David Miller could go one better

Toronto Mayor David Miller wants to take all guns away from legal gun owners within the City of Toronto, close down all sports and target shooting clubs and thereby eliminate gun crime within his city. It’s a nice thought, but it won’t happen because EVERYONE (except the mayor) knows that the guns used in the commission of violent crimes in Toronto mostly do not originate with legal gun owners.

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If Mayor Miller really cared about gun crime in the city, then he would establish a municipal shooting range where all the gang bangers could go to learn to shoot well. If Toronto’s gun-toting criminals were better shots a lot fewer innocent bystanders would be killed or injured as the gangstas shoot it out. But because the ganstas know squat about guns, gun safety or marksmanship, a lot of innocents pay the price. Think of the advantages. If the ganstas were better shots, then there would in time be fewer and fewer as their improved marksmanship would decimate their numbers and achieve what our legal system refuses to. At the municipal gun range the gangstas could learn that handguns are designed to be used while held in the vertical position, rather than the 90-degree turned-sideways position that they so favor, thus achieving greater accuracy. They could be taught to be sure of their target before spraying a whole neighborhood with 9mm ordnance and taking down innocents like Jane Creba. And the payoff for both the gangstas and the city would be in increase in the mortality of ganstas. I know, it sounds like a wacky idea, but think about it; Vancouver is encouraging drug addicts to get high safely by dispensing clean needles at safe injection sites, such as the much maligned and recently ruled legal InSite program is facilitating. Why not have a similar program in Toronto, except instead of providing clean needles, the city could provide skill in the handling of firearms? It wouldn’t cost the city very much and could likely represent a net benefit, as the city will continue to collect its rents from the various shooting clubs currently in existence. I think this plan makes every bit as much sense, maybe even more, as does the closing down gun clubs and shooting ranges within the city limits. Certainly the benefits of the plan would not take long to make themselves apparent. While it would not reduce the number of shootings on the streets of the city immediately, it certainly would reduce the number of innocents who are wounded and killed under the current “we’re helpless and we can’t do anything about gun crime” regime in force by the mayor. Over the long term it would actually decrease the incidence of gun crime on Toronto’s mean streets as the number of gangstas would get smaller and smaller as they killed each other off. In the process it wouldn’t be necessary to punish Olympic target shooters or individuals interested in shooting for sport. And the outcome would be much more desirable than that predicated on the punishment of legal gun owners who have never committed a crime.