PUBLICATION:
The Windsor Star
Regarding comments made by politicians and police officials about the source of the illegal guns rampant on the streets of Toronto: They missed the boat again. Ten years ago, when then-justice minister Allan Rock introduced the much-maligned Firearms Act (Bill C-68), it was touted as being the solution to the "guns on the streets" problem. Two billion dollars later, they are still looking for answers. The useless registry not only wasted valuable resources (both financial and human resources) but also drove untold thousands of guns underground into the grey/black market. Now they are trying to blame legal, registered and licensed gun owners for this recent outbreak of violence, as well as blaming the lack of gun control laws in the U.S. The problem is not the number of guns being stolen or smuggled but the size of the market that it fuels. And why is there such a demand? Because there is no deterrent for this illegal behaviour. The "mandatory" penalties heralded by Allan Rock when he introduced Bill C-68 are useless as they are the first items that are plea bargained away. The courts are not making it expensive enough for drug dealers and gang members to think twice about obtaining and using firearms (or any other weapons, for that matter). Interestingly enough, there is a program in a number of U.S. cities which has had a significant effect on violent gun-related crime and that program is called Project Exile. This program mandates an additional five-year jail term served in a federal prison, with no parole, for any crime committed with a firearm. Perhaps if the politicians and police officials would direct their energies (and blame) at the real culprits instead of taking the politically expedient route and blaming licensed Canadian firearms owners, we could actually make our streets safer. Just as an aside, the federal Department of Justice has reported that 74.9 per cent of the firearms used in the commission of crimes are illegal guns smuggled into Canada, not the 50 per cent that is now claimed.
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