City council endorsed David Miller's handgun ban yesterday, but left the mayor three votes shy of winning unanimous support.In support of his "if you ban it, they will magically disappear" initiative, His Blondeness trots out an impressive statistic...
It's tough to get unanimous support at Toronto council, Miller noted. But he said the city made a "strong and powerful step" towards eliminating guns from the streets.
"Will it put an end to all guns in our country that are used illegally? We know there is more work to do and the answer is sadly no," Miller said. "Will it make a significant impact? The answer is absolutely yes."
He said one-third of crimes in Toronto, including the Jan. 12 shooting death of innocent bystander John O'Keefe on Yonge St., are committed with legally registered handguns.The only problem is... it isn't true.
"Statistics Canada has reported that 2.27% of homicides in Canada were committed with a registered gun and only 1.21% were committed with a registered firearm that was owned by the accused."But don't tell that to David Miller.
He's livin' the dream.
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FROM THE COMMENTS:
Dave Hodson suggested... "So, Let's set up a combination safe shooting sites--you can shoot guns and drugs in the same protected environment!"**********
Langmann replied... "Its called Toronto."
RELATED: Not everyone is celebrating
When I mentioned the handgun ban to Mrs. Neo, she was strangely unenthusiastic...
"It's a pity," said Mrs. N, no doubt thinking fondly of her salad days at U of T.**********
"I always felt so much safer when we were allowed to walk around Toronto packing heat."
LAST WORD: On the other hand...
Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair spoke out enthusiastically in support of the Mayor...
"Thank goodness, someone has finally solved this horrible problem. Toronto police officers were sick and tired of finding hundreds of armed criminals every year and not being able to do anything about it."*
"We look forward to starting to arrest these miscreants, from this point forward."