Posted on 12/28/2005 8:26:18 AM PST by fanfan
When scores of shoppers are forced to cower on the ground on Canada's busiest street because more than a dozen gun-toting punks are using it as a shooting range, it is time to stop kidding ourselves.
It is time to demand action.
Where is the leadership? Where is the law?
An innocent 15-year-old girl is dead, gunned down in yet another gang fight. Six other innocents were also shot, all for daring to go Boxing Day shopping in downtown Toronto -- a city once so staid, Boxing Day shopping itself was illegal.
Toronto's police chief calls it "infuriating." The city's mayor is "saddened and angered." Our PM blathers about "the consequences of exclusion" (whatever that means), our premier blames "the insanity of guns" (can guns go insane?), and a senior cop declares "Toronto has finally lost its innocence."
No, no, no, no, no! Toronto lost its innocence long ago -- not with this, the 78th murder and 52nd gun homicide of 2005. This isn't even the first shooting near the Eaton Centre this year -- it's the third.
What we have lost -- we hope -- is our naivete.
We've lost the dangerous illusion that the escalating gun violence that has scarred Toronto in recent years -- not months, years -- is an isolated problem, confined to a certain community, a certain income bracket or certain neighbourhoods.
We've lost the self-righteous notion that guns and gangs are problems imported from somewhere else. We've lost the elitist view that this kind of thing doesn't happen in Toronto.
Monday's victims are from all over; they are male and female; white, black, Asian. They are all of us.
We've heard the promises. Where are the results?
What we need are leaders who will stare down the laughing gangsters and tell them: You will not take over. We will hunt you down. We will take away your guns and put you away -- or kick you out of Canada -- for good.
We need leaders who will tell our citizens, and all those now questioning whether Toronto is safe to visit: We will put police on the street and declare war on the gangs -- now, not years from now. We will break their gun culture by imprisoning every thug we catch carrying one -- not by harassing collectors and sportsmen. Yes, we will spend money on social programs, but first we will do our job and protect you.
How many more innocents will die before we lose our complacency and demand that the job be done?
Is Lieberman the Mayor?
C'mon,,, everyone knows the perps are always black, but you're
not allowed to say it - cause it's politically incorrect and racist
to state the obvious, eh?
Personally, I think it's racist to continue to treat these people
as some retarded underclass who can't fend for themselves without
the help of social programs and handouts.
Clearly, these warmongers fail to realize that Toronto is a quagmire. We need to withdraw the police from there right away, they are only provoking this violence.
Before there were police there we didn't have this problem. We are threatening their turf and these freedom fighters are just trying to defend it.
Harsher sentences and stricter enforcement will just drive more of them to take up arms to defend themselves. How can we blame them for that?
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Suggestion that the police should use profiling created an uproar back in Aug.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 Posted at 8:47 AM EST
Canadian Press
Toronto — A Toronto city councillor is floating a controversial idea on curbing gun violence in the city.
Michael Thompson says police should be allowed to “target” young black men at random as part of a crackdown on guns.
Mr. Thompson, who is black, said a large percentage of the guns being used and a large number of people being killed are in the black community, so there is a need to target people in the community.
He said he is not calling for police to pull people over just because they are black but because gun violence is affecting the black community.
Deputy police chief Keith Forde, who is also black, says chief Bill Blair would “never, ever agree to that.”
There have been 30 gun-related deaths in Toronto among the 44 homicides in the city so far this year.
In a new effort to reduce violence in the city, Mr. Blair announced Monday that he is reassigning 100 desk officers to uniform duty.
They will join street patrol officers and provide a bridge until 96 recruits graduate from police college next month.
Mr. Blair redeployed 50 officers to a problem area in the northwestern part of the city earlier this month.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050816.wtoro0816/BNStory/National/
Hey! when you find some of these leaders let us know, we could use 'em down here and we'll pay 'em good!
I guess, if we are all blacks from Jamaica.
Read the same story on the CNN site, and some Canadians are saying that it is.
Yeah, I picked up on that instantly. Kind of sounds like "if you don't stop it we'll get jolly well upset, we really will!"
Someone with a gun and some training could have taken out the gangsta that couldn't shoot straight and possibly saved a few lives in the process. Just thought that was worth pointing out.
"gun-toting punks"???
No. They are trial conflicts among insurgents. Canada needs to learn to be more respectful of cultural diversity.
tribal
The Canadians are Surrender Monkeys, just like the Frogs.
"How's that gun ban thing workin for ya'll?"
It is an easy fix. All the government has to do is track down those thugs by their registered guns and lock them up. (the thugs not the guns). I mean, isn't that what the registration all about?
Not well at all it would seem.
Obviously, another case of gun control that didn't work. I cannot believe that North American politicians and police actually think that gun control works, so I must conclude that they sacrifice innocent citizens for political gain and job security. They are worse than the criminals they purport to detest.
black-based 'gangsta culture'
Wed, December 28, 2005
Metropolis' innocence lost long ago
By LICIA CORBELLA
According to a high-ranking Toronto police officer, the city in which he toils "lost its innocence" on Boxing Day.
The comment would be funny were it not in reference to such a tragic and sickening event.
Apparently as many as 15 young people exchanged gunfire on a crowded Yonge Street -- one of the busiest shopping areas in all of Canada on any day, never mind Boxing Day.
One 15-year-old girl was killed and six others were injured during the Hollywood-style shootout. All were innocent bystanders. No rival gang members were shot or killed.
Now, I don't know what planet Det.-Sgt. Savas Kyriacou has been hiding on, but to say Toronto lost its innocence because of this is like saying an 80-year-old whore lost her innocence because she serviced a customer over the Christmas holidays.
There have been 78 murders in Toronto in 2005 and a record 52 of them were caused by gunfire. In Calgary, five shootouts have led to murders -- though luckily only gang members and not innocent bystanders were the victims.
But in 2005, in Toronto, people have been shot and killed at a funeral, on a crowded bus, on Yonge Strett, not far from where Monday's shooting took place and in front of a day-care centre just this past Friday.
In Calgary, shootouts have occurred at crowded shopping centres and in busy nightclubs.
Recently, Calgary Police Chief Jack Beaton told the Sun editorial board Canada's lax laws are part of the problem.
Since July 25, Calgary police arrested 51 gang members. Guess how many remain behind bars? Just three.
As he said, when you consider most gang members arrested for running a $750,000 marijuana grow operation will be sentenced to exactly zero time behind bars, gangs will thrive. You don't need to be a chief of police or a criminologist to figure that out.
I did my fair share of time on the police desk at the Toronto Sun, including in 1991 when a record 88 murders took place, mostly between black youths. It was a problem then and it's a a problem now. Little has changed. That's because politicians and, apparently the police, tiptoe around the problem.
Prime Minister Paul Martin did more tiptoeing yesterday.
"I think, more than anything else, (the shootings) demonstrate what are, in fact, the consequences of exclusion."
What nonsense. There is no city on this planet that is better at inclusion than Toronto. Toronto is, by its very nature, the world rolled into one metropolis of three-million people.
Virtually every nation in the world is represented there, and most newcomers acclimatize and become productive and vital contributors to Canada within a short period of time.
Their children, like the children of immigrants clear across this country, are accepted and offered the same opportunities and access to education as any other Canadian.
Yesterday, I called the Toronto police. I thought I got media relations, but reached a different department instead. I mentioned that all I wanted to know was whether the handguns used in the Boxing Day shootings were legal and registered.
The person on the end of the line snorted and said: "I'd bet my first born that it wasn't."
Not an official comment to be sure. Instead, Det.-Sgt. Kyriacou said: "I don't believe that these people were in possession legally, so we're going to continue our investigation as to how they came about possessing a handgun."
Meanwhile, Martin's "answer" to this tragedy is to continue to talk about "banning handguns", which are virtually banned in this country anyway. Murder is banned -- always has been -- and yet it goes on. Surely, someone willing to shoot into a crowd of innocent people won't hand over his weapon because the PM says so.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper has the only real answer to this kind of thuggery -- and that is to bring in mandatory minimum sentences for the use of guns in a crime.
"There is nothing else you can do to deal with crime other than make sure people who commit crimes are severely dealt with and we don't run a revolving-door justice system."
Bang on. In reality, it's our lawmakers -- our politicians -- who lost their innocence on this file a long time ago.
That's a stupid statement.
Canadians are as different politically, socially, economically, financially, etc as Yankees...
So there's no need to slam ALL Canadians..
So, STFU !!!!!
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