Proof Positive: Being Canadian Causes Brain Damage

Canada blames U.S. for gun violence
Toronto shooting is latest death in a record year

CNN.COM International
Wednesday, December 28, 2005 Posted: 0254 GMT (1054 HKT)

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.

It is interesting to watch as Canada goes the way of the rest of Western Europe. There is a progression in Western Europe away from God and Reason. Canada is showing definite symptoms of the same illness. It is the argument of a the intellectually dihonest to blame the availability of guns for the increase in violent crime. It is the increase in criminal behavior which leads to the increase of murders in Toronto. Such an argument provides an easy target and scape-goat for the failures of the Canadian socialist agenda. Tolerance of bad behavior causes increases in bad behavior. We saw it in California two weeks ago when the left came out in protest over the execution of "Tookie" Williams. A multiple murderer who refused to apologize for his crime was being lauded by the left and internationally as a "hero" and the "Govenator" was being vilified by those same individuals. Forcing your population to obey the law and be responsible for their actions is a much more difficult job than just laying blame on "American exportation of violence." Canadians need to hold Paul Martin to account for his failures. If you re-elect him, don't look to us for sympathy.

Full Story: Canadian Cop-Out

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