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A finger that's in jail can't pull a trigger: Get the shooters off the streets and the weapons will follow

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My New Year's resolution was to stop writing such career-hazardous law enforcement columns.

That lasted all the way through the first sentence of this one -- when I began thinking about handguns, and what else politicians might consider banning for 2006.

Clearly, crystal meth and crack cocaine should go. The two C's claim lives by the thousands. With all the hurt and loss out there, we'd be mad not to add assault and theft to the list.

But wait -- these things have already been banned, and they're still epidemic!

Yes, it is hard to resist smart-mouthing when outlawing of pistols is paraded as a fix for urban violence. Murder is already against the law, as is blasting away on city streets. The handguns themselves? I can't remember the last time I dealt with someone shot by a legal one. What is fresh in memory is courtroom disappointment.

A B.C. Provincial Court justice was recently presented with a Mr. T., who was caught with an illegal handgun. He'd jumped into False Creek during a fight at the Plaza of Nations' Plush nightclub. VPD people fished him out and discovered a pistol in his waistband. The gun was traced to Washington state, making it a result of cross-border smuggling -- almost certainly part of the dope-for-guns trade.

Mr. T. chirped that he'd found the handgun on the pavement outside the club, and picked it up out of worry it might be used to hurt someone. A responsible citizen, no less. The judge bought it and set him loose.

The judicial mindset seems to be that heavy-handedness from our courts is no solution. The problem centres on this misperception. The laws in Canada are strong, but getting our judiciary to live up to them seems near impossible. Until we're able to vote for our judges -- until we have the will of the people expressed in our courts -- thinking up new ways to ban things is pointless.

After all, as everyone knows, guns don't kill people; hands do. That was the sarcastic flavour of remark at any number of Christmas sessions, police and otherwise. Trigger fingers should be impounded at adolescence, we decided, and re-issued under licence, to those promising to use them nicely.

So there goes any hope of swearing off cynicism for 2006. Cliches are something I'll promise to avoid, but the "people kill people" truism is worth a moment.

Analyse the human urge to kill deeply enough and you're left without an answer. No community-based or problem-oriented policing model will ever make it go away. Society is called upon to arrange things so that those with homicidal feelings are afraid to indulge them. In Canada, we're expected to believe that our legal system provides that deterrent.

Anti-Americanism tends to impair Canadian hearing, but I've listened to some interesting arguments in favour of deterrence through a better-armed populace. I know state troopers who maintain that America needs more guns still. An armed society is, by and large, a polite society -- or so the theory goes. Knowing that anyone you attack may have the means to respond lethally makes violence less appealing.

That's crazy talk, by Canadian standards -- unless you consider how sharply crimes of violence decline in states where concealed weapons permits are granted more freely.

Carrying of loaded handguns is something no one is proposing for Canada. Legitimate owners in these parts just want to be left alone. What I'm listening to now is griping from people who decided to comply with the latest gun registry rules. Their worry was that the government would move to confiscate firearms once they figured out where they were.

That may be paranoia proven right. My fear is that banning handguns will create criminals where there were none before. It's standard wisdom that when you have enemies in your midst, you don't turn on your friends. Jailing of bad guys is the answer, not finding new ways to ban things already illegal.

Sgt. Mark Tonner is a Vancouver police officer whose column appears every two weeks in Unwind. His opinions aren't necessarily those of the city's police department or board. Mark may be contacted with column suggestions or responses at marcuspt@shaw.ca.

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