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Top political leaders from Ontario and Toronto have both repeatedly called for a ban on handgun ownership, but is anyone above them listening?

And if handguns were banned, would it have a substantial effect on reducing gun violence in the GTA?

NDP Leader Jack Layton, who represents the Toronto-Danforth riding, did speak in favour of a handgun ban during an appearance on CTV Toronto on Friday.

"There's no way that people should have handguns in cities unless they're law enforcement officers," he said.

"We've got to have laws that say, that give powers to cities as Mayor David Miller has been calling for ...,  that handguns should have no place in cities," he said.

Layton also called for better enforcement and putting resources into helping young people at risk.

Crime in Toronto has triggered similar responses in other election years.

In the wake of the Yonge Street shooting of Toronto teen Jane Creba on Boxing Day in 2005, then-Liberal Leader Paul Martin vowed a Liberal government would ban handguns.

"Why should Torontonians, children in this case, be faced with the kind of threats they're seeing when the federal government could take real action?" Miller said Tuesday after a shooting outside Bendale Business and Technical Institute.

"Paul Martin and the Liberal party stood up in the last election and said it's time to end the ownership of handguns in this country. They were right. I hope the other leaders have as much courage."

On Tuesday, Premier Dalton McGuinty said: "We have been prompted once again by a tragedy in our community. Why can't we draw upon this to move forward in a positive way and say in Canada we are not prepared to pursue this, we are going to ban our handguns."

Unless the NDP or Greens form a government, that doesn't appear likely.

Stephane Dion, Martin's successor as party leader, has not pledged to ban handguns. Instead, he has targeted military-style assault weapons. He first made that announcement while using the site of Montreal's Dawson College, where a gunman's rampage left one student dead and more than a dozen others wounded in 2006, as a backdrop.

"It's what I have committed to do first,'' Dion said Wednesday following an announcement on a national child-care plan in Kitchener, Ont.

During his Thursday campaign appearance in Toronto, Dion didn't talk about crime at all.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, who released a "get tough on crime" TV ad this week, has argued handguns are effectively banned because their ownership is restricted to target shooters and collectors.

The Greens have said they would "phase out" handguns and automatic weapons.

Would banning work?

University of Toronto criminologist Rosemary Gartner told ctvtoronto.ca that if there were fewer handguns around in general, "I have no doubt that significant violent crime would go down."

But allowing cities to issue handgun bans, as Layton is proposing, would do little, she said.

And the elephant in the room is our proximity to the United States, where handguns are plentiful and easy to obtain -- and smuggle. "It's just very easy to get guns across that border," she said.

Miller has also called for greater anti-smuggling security at the Canada-U.S. border, along with tougher laws against illegal gun use.

Surges in gun violence trigger politicians to talk about changing laws, either bans or tougher penalties, Gartner said. "That sort of thing is a very easy thing to say and a very easy thing for people to agree with. I mean, who's against reducing handguns?"

If you want an American example, the Toronto Star reported in April that Chicago banned handgun sales in 1981, yet police there seize an average of 10,000 weapons per year.

In the longer term, Gartner said people must realize there are no quick fixes.

Providing more help for underprivileged families, including single mothers, has been shown by research to have a positive long-term effect on reducing violent crime, she said.

The Star reported that Chicago -- a city slightly more populous than Toronto, but one that recorded 599 homicides in 2003 -- is experimenting in some high-risk neighbourhoods with social interventions aimed at changing the gangster mindset and helping young people choose a better path.

Toronto has recorded 51 homicides as of Sept. 17, with 29 of those coming from firearms. But the total homicide count is 10 lower than the 2007 figure.

However, gun use here is up. There have been 169 incidents so far, compared to 140 in 2007. There were 161 in 2005. Injuries are up 27 per cent compared to 2007, but about the same as 2006.

"I think we need to be concerned about the shootings, but not treat them as something indicating more violence," Gartner said. "People forget Toronto is the safest city for (Canadian) cities over populations of 500,000."

Knee-jerk reactions "sound good, but they're not going to make a difference, and it's not clear anything is going to make an immediate difference," she said. "We need to look long-term."

Comments are now closed for this story

Chris
They are banned. The tough guys using them are breaking the law, they don't care that having it with them before using it also is breaking the law. Get caught with a unregistered weapon, start at 15-20 years and if you used it put more. They have no desire for rehabilitation. Lock them up, you may start to get their attention.

Josh, Hamilton Ont.
Banning Handguns is not going to make them go away...

Drugs are banned... and yet that is another major issue plaguing large urban centers like Toronto and Montreal...

Perhaps David Miller should look at the root causes of the violence in his city instead just blaming it all on guns... Pulling guns away from legal owners is less then even a band-aid solution to the greater problem...

Tougher penalties for weapons offenses, more police on the street, better social programs, and perhaps a transition from a retributive justice model to a restorative justice model, especially when dealing with youth crime. Toronto, and the rest of the country needs to realize that the quick fix solutions don't work. the only way to solve the problem is to address the real, messy, controversial, and sometimes downright ugly, issues that are really causing the problem... Sadly I fear that it will never happen... because no one is willing to step up and do something substantial to solve it.

Michael
Miller and McGuinty are both ineffective leaders who don't know or can't deal with gang violence in Toronto. So they are purposely creating a public issue regarding handgun licenses in order to create a diversion. They are trying to distract people's attention from the real problem which is lawlessness and violent behaviour from youth and drug gangs in Toronto.

The handgun license issue is a "smoke screen".

Gangs are not going to magically stop shooting or stabbing people just because these two hopeless politicians decide to ban law-abiding people from having licenses to own handguns.

Kathleen, Oshawa
Ban handguns from legal owners and then the only ones who will have them will be the criminals. Remember, police action is reactive not proactive. They can't do anything until something happens.

Steve Daly, Mississauga
Banning addresses only legal handguns, it totally ignores the issue of illegal weapons.

Use an illegal weapon, you get locked up. Handle an illegal weapon and you get locked up. Know that someone has an illegal weapon and fail to report it... you get locked up.

Substantially expand the penalties and enforcement efforts.

Feel good bans are totally ineffective, as are the politicians who advocate them.