The Toronto Star encourages us today to sign Mayor David Miller’s petition to ban private handgun ownership in Canada:
The Toronto Star encourages us today to sign Mayor David Miller’s petition to ban private handgun ownership in Canada:
The case for the ban is succinctly stated on the petition itself: “Handguns are intended for one purpose and that is to kill people. Their presence in Canada has resulted in the deaths of far too many people.” Immediate action is requested.
Handguns are the preferred weapon of violent criminals, so it is only logical to restrict ownership to police, the military and a few top competitive shooters, such as Olympic competitor Avianna Chao of Toronto. But there is scant justification for allowing others to possess this class of weapon.
Private holdings of handguns provide a ready arsenal for criminals who are willing to steal from legal owners. Indeed, about one-third of the illegal guns seized by Toronto police come from such sources. This pool of weapons – successfully tapped by the underworld – could be largely eliminated by ending the private ownership of pistols.
A few semi-circular quibbles and queries, to which we invite readers to add:
INSTA-UPDATE: Comments at the Star, which are quite uniformly against the editorial’s position, were closed mid-afternoon. But hours later, this appeared:
The Star responds
Some information quoted in this editorial is contained in “Fact Sheet – Impact of Firearms in Canada” available at http://www.toronto.ca/handgunban/pdf/factsheet.pdfPosted by Editor at 4:13 PM Tuesday, August 05 2008
That would be, er, David Miller‘s fact sheet.