Guns don’t kill people, gangs kill people

In saying that Andrew Scheer has missed the target on guns, I would have to agree with opinion writer Neil Godbout that Scheer has indeed missed the Liberal Party of Canada’s political target on the matter. And that is all.

Godbout is dreaming lazily if he truly believes that banning guns, any kind of gun, will cause a reduction in gun related violence. The vast majority of such violence is intimately linked to the drug trade and criminal gangs that thrive on it.

Last time I checked, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and the like were completely banned and “off the table” as it were; yet they are still there and sufficiently motivated people are still killing each other over them.

What logical reason is there to assume that taking guns from someone who shoots targets for recreation will stop these hoods in downtown Toronto? There is none. The illicit drug market and it’s promise of easy money for those willing to deal in violence will still remain.

These individuals will continue to shoot each other and any innocents caught in their crossfire without even noticing that target shooting at the local range has come to a legislated end.

Similarly, the idea of banning guns or modifications that are “too powerful” for hunting is also a ridiculous notion.

Too powerful for hunting? Really? For hunting what? And who would decide this? Him? Groups like Polysouvient? Government bureaucrats? Unless I have missed the technological changes that have replaced the chemical propellant known as gun powder with phased plasma rifles, there is no such thing as too powerful when it comes to shoulder fired rifles for hunting or long range target shooting.

Can one be “over gunned” for hunting a particular species of game animal? Of course. But that same rifle or shotgun may be not enough gun for another; the individual hunter needs to decide what is best for his/her abilities and the game species pursued and not some armchair quarterback.

In the end, Scheer has likely proposed the best approach to combating gangs and their criminality in regard to firearms.

What the Liberals are proposing is simply punitive towards those who have been following the law all along while doing very little to discourage or hold accountable those who are guilty of actually breaking the law and causing unwanted mayhem. George Fritz Garson, Ont.