--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIGHT GUN VIOLENCE: SCRAP THE REGISTRY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOW MANY times have we gone over this -- gun violence and gun registration and how the two have little relevance to each other? The media, politicians, police and public all agree that something must be done to halt the increasing tendency towards gun violence in Toronto -- especially handgun violence, which has had strict regulations and controls since 1934. It's a familiar refrain. Yet little is achieved.

There's no mystical secret on how to curb the use of guns, but our society simply isn't willing to do what works. Clearly, what doesn't work is gun registration. That reality is painfully obvious, yet those who bray the loudest against all firearms are often the ones most aggressively opposed to what may reduce firearm violence.

Take Toronto, where we all share varying degrees of outrage and unease over 22 shootings in barely two weeks. The Sun editorializes on the subject, as does the National Post and other papers -- all sensibly, but all missing key points. In Toronto, most of the victims of shootings are black; most of the shooters are black. Black community and church leaders are urging people to come forward and help the police -- something many have understandably been reluctant to do, fearing reprisals.

Yet gun violence is more than a "black problem" -- as every black citizen knows. Toronto's gun-gang problem is largely imported from crime-plagued Jamaica, where many of the shooters are from. Until recently, this has been unmentionable in Toronto. Racial profiling, and all that.

Police know it, the posturing Mayor David Miller knows it, as does dithering Dalton McGuinty. But will any of them acknowledge it? Not bloody likely! So law-abiding Toronto black citizens (including the majority of Jamaicans) continue to be victimized by other blacks, many if not most of whom are linked to Jamaica. Some who've been deported later re-emerge in Canada.

The most favoured deterrent is mandatory prison sentences for using a gun in a crime. How is that a deterrent when it isn't implemented? Too often, the existing "mandatory" sentence for using a gun in a crime gets plea-bargained away. For shame.
Toronto's political leaders wonder at how New York changed under Rudy Giuliani from being America's most lethal and crime-ridden city into the safest city for its size. But our leaders dare not try Giuliani's formula here.

BEGGARS REVERED

Giuliani did it by cracking down on all lawbreaking -- from littering, vagrancy and innumerable petty offences to murder. The payoff from fingerprinting and identifying minor criminals was that in major crimes, many fingerprints matched and the police had leads. Meanwhile, in Toronto, beggars, squeegee people et al. are not only tolerated but practically revered. Not a great way to purge crime and criminals.

When gun violence becomes endemic, there is also the solution invoked by Florida, Texas and 40-plus other states -- allowing honest citizens to carry concealed weapons. To the surprise of everyone, gun crimes dropped precipitously in those states. Lowlifes considering shooting up a McDonald's for kicks were deterred by the prospect that a Big Mac customer with a concealed gun might very well shoot them. That would never wash in Canada, least of all in Toronto, but it might deter gun crimes here as it has in the U.S. Some think more police would deter gun violence. Unlikely.

More practical would be ending long-gun registration, and using the billion dollars saved to change laws so that violent criminals are easily jailed and/or deported; or, put bluntly, themselves shot by police. The choice is ours.