PUBLICATION:        The Toronto Sun 

DATE:                         2004.03.11

EDITION:                    Final 

SECTION:                  Editorial/Opinion 

PAGE:                         14 

COLUMN:                  Editorial 

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THROW THE BOOK AT 'EM

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Like it or not, the first step toward getting longer sentences for gang gunmen is convincing our judges that it's in the public interest to do so. So we support Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant's plan to persuade judges to throw the book at them.

Bryant said yesterday Crowns will put forward expert affidavits to focus the courts' attention on the extent of gun crime in Toronto.

Sure, it's long overdue. But the fellow we trust the most on this is Toronto's chief Crown attorney, Paul Culver, who also supports this plan.

We've always considered Culver to be a (pardon the expression) straight shooter about the justice system and he says it's not enough just to call for mandatory 10-year sentences for gun crime - which we support.

As he recently told the Sun: "There's no point in me standing up and demanding a sentence of 20 years for a first-time offender, because even if the judge did grant it, it would be overturned on appeal." In recent years, sentences for violent crime have been going down "whether we like it or not," Culver points out.

Crowns also have to contend with recent Criminal Code amendments by the feds directing judges to consider the offenders' backgrounds, rehabilitation prospects and finding ways to keep them out of jail whenever possible.

We need a public uprising - similar to what happened with drunk driving and domestic assault years ago - to make it clear that revolving-door justice for gun-toting criminals has to stop.

As New Democrat MPP Marilyn Churley rightly put it - yes, you read that right, an NDPer - "we want to make sure it's tough and we want to make sure it happens right away." It won't, because moving our courts is like moving mountains. But we have to make a start.

Tory MPP Garfield Dunlop is right that the Liberals may be trying to divert attention from their "soft stance on crime" and we're suspicious of their other plan to make the storage rules even tougher for legal gun owners.

But we agree with any concerted effort to convince our judges to start throwing the book at those who use guns to commit crimes