Toronto shooting will affect election campaign

The latest series of shootings in Toronto will surely affect the federal election campaign, as candidates attempting to garner favour among urban voters will renew calls for tougher gun laws and the outright banning of handguns. While vilifying concealable weapons makes for good political theatre, it will do very little toward solving the problem of gun crimes within out cities.

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Indeed, we have outlawed bank robbery and the sale of illicit drugs, yet criminals continue to engage in these, as well as other illegal activities at will. Some are caught and brought to trial, while others continue these activities with little or no concern for their legality. Some have suggested that in order to deal with these extraordinarily violent crimes, we must address the “root causes” of the problem, which have been defined as poverty, racism, societal alienation and a lack of adequate education. While these so-called root causes sound like the real McCoy, there is little or no evidence that things would change if these causes were alleviated. On the contrary, there is a vast body of evidence that supports the idea that matters might get worse. Our social welfare programs enable low-income individuals the ability to afford food, shelter and clothing, although admittedly not to the level of the average middle class family. To claim that racism is one of the root causes of urban gun crime is to do a disservice to both racial minorities as well as society at large, as few nations on earth are less tolerant of racist attitudes than Canada. Blaming racism is condescending to racial minorities, as it absolves them of the ability to take credit for their achievements or blame for their shortcomings. In fact, the very idea that gun crime among urban minorities can be blamed on societal racism is a racist concept that deprives minorities of any hope for improving their lot. The idea that being alienated from society leads to anti-social behaviour does have some merit. However, a society such as ours that is chock-a-block with social workers, child care programs, youth programs and other programs designed to include minorities shouldn’t have to offer the alienation of youth as an excuse for crime. Either these programs and the individuals involved in them are a totally ineffective waste of resources or the individuals to whom these services are offered are incapable of benefiting from them. It may be a good idea to review the effectiveness of the social programs being offered to minority families with a view toward an overall improvement. Lack of education is another boogeyman taking the blame for high crime rates among minorities. This is not because the resources offered to students in our urban centres are inadequate. It’s because the students attending our schools don’t see their benefit. Why should they when they see their drug-dealing peers driving high-end cars and ostentatiously displaying the trappings of wealth? The City of Toronto famously asserts that “literacy is a right” in an advertising campaign throughout the city. And while most civilized nations adhere to this belief, there doesn’t appear to be a mechanism that encourages young people to partake of this right. While literacy in our culture is indeed a right, we have failed to convey the idea that it is also a responsibility on the part of families with children in school. There are some other root causes about which the public at large will likely never hear. Young men who grow up in single parent families commit the vast majority of violent urban crime. Indeed growing up in households headed by single moms, “aunties” or grandmothers has almost attained the status of a cliché. What’s needed is for men to take moral and financial responsibility for their offspring, by dint of law if necessary, and for young women to practice effective birth control. Additionally, the code of silence that has become so pervasive in certain of Canada’s urban areas must be broken. So long as fear and hostility govern the attitudes of those most at risk, no amount of gun control or root cause alleviation will make one iota of difference. We will surely hear many politicians promising to take action on stricter gun control, because that’s an easy answer. But anyone who believes that further restrictions of firearms will make any difference is sorely misguided.