hOW DO WE STOP THIS BULLSHIT

TORONTO (CP) - For a city already struggling with a peak in gun murders, the shooting death of a teenage girl in downtown Toronto on Monday in front of panicky shoppers punctuated a year that police and politicians already said broke new frontiers in the audacity of firearm violence. The eruption of gunfire that left a 15-year-old dead, six wounded and hundreds of Boxing Day bargain-hunters ducking for cover served as a grim reminder of the increasing brazenness of handgun shootings in the past 12 months.

"What's particularly horrifying about this is where it occurred - in one of the highest traffic areas on one of the highest traffic shopping days of the year, and I think everybody, myself included, recognizes it could've been one of us," said Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control and a criminal justice professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.

"It certainly created a level of fear and concern that we haven't seen before. I think that's probably what sets this incident apart from any of the others is how vulnerable it makes a very large part of the population feel."

Toronto has experienced the highest tally of gun-related homicides of any Canadian municipality - 52 people this year are dead after the pulling of a trigger.

But it's the bold nature of the killings that concerns Cukier.

"We've seen more shootings in public places, we've seen more gang-related shootings, we've seen more shootings where bystanders are victims and we've seen more shootings where the police don't have leads," Cukier said.

"It's the kind of violence that has increased people's fear levels and anxiety levels to a point that we've probably not seen before, because it seems anybody could be a victim."

In a city where killings can be relegated to the inside sections of the daily newspapers - yet with a reputation of being one of the safest on the continent - the Boxing Day shootout may have eclipsed another infamous incident that a month ago was considered a defining moment in what has been a bloody and violent year.

On Nov. 18, Amon Beckles was gunned down outside the sanctuary of a church. He was attending the funeral of a friend whose shooting death he may have witnessed a week earlier.

On the front steps of a house of God, the life of the 18-year-old was snuffed out prematurely.

When contrasted against a decade's worth of statistics on gun murders nationwide, Toronto's peak appears to be an aberration. There were 271 homicides committed across the country with a firearm 15 years ago. In 2004, there were 172.

The drop in homicides comes a decade after Canada passed laws that required gun owners to be licensed and registered.

But numbers and laws provide cold comfort to families of gun victims, and can't convey what beat officers are telling their staff sergeants - that more and more, handgun shootings are occurring out in the open, thereby increasingly putting public safety at risk.

The death of Beckles, whom police said was "a potential material witness" to the gun slaying of 17-year-old Jamal Hemmings, rattled the city of nearly three million, hardened homicide investigators and galvanized politicians and pastors alike through its sheer audacity.

"This is a wake-up call," Rev. Don Meredith told mourners at Amon's funeral.

On the campaign trail, Prime Minister Paul Martin has pledged a ban on handguns, saying the rise in gun violence is "not the Canada we imagine."

The Boxing Day shooting was tragic, made only more so during the holiday season, Martin said Tuesday.

"What we saw . . . is a stark reminder of the challenge that governments, police forces and communities face to ensure that Canadian cities do not descend into the kind of rampant gun violence we have seen elsewhere," he said in a statement.

While there has been a loud call to stop the flow of illegal weapons - most of them handguns from the United States - experts say trying to eradicate the gun trade is futile.

"It would take an army and a police state to crack down and to capture more than a tip of the iceberg of firearms coming through the border,"

Tom Gabor, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, said earlier this month.

The Criminal Code currently provides minimum four-year sentences for using guns to commit certain offences, such as attempted murder and robbery.

But there have been several instances this year where people have been charged with killing someone with the pull of a trigger days after being let out on bail for gun offences.

Therein lies part of the problem, says Cukier of the Coalition for Gun Control.

She advocates for a long-term, integrated approach that would include a visible presence of officers in communities where guns are a problem, a strong show of partnership between police, religious and community leaders, and a restoration of social and recreational programs lost due to provincial and federal cutbacks 10 years ago.

Evidence that strategy works lies in a northeast neighbourhood of Toronto. The Malvern area has been beset for years by shootings but is now on the mend after a big police sweep netted dozens of men high within the ranks of the Malvern Crew and the Galloway Boys, two notorious gangs.

"It's as if we suddenly had a surge in the number of cases of cancer," she said.

"Yes, of course you need intervention to treat them, but you have to ask yourself the question: where did this come from? What were the factors that contributed? And violence is no different."

I strongly believe that most gangs out there are financially supported by drug sales.

That's the biggest reson for them to even exist. They create a gang, need weapons to defend their 'territories' from other gangs, they organise drug business, sell to re-sellers who target the youth (in most part) of our country, etc.

Those who buy drugs of any kind, i.e. marijuana - E - crystal meth - hash - speed -etc, support these people. Kids/teens/even adults who do it think it's fun and that it doesn't hurt anyone else but them....Think again.

We need to stop these gangs now.

Users need to stop buying now. And yes, 5$ bucks worth of pot supports the system. It may sound small to you, but whe you add it up, it millions of dollars who go directly to finance illegal activities/crime.

You should think about it....and then stop.

The gangs are involved in not just drugs, but also extortion, racketeering, prostitution and gambling. Some of the more sophisticated outfits even make money legally.

As for you contention that buying marijuana "supports" these gangs, I guess it's hard to argue. Of course, legalizing marijuana would remove the profit margin from their business. So, seeing as pot is virtually harmless anyway, legalizing it would be the smart thing to do. In the meantime, I'll have to live with the guilt, just like every time I buy a toy I'm supporting Communist China.

Move the gangs into the Judges neighbourhoods. Then, maybe they'll be a little more careful in their sentencing. A couple of dead judges should get them to pull their heads out of their collective asses.

are going to have to learn to stay home and parent.

They're too busy with trying to pay their tax burden

But why do they want to live where the tax burden and other costs are so high?

#1 - You think these people declare revenues? Nope. And with all the money they make, they don't need to worry about high costs.....

#2 - Canada currently is an open path down that road....business is easy; chances of getting caught are low; consequences are inexistent...for now.

but costs are lower and frictions simmer, and are less likely to boil over. It's easy to plant a little something and shoot some game. A wood stove lowers heating costs. Seasonal employment is easier to find.

has a lower tax burden than Toronto. Tamworth is even better. It's the fact that people are packed so tightly that creates the friction. We have to lose the "Life in the city is better." mentality. We all know it isn't true, but we won't admit it.

Having lived in Asia for several years, I don't find our cities overly crowded, not even Turrana.

EDITORIAL: What this city has lost to crime

When scores of shoppers are forced to cower on the ground on Canada's busiest street because more than a dozen gun-toting punks are using it as a shooting range, it is time to stop kidding ourselves.

It is time to demand action.

Where is the leadership? Where is the law?

An innocent 15-year-old girl is dead, gunned down in yet another gang fight. Six other innocents were also shot, all for daring to go Boxing Day shopping in downtown Toronto -- a city once so staid that Boxing Day shopping itself was illegal.

Our police chief calls it "infuriating." Our mayor is "saddened and angered." Our PM blathers about "the consequences of exclusion" (whatever that means), our premier blames "the insanity of guns" (can guns go insane?), and a senior cop declares "Toronto has finally lost its innocence."

No, no, no, no, no! Toronto lost its innocence long ago -- not with this, our 78th murder and 52nd gun homicide of 2005. This isn't even the first shooting near Yonge and Dundas this year -- it's the third.

What we have lost -- we hope -- is our naivete.

We've lost the dangerous illusion that the escalating gun violence that has scarred this city in recent years -- not months, years -- is an isolated problem, confined to a certain community, a certain income bracket or certain neighbourhoods.

We've lost the self-righteous notion that guns and gangs are problems imported from somewhere else. We've lost the elitist view that this kind of thing doesn't happen in "our Toronto."

Monday's victims are from all over; they are male and female; white, black, Asian. They are all of us.

We've heard the promises. Where are the results?

What we need are leaders who will stare down the laughing gangsters and tell them: You will not take over our city. We will hunt you down where you live. We will take away your guns and we will put you away -- or kick you out of Canada -- for good.

We need leaders who will tell our citizens, and all those now questioning whether Toronto is safe to visit: We will put police on the street and declare war on the gangs -- now, not years from now. We will break their gun culture by imprisoning every thug we catch carrying one -- not by harrassing collectors and sportsmen. Yes, we will spend money on social programs, but first we will do our job and protect you.

How many more innocents will die before we lose our complacency and demand that job be done?

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