Politics

Toronto mass shooting another gun control failure

While authorities in Toronto are still trying to piece together what motivated a man to open fire Sunday in the Greektown neighborhood, the mass shooting that left a dozen people injured and two dead provides yet another lesson about gun control that the gun prohibition movement in the U.S. – and Canada’s government in Ottawa – will likely refuse to acknowledge.

Toronto is experiencing a “spike” in shootings, in a nation with strict gun control laws. (Screen snip, YouTube, City News)

Canada has far stricter gun laws than the United States. There is no Second Amendment in that nation’s constitution. Many in the U.S. gun control movement point to Canada as having the kind of system that this country should emulate.

The suspected Toronto killer is also dead, but it isn’t clear whether he was killed by police gunfire or took his own life.

Anti-gunners look at this sort of policy failure and insist things can be fixed by making laws tougher on honest citizens. For the gun prohibition lobby, acknowledging that their philosophy has failed is not part of the narrative.

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For example, Toronto Councilwoman Mary Fragedakis offered this remark to CTV News: “We do have a gun problem. Why do people have guns, why do they need them? This is the city and in Canadian cities, you don’t need guns.”

Toronto Mayor John Tory was quoted by USA Today observing, “Guns are too readily available to too many people.”

To the average Second Amendment activist in this country, that rhetoric is all-too-familiar. Individuals aren’t to blame for their violent acts. It’s the gun’s fault.

Contrast Toronto with Oklahoma City. Two months ago, when a man opened fire at the popular Louie’s Bar & Grill, two bystanders got guns from their cars and shot the man dead in the parking lot. In the aftermath, gun control groups were silent.

Millions of Canadians do not have carry licenses or permits, as they do in this country. They’re not able to immediately respond to a deadly attack with the tools necessary to level the playing field and take down an attacker. That’s not a judgment of right or wrong, it’s just the way it is.

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