toronto Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis supports a handgun ban, but said a mandatory repository for urban long gun owners should also be established.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2008/ ... 9-sun.html

what is with that city , honestly . when someone gets murdered in another city they don't suddenly say they need to take all hand guns away from innocent collectors and sportsmen and claim that it will solve there cities crime problem. when it would most likely do little to reduce the cities drug and gang problem anyways .

it seems like toronto is living in a bubble and forgeting about the rest of the country .

Because we have a Conservative federal government and Toronto does not vote conservative. Their idiot mayor has to blame every shot fired on Harper or the Americans.

The GTA reaction to street violence is like a farmer......removing the spurs from the roosters because a fox got into the chicken house----rather than closing the stupid door.

I see Jack Layton had to start blowing his lefty horn about it as well

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s ... hub=Canada

A well put letter to the ed in today's Daily News out of Halifax,

You mean Toronto politicians are being smacktards? That's not news. That's normal. When they stop being morons, then it will be news.

anyone can walk across the border in and buy a 'private sale', what the hell is a hand gun ban in Canada going to do to stop it. They have to get to the root of the problems and take down these idiots....Oh ya im a leftie, not all of us feel a gun ban is neccesary

but locking away the criminal scum for a long time isn't PC, and it doesn't generate headlines. After all, they are victims too......aren't they? Guess that's why so many of those in prison vote Liberal and NDP.

I think we should ban murder instead. Gun owners get to keep their hand guns and no more people die, everyone is happy. Problem solved. Simlpe as that. (<--- sarcasm)

It's all political.

Julian Fantino, when GTA top cop, labeled the whole registry, long and short, a waste of money and blamed smuggled firearms and illegal Jamaican criminal immigrants as the main problems and got himself fired by the GTA handwringers.

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