|
| UNDER THE GUN IT'S TIME WE DEMANDED TOUGHER LAWS - Thursday, November 27, 2003 at 12:17 |
|
PUBLICATION: The Toronto Sun ------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is, we have to crack down on gangs and guns. Gunplay is rampant on our streets, and guns - usually handguns - fall easily into the hands of criminals. No one, not even the most hardcore gun enthusiast, thinks this is a good thing. (In fact, law-abiding gun owners are in the forefront of efforts to get tough on gun crime.) And while gun-control advocates spend much of their time defending the feds' disastrously wasteful long gun registry, they, too, certainly want gun crimes punished severely. Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino called this week for a full federal public inquiry into the justice system, which he says is failing his officers and all citizens. I doubt such an inquiry will ever be held, but Fantino's frustration is shared by cops across this country. What they really want, among other things, is much tougher sentences for crimes involving guns. So the question must be asked, why not? Why not send a strong message that we've had it with gun crime? Why not impose a mandatory 10-year prison term for anyone convicted of using a gun in a crime - on top of whatever sentence the crime normally carries?
It's hard to imagine how anyone in Canada could oppose such an action. Okay, some judges might - judges generally take a dim view of laws dictating mandatory sentences, since they tie their hands. Some lawyers, too. And criminals. But those narrow groups aside, who's likely to argue with the need for stricter penalties for gun crimes? Not the police. Not victims' rights groups. Not the Canadian Alliance or the federal Tories, who've both called for tougher penalties for firearms offences for years now. Not provincial Tories in Alberta or Ontario - the latter specifically proposed a 10-year mandatory term for gun crimes in their unsuccessful election platform this fall. Not Toronto city council, which passed a resolution last February (shortly after four people were murdered within 90 minutes on our
So what's stopping the federal Grits, anyway? Well, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon is on record as saying our gun laws are tough enough. In 1995, at the same time the Firearms Act (i.e., the controversial registry) was enacted, the feds amended the Criminal Code to include a mandatory minimum sentence of four years for the use of a firearm in 10 various violent crimes - manslaughter, attempted murder, robbery, sexual assault, hostage taking, etc. Any other crime involving a gun carries a minimum one-year term for a first offence and three years for a repeat offence. You might think that sounds tough, but the truth is these sentences are rarely imposed. Too often they're plea-bargained away. A 1994 federal study of an earlier law, which imposed a one-year minimum sentence for gun crimes, found it was dropped two-thirds of the time. Little has changed. The same study also found that mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes in other areas had mixed results. In many places (including Canada), gun crimes dropped right away, but in some places criminals simply resorted to other weapons. Meanwhile, the sort of academics and statisticians who advise Cauchon continue to stress that crime is down overall, so we needn't worry, much less change the laws. I'm betting most Canadians would welcome anything that would get the gun-toting thugs off our streets. As for statistics, consider: Toronto has had 10 murders in the past month, including one in which a stray bullet killed a man in his own home as he read to his son. A new police task force has seized 72 crime guns in eight weeks - more than half of them handguns - and made 206 arrests. How soon those 206 will be back on the street is anybody's guess. What do you think? Time for a new gun law? Let me know and we'll discuss this further in a future column. |