EDITORIAL: How to fight gun crime in 2020
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The best way to illustrate growing gun violence in Toronto is to compare this year to 2005’s infamous “Summer of the Gun”.
As of Dec. 22 of this year, shootings are up by 80% and victims are up by 100% compared to 2005.
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In 2019, there have been 471 shootings with 736 victims, compared to 262 shootings with 367 victims in all of 2005.
Shooting deaths are down by 22.6% to 41 this year compared to 53 in 2005, but homicides vary from year to year because of a number of factors.
In 2014, before street checks (a.k.a. carding) were abandoned because of concerns blacks were being unfairly targeted by police, there were 177 shootings, 242 victims and 27 deaths.
Compared to 2019, that means there has been a 166% increase in shootings, a 204% increase in the number of victims and a 52% increase in shooting deaths over the last five years.
The recent 15-week police operation, Project Community Space operation, funded by $4.5 million from the three levels of government, resulted in 463 arrests, 247 guns seized, and the laying of 1,145 charges.
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It also exposed, or rather confirmed, another huge problem — the frequency with which people already charged with, or convicted of, gun crimes are freed on bail, as noted both by Police Chief Mark Saunders and Toronto Mayor John Tory.
We support the city’s plan to hire more police officers in 2020, to alleviate understaffing.
But in addition to that, the sensible approach to combating violent urban street crime would be to restore strategies that worked in the past.
That means bringing back street checks and restoring the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) — the gangs and guns squad — disbanded in early 2017 because of allegations that, like street checks, it was racist.
The problem is politicians reject such initiatives out of fear of being labelled racists by police haters, instead of doing their jobs by passing workable regulations permitting police to do their jobs effectively, while protecting the rights of civilians questioned by the police.
Going forward in 2020, our politicians can either do what works, or waste time advocating a municipal handgun “ban” that won’t work because it targets legal gun owners and not criminals.
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