Multiple sclerosis support - OT: Smart Handguns Learn to Smuggle and Shoot Themselves

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OT: Smart Handguns Learn to Smuggle and Shoot Themselves

GT Tick

2005-12-28, 5:59 pm

Especially amazing how they learned to create gangs, poverty and a lack
of moral responsibility.........

Damn that GWB, not only has he learned to control the weather but to
train chunks of steel and control minds in socialist leaning neighboring
countries.

BTW, that John Thompson feller sounds like my kinda guy.
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TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Canadian officials, seeking to make sense of
another fatal shooting in what has been a record year for gun-related
deaths, said Tuesday that along with a host of social ills, part of the
problem stemmed from what they said was the United States exporting its
violence.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and Toronto Mayor David Miller
warned that Canada could become like the United States after gunfire
erupted Monday on a busy street filled with holiday shoppers, killing a
15-year-old girl and wounding six bystanders -- the latest victims in a
record surge in gun violence in Toronto.

The shooting stemmed from a dispute among a group of 10 to 15 youth, and
the victim was a teenager out with a parent near a popular shopping
mall, police said Tuesday.

"I think it's a day that Toronto has finally lost its innocence," Det.
Sgt. Savas Kyriacou said. "It was a tragic loss and tragic day."

While many Canadians take pride in Canadian cities being less violent
than their American counterparts, Toronto has seen 78 murders this year,
including a record 52 gun-related deaths -- almost twice as many as last
year.

"What happened yesterday was appalling. You just don't expect it in a
Canadian city," the mayor said.

"It's a sign that the lack of gun laws in the U.S. is allowing guns to
flood across the border that are literally being used to kill people in
the streets of Toronto," Miller said.

Miller said Toronto, a city of nearly three million, is still very safe
compared to most American cities, but the illegal flow of weapons from
the United States is causing the noticeable rise in gun violence.

"The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of
Toronto," he said.

Miller said that while almost every other crime in Toronto is down, the
supply of guns has increased and half of them come from the United
States.

Miller said the availability of stolen Canadian guns is another problem,
and that poverty in certain Toronto neighborhoods is a root cause.

"There are neighborhoods in Toronto where young people face barriers of
poverty, discrimination and don't have real hope and opportunity. The
kind of programs that we once took for granted in Canada that would
reach out to young people have systematically disappeared over the past
decade and I think that gun violence is a symptom of a much bigger
problem," Miller said.

The escalating violence prompted the prime minister to announce earlier
this month that if re-elected on January 23, his government would ban
handguns. With severe restrictions already in place against handgun
ownership, many criticized the announcement as politics.
Martin, who says up to half of the gun crimes in Canada involve weapons
brought in illegally from the United States, raised the smuggling
problem when he met with U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice in October.

Martin offered his condolences in a statement Tuesday, saying he was
horrified by the shootings.

"What we saw yesterday is a stark reminder of the challenge that
governments, police forces and communities face to ensure that Canadian
cities do not descend into the kind of rampant gun violence we have seen
elsewhere," Martin said.

John Thompson, a security analyst with the Toronto-based Mackenzie
Institute, says the number of guns smuggled from the United States is a
problem, but that Canada has a gang problem -- not a gun problem -- and
that Canada should stop pointing the finger at the United States.

"It's a cop out. It's an easy way of looking at one symptom rather than
addressing a whole disease," Thompson said.

Two suspects were arrested and at least one firearm was seized soon
after the shootings Monday. Kyriacou said it was an illegal handgun.

Three females and four males were injured, including one male who is in
critical condition. Police believe they were bystanders.

*****Don't Cry Because It's Over...Smile Because It Happened.*****

Sylv

2005-12-29, 1:03 am

>but that Canada has a >gang problem -- not a gun >problem -- and
>that Canada should stop >pointing the finger at the >United States.

If Canada has a gang problem, it will have many related problems
besides illegal guns. A million years ago, when my parents were in
high school, the gangs all had knives. Take away the guns, and the
gangs will use other weapons.

Getting rid of the gangs is the first step. Good luck! I wish the
United States could clue Canada in on how to do that! But it can't,
because the gang subculture here is still going strong.

Sylvia