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DOES GUN CONTROL WORK? ASK OUR COPS

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Gun control doesn't mean crime control, and no one knows that better than our police. Two cases in the past week hammered that home -- and should provide a grave lesson for all those on the election trail trying to make gun crime an issue.

On Saturday night, a Toronto police officer who came to the rescue of a man who was robbed at gunpoint at a bank machine was shot at. The officer managed to make an arrest.

The accused is Sirvon Edwards, 23, whose recent history is a sad testament to the way our laws deal with guns. In 2003, Edwards was charged with first-degree murder in a case where, court heard, he and a friend went with loaded guns to Canada's Wonderland -- and the friend shot a man dead.

Edwards pleaded guilty only to weapons charges. On Dec. 15 last year, he was sentenced to 50 months in prison but incredibly, because our courts give "credit" for time spent in jail awaiting trial, his sentence was really only 12 months. And he didn't even have to serve that -- he was released early, as the vast majority of criminals in our system are. This, even though the judge at his trial lamented that Edwards' "prospects of rehabilitation seem remote."

The second case is last Wednesday's shooting murder of Laval, Que. Const. Valerie Gignac, whose funeral is today. The accused is Francois Pepin, 40, who also has a troubling legal history.

Pepin had twice been convicted of criminal harrassment (stalking), most recently of a female police officer -- for which he was fined $500. He had been banned from possessing firearms since 1999 but, incredibly, could still access guns for hunting.

In both cases, the very people we depend on to enforce the law were put at risk by a weak justice system and government "gun control" that has failed and isn't likely to improve.

Consider: Did the federal gun registry do anything to prevent these crimes? Would anything be different under the handgun ban PM Paul Martin's Liberals are proposing? No, and no.

In both these cases, the guns used were already "banned." And the penalties the two accused men were given in the past were watered down.

Police are the canaries in our judicial coal mine: When they are not safe, none of us is safe. It is time for strong, real action on gun crime, not new "bans" that only punish the innocent.