March 23, 2018 · 0 Comments
By Brian Lockhart
An innocent woman died at a Toronto bowling alley this week – the victim of a shooting targeting a man she did not know and had never met.
She was caught in the crossfire. She was an innocent victim of circumstance. Her husband has lost his wife and the future family they were planning together. Her family has lost a daughter and a sister.
Later in the week the Liberal government announced plans to introduce new gun legislation that would tighten controls on firearm licensing and sales, including hunting rifles and shotguns.
Would new controls have made the difference in this murder? Absolutely not.
The criminals who are responsible for this killing are just that – criminals.
They didn’t have registered guns and they didn’t have a license to own one and they certainly had no license to carry a concealed weapon in public. They were carrying firearms for the explicit purpose of carrying out criminal activity.
More than likely this is just another gang-related attack by criminal thugs out to settle a score based on some other criminal activity.
The new legislation would require firearms retailers to keep records of gun purchases and inventory for 20 years.
Didn’t we already try this? The old gun registry was a total failure that cost well over a billion dollars and wasted countless hours and in the end produced absolutely nothing.
The Liberals say they have no plans to re-introduce a gun registry, however having retailers do it for them is no different. That places legitimate business people in the position of creating their own gun registry on private citizens and puts them at risk of having police pounding on their door demanding to see their ‘papers’ on sales and inventory or risk suddenly becoming law breakers if their paperwork is not up to snuff.
Criminals do not walk around the streets carrying pump-action shotguns designed for duck hunting or shooting clay pigeons. They don’t walk around with hunting rifles with scopes designed for deer season or varmint control or for shooting targets for sport.
Most of the national news stories that have come out about this new legislation also say it would require firearms purchasers to produce a valid licence when buying a gun.
Seriously? Either the reporters have not done their homework, or if reported correctly, the government doesn’t know that everyone who purchases a firearm in this country is ALREADY required to show a valid licence when purchasing a firearm in this country.
Gun violence in this country generally takes place in certain areas of big cities that are well known to police and filled with criminal gangs who do not apply for a firearms license.
This new legislation is typical of a government that targets the easy choice in a bid to make them appear in a certain light to certain voters.
What this legislation does not do, as always, is target the people who are actually responsible for gun violence.
The vast majority of gun crimes that use pistols concealed inside a jacket are done with illegal firearms that are smuggled into the country from the U.S.
Legal handguns in this country are licensed and classified as restricted firearms and owners do not sell them illegally to criminals to make a fast buck. Even if a person did, it would easily be traced right back to them.
This isn’t the first time a completely innocent person has been killed or injured by being in the wrong place when two gangs decide to settle their turf war by shooting it out in a public place.
Instead of tackling the issue head on, the government takes the easy route of blaming and punishing legal gun owners instead of going after the criminals who make their money through illegal activity and enforce it at the point of a gun. Creating another gun registry will do nothing to stop this trend of urban violence.
Does the government really think a farmer in Alberta with a .22 shooting groundhogs on his land is a threat to the public?
If the government wants to do something about gun violence they should go after those who engage in illegal activity and feel the need to conceal a pistol in their waistband when walking around the neighborhood.
We don’t need more legislation targeting law-abiding citizens. If the Liberals feel the need to come up with yet more legislation to control the people, they should start by controlling those who are the problem – not those who play by the rules.