Trudeau's gun control obsession misses the target

It is regrettably evident that our Prime Minister has no idea how to deal with urban gun violence plaguing our major cities. Urban dwellers are not cowering in their homes due to sportsmen, hunters, or firearms collectors and enthusiasts roaming the streets.

Criminal gangs engaged in turf wars over control of drug sales, prostitution, and protection rackets are engaging in shooting wars in a public setting without regard for harm done to innocent bystanders.

Weapons used are primarily handguns. Our gun laws prohibit carrying a handgun except from residence to a firing range or a match within strict geographic limits. 

Trudeau’s plan for gun control is as useless as it fails to address the illegal importation of firearms and the criminals who import, sell and use those weapons to endanger urban residents. His inane approach will result in an expanded black market in firearms and does nothing to address the urban shooting gallery that threatens urban residents.

Firearms bans drive up prices, and criminals will gladly fill the demand when profits are lucrative enough to take the risks.

The rational approach is to arrest, prosecute, convict and imprison criminals who are caught in possession of or use firearms in the commission of a crime. They cannot endanger the public from a prison cell. Conviction of urban gun violence must carry a lengthy prison sentence.

Banning handguns is a futile, feel-good exercise doomed to failure. Guns used in urban gang warfare are not legally owned, and a handgun ban will not affect the problem.

Criminals, not firearms, are the problem. When carloads of criminals are careering down the street shooting at one another, or a vehicle is a gun platform for criminals to shoot at rivals as it drives by, it is not firearms that need to be locked up.

Gang shooters are a danger to innocent people, and on arrest cannot be allowed bail pending a trial. On conviction, they must receive a separate, lengthy consecutive sentence for using a firearm and endangering the public in the commission of a crime.

Currently, the penalties for the dangerous operation of a vehicle resulting in death carry higher penalties than for a criminal who sprays a street with gunfire. Criminal gangs who deal in dames, drugs and muscle are cancer in urban society. Stop expensive and failed gun control measures and deal with the real problem.

The Bobbsey Twins – Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair share ineptness. Blair was Chief of the Toronto force when his officers employed Gestapo tactics to arrest more than 1,000 protestors and innocent passers-by during the 2015 G-20 summit resulting in injuries to 97 officers and 39 arrestees. The resulting lawsuits ended in a $16.5 million settlement and payout to those arrested.

It does not give anyone a warm feeling to know that this pair of sad-sacks presides over public security and safety.