Who Kills People?
By Mordecai Bobrowsky (08/23/05)
This summer, perhaps due to the higher than average temperatures, has seen a record increase in gun crimes in Ontario, most predominantly in the Greater Toronto Area (“GTA”). A dozen people have been shot to death in this past month alone. Shooting deaths so far this year already eclipse the total for all of last year.
So who is to blame for this spate of death-by-bullet? Is it the criminals firing the guns? The lax immigration policies of the Canadian government (after all, it has been noted that the majority of the violence relates to feuding Jamaican-immigrant gangs)? Not according to Toronto’s mayor, Mayor David Miller. In Mayor Miller’s mind, the root cause of this summer from hell is the United States’ gun control laws or, as Mayor Miller asserts, lack thereof.
Presumably, in Mayor Miller’s (and the myriad PC/Anti-American types who are only too eager to jump on the “blame the US” bandwagon) warped sense of reality, an otherwise homicidal young man would turn into a choirboy if only he didn’t have access to an “easy” gun from the U.S. with which to fulfill his murderous intent. I suppose, in ignoring the many other ways one can commit murder, and with countless other implements, Mayor Miller is counting on the average hoodlum’s disdain for hard work which may be involved in using something other than a gun.
It may be a cliché, but there is immense truth to the saying; “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” After all, from what is being reported, all I’d have to do to get my hands on a gun is to stroll over to the nearest border crossing and hold out my hand (and perhaps a little cash). So, a gun is easily enough had, and certainly I have my fair share of people I dislike, yet so far I have killed no one. And the same is true for the vast majority of law-abiding citizens in the GTA.
Instead of looking for true solutions, though, Mayor Miller and other government officials are trying to outdo each other in coming up with increasingly absurd tighter gun restrictions – the most recent being the idea that gun owners must keep their guns in a secure central depository. It seems Mayor Miller has been laying into the stash of medicinal marijuana lying around government offices. I can just see it now – a young gang member, pointing at his foe: “I’m gonna’ bust a cap in you’re a** - I just have to get to the depository first.”
The Canadian government has already invested well over $2 Billion dollars with its laughable gun registry program. The idea was that all we have to do is tell people to come register their guns and, like magic, problem solved. Suffice it to say that there weren’t line-ups of criminals itching to get their guns registered.
The failure of tighter gun control laws as a way to solve gun crimes should be readily apparent by now to anyone with the ability to read. Countries with the tightest gun control laws (i.e. Britain, Australia) tend to have higher rates of violent crime than those with less restrictive laws. The same holds true on the State level, with states like Chicago (which completely banned gun ownership) having some of the highest violent crime rates.
Obviously, tough gun control laws and violent crime are not perfectly correlated, and there are other factors to be considered (including the general demographic of any given city, and its rates of violent crime with or without gun control laws). However, it is simply common sense that your typical cowardly thug would not be as bold if he had to worry that he might come up against Mr. Citizen who is armed and more than willing to protect himself and those he loves.
Instead of solving the problem, gun restrictions serve to further weaken the victims and remove yet another deterrent to those intent on carrying on criminal activities.
If Mayor Miller and the Canadian government are truly interested in cracking down on gun violence, they should revisit the revolving-door judicial system which currently does little to keep career criminals off the street. It should look seriously at Canada’s immigration laws (which are so friendly that we’ve become the country of choice for terrorists around the world). And it should relax gun restrictions so that ordinary citizens are not completely helpless and powerless and are not held hostage in their own homes and communities.
Maybe not everyone should be sleeping with a gun under their pillow, but it sure would make the next would-be murderer think twice, wouldn’t it?
Mordecai Bobrowsky is an American living in Canada. He is saddened to see the rise of Anti-Americanism as the new nationalism. Although officially a Republican, Mordecai Bobrowsky likes to think that the right answer to most issues can be had merely by applying a little common sense.
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