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Cynicism And Cowardice; Why is David Miller promoting a gun ban that everyone knows won't work? Because he's too scared to actually get tough on crime

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On Saturday, Toronto Star columnist Royson James wrote a column that was irrational and Toronto-centric even by the standards of the irrational and Toronto-centric Star.

In a nutshell, Mr. James' thesis is that even though a ban on handguns in Canada would be largely ineffective at combating crime, Ottawa should enact one anyway since such a prohibition is popular in Toronto and would be a clarion symbol of our national commitment to ending violence; not to mention demonstrating our sympathy with the victims of gun crime.

"Any ban on handguns is a public statement," Mr. James wrote. "It expresses the collective will and desire of a community, a city or a country. It will take more than a ban to rid us of the scourge of gun violence. And its effectiveness has been proven spotty and inconclusive in other jurisdictions. But it is a tool acceptable to most Torontonians, in spite of the legitimate arguments of gun owners and scepticism about its efficacy."

Handgun bans are not merely of dubious efficacy. They are completely ineffective. And the evidence of this is not merely "spotty," it's glaring.

Washington, D.C., Chicago and New York City all have handgun prohibitions of one sort or another, and all have, during the lifetimes of those bans, been among the most murderous cities in America. Two of them -- Washingon and Chicago-- still are.

New York, which now ranks among the least murderous major cities in the world (on a per-capita basis), achieved its remarkable reduction in handgun killings and crimes over the past 15 years through improved policing, not increasingly restrictive handgun laws.

Still, it is not surprising that Toronto Mayor David Miller is in favour of Canada adopting the same tactics that have failed in Washington, Chitown and elsewhere, rather than the successful tactics pioneered in NYC. He's really only in this for the symbolism, for the appearance that he cares and is serious about finding a solution.

If Mayor Miller were truly serious about reducing gun crime in his city -- which is the site of one-quarter of Canadian gun crimes -- he already has within his grasp the power to do something concrete.

He and his Council control the Toronto police budget. He and his Council control the police commission and, thus, have considerable influence over who is hired as chief and what tactics police will use in their fight against crime.

Without starting petitions to pressure the federal government into legislating an end to legal handgun ownership in Canada, instead of setting up trendy Facebook pages on which fashionable Torontonians can express their support for his efforts, Mr. Miller could work to convince Toronto councillors to increase police patrols in high-crime neighbourhoods. He could advocate the use of police computers to refocus officers' deployments to neighbourhoods with higher incidents of crime from one shift to the next, or even within shifts.

He could have Toronto police increase the arrest and fingerprinting of suspects in minor crimes. Since most major crimes are committed by people who also commit the bulk of minor crimes, nabbing purse-snatchers, shoplifters, vandals, loiterers and turnstile jumpers also leads to the conviction of plenty of murderers, armed robbers and assaulters.

But that's too practical for David Miller. He would rather generate a big media splash -- and win the support of style-over-substance writers such as Royson James -- by demanding Ottawa punish law-abiding target-shooters and handgun collectors in New Brunswick and the B.C. interior for the crimes of Toronto's drug dealers and gangstas.

Why? Three reasons.

First, in our urbanized, feminized society, guns have become a bogeyman. As Mr. James wrote, "most Torontonians don't see a practical reason for anyone other than law enforcement officials to own one." So ban them, even if that won't do any good -- because Torontonians say so.

Second, if Mr. Miller puts all his efforts into fighting Ottawa for a ban--a ban he knows he is unlikely to get -- then he can blame the federal government if crime does not go down in his city. Violence will continue, but at least the responsibility can be pinned on someone else.

And finally, focussing on increased policing, rather than a showy ban, would require Mr. Miller to focus, too, on neighbourhoods and racial and ethnic communities that he would rather cast as victims than perpetrators. It would open him to allegations of insensitivity, intolerance and profiling. And that simply would not do for a man of Mayor Miller's left-wing ideological ilk.

Far better to continue to flog an ineffectual handgun prohibition than take responsibility himself and push for bold actions that might actually accomplish something.

lgunter@shaw.ca