Ice Skaters or Gang Members with Illegal Guns: Who is the Greater Threat to Public Safety?

People skating on one of Toronto’s 54 outdoor skating rinks are a greater threat than criminals with illegal guns.[i]

“Since Dec. 23, Toronto police have charged 19 people under the Trespass to Property Act for illegal acts of hockey on city-owned ice,” said Matthew Pegg, head of Toronto’s Emergency Management division.

Pegg confirmed the City of Toronto will “beef up patrols” in their effort to stop these heinous “illegal acts of hockey”. Expanded patrols, which include Toronto Police Services, city bylaw enforcement and public health officers, will also crack down on “illegal acts of tobogganing” wherever they are found.

If it appears we’re not taking the threat of COVID seriously, that perception is possible only because we take the threat of drug dealers and gang members wounding and killing people with illegal guns far more seriously than either the City of Toronto or its mayor, John Tory.

Toronto Police Service data for 2020 lists a total of 460 shootings in the Greater Toronto area. Those 460 shootings injured 177 people and killed 39 others[ii], and follows 2019’s record year which led to 485 shootings, 238 injured and 42 dead.

New Year 2021 in Toronto started with the wrong kind of bang, just as the previous two have.[iii] An 18-year-old male was wounded in a shooting at Glenholme and Conway Avenues. The police have no suspects, nor does the victim of that shooting appear to be cooperating with police.

Toronto’s urban violence continues unabated while the city takes precious resources away from solving violent crimes like this so they can crack down on those fiendish ice skaters and degenerate tobogganers.

We believe police should focus on stopping drug dealers, gangs and their illegal guns from killing Torontonians.

One Toronto City Police officer sat in his police cruiser at the bottom of one toboggan hill for over three hours, screaming at anyone who ventured within 10 metres of yellow caution tape strung across the hill.[iv]

If this is a wise use of scarce police resources in a city plagued by violence committed by people with no respect for life or the law, then we must have our priorities all wrong.

Do we really want to abandon our city streets to any hoodlum with an illegal gun so we can aggressively pursue purveyors of “illegal acts of hockey” and the depraved debauchery of childhood tobogganery?

And while we’re wallowing in the deep end of the pool of stupidity, maybe we should pass another useless gun law?

Sources:

[i] https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/city-toronto-police-vowing-crackdown-on-illegal-hockey-tobogganing

[ii] https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/violent-2020-almost-surpasses-last-years-gun-crime-figures

[iii] https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/man-18-wounded-by-gunfire

[iv] https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/confusion-swirls-over-citys-hockey-tobogganing-crackdown