What To Do about Gun Violence in Toronto?

[hamermill]

Guns are already illegal. You can't buy a gun, if you don't have a license. Criminals buy illegal guns. Stopping to sell guns legally is not going to change that.

Said it before bring back TAVIS.
And start collecting race based data and publishing it.

And guns aren’t illegal you need a license to buy one. Certain firearms are prohibited to own e.g. gun which fires multiple rounds with a single trigger pull; that is known as an assault rifle used by the military.

 

[lomotil]

Said it before bring back TAVIS.
And start collecting race based data and publishing it.
.

Ok, suppose what you propose is done, and then what ? What is the next step if race based data is published ? The data should it affect policies towards immigration, deportation, invoke segregation or eugenics? Should the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms be re-written to contain which ever race is in your data collection?

 

[Alyosha]

Fair enough....but does that really warrant a 10 year sentance for forgetting your gun under the back seat? It is trigger locked, locked in a box and transported out of sight, such as under the back seat. Thos is not the same crime as a gang banger walking around with a gun on the street. Judges need to be tough on the oned that deserve it and not vilify the average gun owner that made a mistake.

 

[Nathan 88]

Re-instate carding.

It is not pretty and it is not nice, but it seemed to work.

What do you want to do with the cops who abuse this privilege.
That’s why it was discontinued in the first place.

 

[JackBurton]

Nothing. Nothing substantial will be done because it’s not an election year. Still haven’t heard much about the Danforth shooter and his gang connections and a 10 yr old and a 18 yr old are dead, plus the many injured.

Cops don’t care. I’ve lost faith in them to make pubic safety a priority

 

[whiteshaft]

No new laws are needed. They just have to enforce the ones that already exist.

Posecutors routinely offer plea bargains. For gun crimes, they offer to plea bargain the gun charges away (possession of a restricted/prohibited firearm, use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, pointing a firearm etc etc, for a guilty plea of simple robbery or assault. Then, they get a slap on the wrist and they are soon on the street again, and the Crown, can process these as quickly as they can to get to the next one: good for statistics.

I think it's because the system is overwhelmed, and the Crown cannot deal with the sheer number of gun crime with full trials: not enough money for fully prosecuting gun crimes., except for the most egregious ones.

They should put more money into prosecuting, convicting and keeping these sociopaths away from society.... but it takes money to hire more Crown Prosecutors, Judges, Court time, prisons etc.

I'm glad someone tells it like it is!

 

[Darts]

I would be pissed of a stray bullet went through my window and hit my TV set.

Shootout near Lawrence Heights. 4 injured. (Don't ask. I don't know if they are black, brown, purple and/or Muslim.)

https://globalnews.ca/news/5809071/4-injured-shootout-near-lawrence-heights/

 

[underice]

Take 100 rats and put them in a field and they will be fine,take a 100 rats and put them in a concrete box and see how long before they start killing each other.

The cities are concrete boxes,and there are way more than 100 occupants.


This is an age old problem,only the methods change.All throughout history this has occurred,by hand,sword and gun.Look at England,no guns?No problem!We will splash you with acid or stab you.

The murder rate is higher in London than New York.

So dream on,lock em up,take the guns away.Watch the problem morph,as long as humans occupy the planet they will find ways to kill each other.

Welcome to the world.

 

[whiteshaft]

In some places the laws are draconian. In singapore...use a gun in a crime...20 years. Fire the weapon...death sentence. Don't have to hit anyone. Not necessarily advocating for this, but will say 5.5m people in Singapore usually about 15 homicides per year.

Why don't our politicians just swallow their pride and adopt the methods used by others that have been proven to work?

 

[whiteshaft]

Gun crime, or really any wide spread violent crime, is an issue of poverty. We can't "gun control", arrest, or imprison our way out of this. We need to raise a large percentage of our society out of desperation, and that isn't cheap (ie: socialism).

Actually you have a very good point.
Does this signify a society characterized by poverty in the U.S. due to all the wide-spread violent gun crime?

 

[Butler1000]

Gun crime, or really any wide spread violent crime, is an issue of poverty. We can't "gun control", arrest, or imprison our way out of this. We need to raise a large percentage of our society out of desperation, and that isn't cheap (ie: socialism).

We can actually. We did it after Jane Creba and had about 10 years of peace.

The thing up here is gun crime really is restricted to the gang activity. When they went after the gangs and leaders for everything, stacked charges and sent them all away(no bail either) it dropped significantly. The gangs were in disarray and it calmed down.

We are in a war right now and it's not letting up. Take the players off the board and let them settle it in prison.

At least the public is safe.

 

[lomotil]

Sooner or latter an innocent bystander of the type which garners mass public sympathy and media attention will get whacked. Then a knee jerk political reaction will be the result .

 

[JuanGoodman]

We can actually. We did it after Jane Creba and had about 10 years of peace.

The thing up here is gun crime really is restricted to the gang activity. When they went after the gangs and leaders for everything, stacked charges and sent them all away(no bail either) it dropped significantly. The gangs were in disarray and it calmed down.

We are in a war right now and it's not letting up. Take the players off the board and let them settle it in prison.

At least the public is safe.

Absolutely right! Instead of banning guns, ban the gang members.

 

[JuanGoodman]

a practical solution is not that difficult. while i doubt you can completely eradicate gun violence in the city it wouldnt be that difficult to reduce it significantly and tps has already shown us glimpses of how to approach the situation but have inevitably dropped the ball. there are 2 kinds of illegal gun owners in this city. one is a hardcore criminal who regardless of the cost of acquiring a gun or the consequences for using it will continue to posses and use illegal firearms. that hardcore bunch i dont have a solution for but the second group is far easier to deal with by way of a common sense approach and tps has already implemented the approach but in a very inadequate manner. the second group of illegal gun owners are motivated by the one thing that motivates most of us. MONEY! have you seen the results of the most recent gun amnesty program in toronto? tps purchased 3100 illegal firearms from toronto criminals in their last program and that was at an insulting, $350 per long gun and $500 for pistols. literally less than the retail purchase price of the the item and they still managed to take a staggering 3100 out of circulation. to me that is mind blowing. what would happen if the incentive was $5000 for a long gun and $10 000 for a pistol? what do you think would happen? there would be line ups at the police station and duffel bags full of guns turned in. preposterous you say? it would bankrupt society you say? i beg to differ. i can use just one great example despite the fact there are hundreds or thousands. to highlight my point... the danforth shooting. where we would make our money back is in the prevention aspect of the situation. one deranged shooter with one illegal firearm. lets ignore for a minute the devastating emotional and mental impact that incident had on out city and only focus on the financial ramifications from that one particular incident. how much does one figure that whole ordeal cost taxpayers when you factor in police action, investigative cost, hospital bills ect? the fact of the matter is we were luckily sparred court costs as well as the cost of rehabilitation and saved millions there but in the end it likely still cost our city 1-2 million dollars. one gun, one deranged shooter in a target rich environment and the city is on the hook for literally millions of dollars. when you factor in the financial consequences of having guns on every corner of our city it just makes more sense to pay now instead of later. what we would save on the cost of incarceration alone it is worth it. let alone the other aspects that gun play costs us it seems like a no brainer to me...

Paying $5000 for a gun would have exact opposite outcome from the one you are hoping for. If legal hand gun is about $1000, illegal one is probably twice that, so maybe $2000. So if you offer $5000 for a gun there would be line ups for sure. People or gang members would turn it into a business. Sell one gun and buy two for that price.

 

[hamermill]

Why don't our politicians just swallow their pride and adopt the methods used by others that have been proven to work?

Like Tavis

 

[HEYHEY]

a practical solution is not that difficult. while i doubt you can completely eradicate gun violence in the city it wouldnt be that difficult to reduce it significantly and tps has already shown us glimpses of how to approach the situation but have inevitably dropped the ball. there are 2 kinds of illegal gun owners in this city. one is a hardcore criminal who regardless of the cost of acquiring a gun or the consequences for using it will continue to posses and use illegal firearms. that hardcore bunch i dont have a solution for but the second group is far easier to deal with by way of a common sense approach and tps has already implemented the approach but in a very inadequate manner. the second group of illegal gun owners are motivated by the one thing that motivates most of us. MONEY! have you seen the results of the most recent gun amnesty program in toronto? tps purchased 3100 illegal firearms from toronto criminals in their last program and that was at an insulting, $350 per long gun and $500 for pistols. literally less than the retail purchase price of the the item and they still managed to take a staggering 3100 out of circulation. to me that is mind blowing. what would happen if the incentive was $5000 for a long gun and $10 000 for a pistol? what do you think would happen? there would be line ups at the police station and duffel bags full of guns turned in. preposterous you say? it would bankrupt society you say? i beg to differ. i can use just one great example despite the fact there are hundreds or thousands. to highlight my point... the danforth shooting. where we would make our money back is in the prevention aspect of the situation. one deranged shooter with one illegal firearm. lets ignore for a minute the devastating emotional and mental impact that incident had on out city and only focus on the financial ramifications from that one particular incident. how much does one figure that whole ordeal cost taxpayers when you factor in police action, investigative cost, hospital bills ect? the fact of the matter is we were luckily sparred court costs as well as the cost of rehabilitation and saved millions there but in the end it likely still cost our city 1-2 million dollars. one gun, one deranged shooter in a target rich environment and the city is on the hook for literally millions of dollars. when you factor in the financial consequences of having guns on every corner of our city it just makes more sense to pay now instead of later. what we would save on the cost of incarceration alone it is worth it. let alone the other aspects that gun play costs us it seems like a no brainer to me...

First off it wasnt illegal guns that they bough, it was unwanted guns. Grandpas .22 sitting in the closet etc
No shortage of people who gave in their shitty guns that were worth 100-200 bucks for 350 lol

Now theres 10-20 million guns in canada, run the math on your fairy tale.

 

[Darts]

Contrast the US against Finland or Switzerland, two other countries with extremely high levels of gun ownership per capita. The reason you don't see the same levels of gun violence in those countries is (in my opinion) due to the elaborate social safety nets in place, especially when compared to the US.

The Nordic countries lead in other violent crimes, such as rape.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/n...al-violence-in-nordic-countries-consent-laws/

 

[Smallcock]

Depends on why people are getting shot. Is it gang violence? If so, how do these gangs make their money? Drugs? If so, legalize drugs so that gangs stop killing each other over drug money/turf. When I see the level of violence of the cartels in Mexico - beheadings, skinnings, burnings, beatings - and knowing that it's because of the multi-billion dollar illegal drug trade, it sickens me.

If the shootings are over squabbles and jealousies, then there is not much you can do about it.

 

[TheDr]

Anyone with a License can get ammunition from a store or on line. There is no way to trace ammunition.

Not exactly true. Every time I buy ammunition I have to present my PAL and a record is made of what was purchased. There is no centralised way of tracing but records are there at the store level.

That being said, this is not where they are getting ammunition from. They are getting it from the same source as the illegal guns.

As noted elsewhere in the thread Canadian licensed firearms owners are pretty good at following the law around the privilege of being a firearms owner. The RCMP runs daily police checks on all license holders. Anything that raises flags will initiate at least a phone call if not officers showing up on your doorstep.

 

[Insidious Von]

Jane Creba got all the attention but gun violence was already out of control before then.

The years 2000 - 2005 was a very dark time in Rexdale. The majority of the violence stemmed from LA street gangs fighting it out for control, the Martin Grove Corridor from Jamestown Rd to Albion and the Finch Rd bend was ground zero - Pittsboro Rd was the focal point. First came the blackout then the bloody "finishing the job" at a gang funeral at the Adventist Church on the corner of Martin Grove and Albion. The Yonge St shooting of Jane Creba was still a year away. It was during this time that Rob Ford made his name. He looked like a born leader back then, not the drug addled Mayor he would become.

This time it's more difficult to figure out who the gang leaders are. Made worse by the scapegoating of the Somali community, it went nowhere.