City Council Fails to Address Criminal Gun Violence

City Council Fails to Address Criminal Gun Violence


I appreciate everyone commenting on yesterday’s Facebook post which I also posted here on my blog. It’s important that we have a genuine conversation about our City, our safety and the policies our elected officials enact on our behalf.

I think it’s incredible how open the conversation has been thus far and I hope it continues. We ARE the community, the stakeholders and legitimate authorities worthy of genuine consultation regarding the response our city takes in this matter.

One of the motions presented at City Hall today (tabled by Joe Cressy Ward 20) centres around tightening the strict, working, existing fire arms laws currently governing all lawful Canadians and licensed fire arms owners. That motion is about political ideology NOT safety.

The only people not abiding by existing gun laws are the ones buying them illegally to shoot people.

Now read the following quote from the attached article: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-who-is-faisal-hussain-the-man-behind-the-toronto-mass-shooting-its-complicated

“Hussain remained on the periphery of gang life — well-connected enough to get his hands on an illegal handgun (the weapon he used was illegal and he had no Possession and Acquisition Licence)”

Joe Cressy’s motion utterly fails to address the real issue: Illegal gun sales and shootings within the city of Toronto. Key word ILLEGAL. We need laws that deal with ILLEGAL gun sales, possession and shootings at the hands of gang members and assassins. We need laws aimed at criminal behaviour not lawful citizens.

Toronto police are also asking for up to $4 million to introduce a surveillance system known as “ShotSpotter,” which uses microphones to pinpoint the location of gunshots.

I’ll point out the obvious. By the time the gunshots lick off its too late. There are other concerns of course regarding just how much information and sound is picked up by the “ShotSpotter”. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has raised concerns about Mayor John Tory’s plan to install ShotSpotter audio surveillance technology in Toronto, warning that the new technology is “entirely untested” as a police tool and may not be effective at reducing gun violence. Does “ShotSpotter” only record gunshots or can it pick up conversations?

City Council is considering the following financial expenditures to help curb gun violence:
– $29 million in funding for community services, including programs for youth violence intervention, employment, trauma recovery and mental health.
– $15 million to support enforcement and enhanced surveillance initiatives in 2018 and 2019.
– $4 million to introduce a surveillance system known as “ShotSpotter,” which uses microphones to pinpoint the location of gunshots.

I don’t know the intricacies of precisely how the money will be spent none of us do.

I know what’s missing.

I don’t see anything about parental or family member accountability regarding the observation of troubled family members in their care. If the shooter was so terribly unwell as his parents claim in the following statement “Neither professionals, nor medication nor therapy could help him,” they said… why was he walking around freely? Why didn’t they check his room? Look under his bed? Did mom ever find a bullet in the laundry machine? If he couldn’t get a gun would he have borrowed the family car?

1. Parents and/or care givers need to be liable for those in their care who present a risk to the public or pass the responsibility onto a private care giver or a potential public service perhaps funded with the monies available above.

2. Mandatory LIFE SENTENCE without parole for discharging a fire arm in the City of Toronto. There is no reason to pull the trigger of a handgun in public in the City of Toronto. 30 senseless gun deaths in 2018 prove that.

3. Mandatory LIFE SENTENCE for trading in illegal fire arms.

We should be adressing crime prevention strategies, laws that discourage criminal behaviour and the persecution of criminals. 30 people are dead. They are not coming back and more people will die before the year is over.

This year has been particularly tough but we’ve had this problem for years and our elected officials only come up with are half measures and political ideologies while we continue to bury our friends, neighbours and loved ones.

Our city council is looking at spending $48 Million Dollars in part to increase surveillance which has absolutely nothing to do with actual protection from or prevention of gun violence.

Our city council wants stricter laws for licensed gun owners even though licensed gun owners aren’t shooting people at bars and patios.

The solutions are simple and certainly less extreme than the deaths of innocent people. Hold your City Councilor accountable.

P.S. Seeing as the police have possession of the shooters hand gun I am waiting for some evidence that proves a licensed gun owner purchased a hand gun legally and then sold it on the black market as Chief Saunders suggests is the case for 50% of illegal guns.

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Jimmy Vlachos

Jimmy Vlachos

I am not driven by selling or buying. It’s not what gets me up in the morning nor what keeps me working late into the night. I am driven by a desire to be free, to do what I please with my time, to travel and experience all that life has to offer. My desire to be free is what lead me to Income Producing Property Investing. More...

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