Sunday, April 13, 2008

TORONTO — Less than 48 hours after Toronto Mayor David Miller launched a national push to have handguns banned by the federal government, the city recorded three more shootings.

Elsewhere this past week, Calgary police were appealing for tips following two shootings that injured two young men.Neither shooting was a random act, said Calgary police, who summed up the gunplay as just the latest example of the “blatant disregard gang members have for innocent members of the community who could have been hit by errant bullets.”

Michael Chettleburgh, author of Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs, warns of a rise in the number of young people joining gangs and says the increasing gunplay on Canadian streets is a symptom of a burgeoning drug trade.

Once the citizens have no guns they become subjects. It's a good thing if thugs kill each other but the root cause is not guns. When churches and families are destroyed; gangs and drugs are what you end up with.