The Star’s view
Police stand on Danforth Ave. in the aftermath of the deadly shooting rampage.
It’s time to tighten our firearms laws and ban handguns altogether,
Torontonians were understandably shocked when a broad avenue best known for its lively restaurants and familyfriendly festivals was suddenly covered in spent bullet casings.
Then horrified, as details emerged about the victims in Sunday night’s tragedy where a man zigzagged across Danforth Ave., purposefully shooting at groups of people. A 10year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman dead simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and13 people injured, as of Monday night, after being struck by bullets.
On Monday, politicians expressed their outrage at the shooter — a 29-year-old man now dead himself — and gratitude for the work of the city’s first responders and the incredible courage of Torontonians who helped care for victims.
Shock, horror, outrage and gratitude — that’s the standard emotional order for mass casualty events, which are all too common in the U.S.
These terrible acts are blessedly still rare in Canada. Though Torontonians facing this one just months after the tragic van attack on Yonge St. and gang-related shootings in between could be forgiven for wondering if that’s starting to change.
The step that Americans don’t take in the aftermath of mass shootings is the one that we must take. And that’s reducing the number of guns on our streets.
“I’ve said for sometime that the city has a gun problem, in that guns are far too readily available to far too many people,” Mayor John Tory said Monday.
“You’ve heard me ask the question of why anybody would need to buy 10 or 20 guns, which they can lawfully do under the present laws. And that leads to another question we need to discuss: Why does anyone in this city need to have a gun at all?”
In saying that, Tory acknowledged that reducing the number of legal guns won’t prevent every tragedy. “But even if we can prevent one of these incidents then, in my view, it is a discussion worth having and having very soon.” He’s right. And this is not the first time Toronto politicians have asked Ottawa to toughen firearm regulations and outright ban handguns. Canadians only need to look south of the border to see where a refusal to implement serious gun control leads.
Certainly, Canada is not the U.S., where the number of guns is much greater and where a legal gun culture is so entrenched that mothers in some states drop their kids off at school carrying their own handgun. But we are also most certainly headed in the wrong direction.
The number of legal handguns and semi-automatic rifles has doubled in recent years. That’s because Canada has made it easier, not harder, to buy and amass large stockpiles of guns.
The Trudeau government has taken steps to undo some of the damage the Harper government did when it loosened gun controls. But the legislation it tabled in the spring doesn’t go far enough.
Now is the time to fix that. Canada should ban private ownership of handguns. It should also place greater restrictions on other firearms — that fall well outside the range of ordinary rifles and shotguns — and introduce more stringent requirements for selling and owning guns, making it easier for the police to track them.
Critics will be quick to say that banning legal handguns doesn’t get rid of the illegal ones, but it certainly helps reduce the supply. A measure doesn’t have to do everything to be worth doing. There is no silver bullet to gun crime. Community programs for at-risk youth, mental health supports and cracking down on gun smuggling from the U.S. all have a role to play.
But there’s no doubt that handguns — legal and otherwise — are far too easily obtained. That’s a particular problem in an era when troubled, angry men are looking to commit violent acts.
Toronto endured the Summer of the Gun in 2005. And the public shootings in 2012 at the Eaton Centre and, just a month later, on Danzig St. where two people were killed and 23 more injured. When do we decide to take a stand? It’s not enough for police to get to the bottom of why this particular man, whose family says had a long history of mental health challenges, turned a peaceful summer evening into a horror show. There have been others before him, and there will be others after him.
And it’s not enough for politicians to applaud the wonderful heroes like Tanya Wilson, who set aside her own fear to bring two gunshot victims into her tattoo shop and administered first aid until help arrived.
Or to pat ourselves on the back about how these acts don’t define us.
As a city, we’re already at a place where many people no longer assume unexpected bangs in the night must be firecrackers. But we’re not living in fear. The morning after this shooting rampage parents took their kids to day camps in the area.
That’s because Torontonians do have faith that this type of violence is not what defines our great city.
It’s time the politicians took an obvious and long overdue step to ensure that faith remains well placed.
Canada has made it easier to buy and amass large stockpiles of guns