Counterpoint: Guns Aren’t the Problem

The apparently logical argument driven by gun critics spurred by the recent shooting in Scarborough is to attack the already stifling Canadian gun laws for the inefficient crackdown against crime. And before they say it, gun crime has nothing to do with the Conservatives repealing the Long Gun Registry, which by the way made criminals out of townies who’ve owned farms for generations and happened to have unlicensed, ancient .22 rifles lying around to kill groundhogs. In fact, crime in Canada is statistically decreasing and at a 40 year low, while gun murders in Toronto are not only decreasing; they pale in comparison to the murder rates of Regina or Winnipeg. That being said, Toronto is clearly in the midst of a gang problem, which I would say is not a gun problem.

The fact of the matter is the guns that kill people–whether shipped from America and trafficked into the country by Mafiosi or built by Para-Ordnance in Scarborough then illicitly funnelled to gangs–are always acquired through an illegal system. Those shooters last Monday didn’t have the legally required restricted firearms license or the nearly impossible “Authorization to Carry” permit needed to conceal and carry around a handgun (the only people who can obtain those are armored car personnel or fucking lumberjacks to kill bears). Nor do I suspect did their fully automatic pistols comply with the standards of what constitutes even the most basic characteristics of a legal firearm in Canada. Unlike the US, our prohibited list of firearms is lengthy, strict, and nothing you could buy at a fucking Canadian Tire. One of the biggest problems in America with regard to gun control is the accessibility of high performance killing machines like the AR-15 James Holmes used. These are not hunting rifles, in fact they aren’t designed to hunt anything but a human being in a warzone.

I’m no expert, but from what I understand, gang members see no other way to gain respect in a world that outwardly rejects them than to pack heat. What the fuck would you do if your options were working part-time in a grocery store getting bossed around by an unfulfilled boomer, or, dealing a little crack, carrying a gun, and being the sort of guy popular culture (and de facto white suburban kids), revere? These guys don’t just need jobs, they need fulfilling jobs (like anyone else) to give them some sense of social worth and rid them of their status anxiety. Not to mention, gun crime has consistently matched the surge in the drug trade; an increasingly attractive and accessible industry for poorer men who feel hopeless. So is it guns, or the economic lull driving kids to enter the violent world of drugs?

Just as illegal handguns are the ones that kill people, the legally purchased and licensed long or short guns aren’t the ones killing people. Stiffer laws for “thugs” or “gangsters” as they’re often termed, is already in effect with prejudicial tough-on-crime legislation by Harper and his pack of storm troopers. That’s why an unprecedented shootout that left two young kids dead in Toronto is the perfect propaganda for reactionary measures. Even gun-toting Texans know that stiffening laws will only serve to further indenture the poor (leading to multiple generations of incarceration) and increase your crime rate.

The shock and awe tactics of the neo-liberal media attacking Rob Ford, a fat fuck I’d rather hit with a car than defend (but here I am), for considering Toronto the “safest city in the world,” is unfair at best. Sure, Oslo, may statistically be one of the safest city in the world, but that didn’t stop Anders Breivik from losing his shit and killing 77 people . The thing is, crazy people will find a way to do crazy shit to other people. Among the five most populated cities in North America, Toronto is by far the safest. Describing this place with the nuances of a Mogadishu or Sarajevo circa ’94, is a bold stretch. It’s not even a Chicago or an LA. Meanwhile, if the plan is to stiffen gun laws and increase policing in high-risk areas, (yet these same critics don’t want a war on drugs or gangs?), we’ll get the exact things we’ve been arguing against for the past year (the Omni-bus crime bill). Among other things, the bill ensures that anybody caught with a gun is automatically sentenced to a minimum of three years in prison, which is a shitty ploy to populate the super-prisons we’re starting to build. A judge was courageous enough to strike it down recently, calling it unconstitutional.

Sadly, short of abolishing the second amendment in the US and prohibiting the sale of handguns (or fully automatic death machines), guns in Canada will always find their way to the wrong people. Knee-jerk laws will satisfy immediate popular sentiment then eventually lead to a bigger shit-storm.

And as a side-note, any law instituted on the coat tails of a public outcry nearly always equals sinister Big Brother shit. Remember this?

@bmakuch