DOUCETTE: Politicians pouring gas on our city won’t put out the gunfire
Toronto is on pace for one of the most violent years in the city's history after a deadly quadruple shooting in Scarborough
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How many people must die senselessly before politicians stop pissing on our legs while telling us it’s raining?
Politicians at all levels, the special interest groups that somehow always get their attention, and the media outlets that supported our inept leaders’ ass-backwards approach to combatting crime without asking any tough questions all have blood on their hands — a lot of it.
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DOUCETTE: Politicians pouring gas on our city won’t put out the gunfire Back to video
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The quadruple shooting in Scarborough early Wednesday, which saw lots of bullets fly, killing two people and seriously injuring two others, is just the latest example that gun violence has spiraled out of control.
Those two murders are Toronto’s 49th and 50th of the year, putting us on pace for about 90 by year’s end — a tally that would be the second most killings the city has ever endured in a single year.
And of the 50 murders in Toronto so far this year, 28 have been the result of gun violence, which puts us on pace for about 50 gun murders in 2024. That would be just shy of the city’s record of 53 gun deaths recorded in 2005 — infamously dubbed The Year of the Gun.
The Toronto Sun warned for years that we were heading down a dark path. And when those warnings came to fruition in 2018 — a year the city endured 98 murders, 51 of those by firearms, surpassing the homicide record of 89 killings that had stood since 1991 — our political leaders simply plowed ahead.
You would have to be an idiot not to see how badly the city has been decimated by crime and gun violence.
Likewise, only an idiot would think eliminating school resource officers, failing to properly fund our police service, opening safe injection/consumption sites, disbanding the proactive TAVIS program, cancelling carding, scrapping mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes, and routinely granting bail or early release to those accused or convicted of violent crimes wouldn’t result in a tidal wave of trouble.
Penalties are meant to serve as both punishment and deterrent. Those who follow the rules should be our first concern, rather than the afterthought they have become.
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It’s simple stuff when you think about it. And it’s why we have penalties and suspensions in sports — because it works.
When the NHL is concerned about a rise in headshots or wants to limit fighting, league officials don’t loosen the rules or lighten suspensions, nor do they ask the hockey players committing the infractions what can be done to help them stay out of the penalty box.
Similarly, if decriminalizing and providing free access to hard drugs to avoid stigmatizing addiction is such an effective approach, why aren’t we handing out free cigarettes and telling people it’s cool to smoke?
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When will politicians at the helm of our society take their heads out of the sand and start turning to the victims of crime — or perhaps those of us who have covered crime extensively as journalists and spent time with countless people who have lost loved ones — for solutions to steer is off of this ass-backwards course.
We have to stop hoping the same people behind the decisions that caused the cascade of crime destroying our city will somehow come up with a magical solution to make Toronto safe again.
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20 YEARS OF BLOODSHED IN TORONTO
2024: 50 so far (28 by gun so far) – as of July 24
2023: 73 (29 by gun)
2022: 71 (44 by gun)
2021: 85 (46 by gun)
2020: 71 (38 by gun)
2019: 79 (44 by gun)
2018: 98 (51 by gun)
2017: 65 (39 by gun)
2016: 75 (41 by gun) – TAVIS disbanded
2015: 59 (26 by gun) – Carding suspended
2014: 58 (27 by gun)
2013: 57 (22 by gun)
2012: 57 (34 by gun)
2011: 51 (28 by gun)
2010: 65 (32 by gun)
2009: 62 (37 by gun)
2008: 70 (37 by gun)
2007: 86 (44 by gun)
2006: 70 (29 by gun) – TAVIS launched
2005: 80 (53 by gun) – Year of the Gun
2004: 64 (26 by gun)
(Compiled from Toronto Police statistics)
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