Juno News - September 05, 2019Police chiefs say handgun ban is ＂naïve＂
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
181.97314
Summary
Andrew Lutton explains why a ban on handguns is not the answer to gun crime and gang violence in Canada, and why the Liberal Party of Canada is the worst solution to gun control in the world. Andrew Lutton is a former police officer who served as the Chief of the Toronto Police Service, and is now the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. He is also a regular contributor to CBC Radio and the Toronto Sun.
Transcript
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The people who are on the ground dealing with the consequences of gun crime and gang violence
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seem to be very clear that a handgun ban is not what Canada needs.
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Whatever happened to evidence-based decision-making, right?
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The evidence offered by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
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is that it is naive to suggest that a national handgun ban will do anything about gun crime.
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This is what the organization said when it declined to take a position on this
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that is in alignment with the one being put forward by John Tory, by other left-wing politicians,
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and indeed the one being considered by the Liberal government
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should they be re-elected after the fall's election.
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Bill Blair, a former chief of police himself, has said that the types of guns used to kill people
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are going to be potentially under the hammer in a future Liberal government.
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He also has talked repeatedly about restricting or even banning handguns as being a possibility.
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Now he has at other points said that isn't going to be a priority of the government
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but it's still very much being pushed for, especially by John Tory
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whose city has seen record numbers of gun crime and gun murders this year.
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None of that has anything to do with the legal and lawful gun ownership,
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And this is what the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police was saying.
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Adam Palmer, who's the chief of police in Vancouver and the head of this organization, said as much.
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In every single case, there are already offenses, they're already breaking the law,
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and the criminal law in Canada addresses all of those circumstances.
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The firearms laws in Canada are actually very good right now.
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These are arguments that I've put forward myself on a number of occasions,
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but still the Liberal government refuses to accept that legal gun ownership is not the problem.
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Because if they say we're banning assault rifles, that sounds good.
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That sounds like they're saving the neighborhood.
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In actuality, they're doing nothing about the guns that are causing the problems,
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which are not guns that are purchased and owned under the legal infrastructure in Canada.
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And again, what Chief Palmer said is very accurate.
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That whenever these incidents happen, there are already offenses for it.
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The issue is not the police don't have anything to charge people with.
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The issue is that the existing laws are not being followed by segments of the population
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Nine times out of ten, perhaps even more, we're talking about gangs.
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We're talking about inner-city violence, not people that want to respect the law
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and adhere to the narrow, already confines of the gun control regime in Canada.
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Now, this isn't to say we should throw our hands up in the air and give up,
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but the issues are going to be a lot more about enforcement and activity
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where the crimes are taking place, rather than a wholesale national confiscation of guns,
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or even specific types of guns, like handguns, or what Bill Blair terms assault rifles,
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but are actually just semi-automatic rifles used for sport shooting, like the AR-15,
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The myths and misconceptions deployed by this government are just plain wrong,
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but they're also inconsistent with what the experts are saying.
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And Bill Blair would know that had he not crossed to the dark side of politics,
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which is why we never heard a push from him for anything like this
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because he would know that the problem is not what the law allows.
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The problem is what people are doing in spite of the law.
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We still do not have in Canada tracking of crime guns.
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We do not have a national registry of where the guns originated that are used in crimes.
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We know massive numbers are coming across the border.
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However, it's unsurprising when we share the longest unprotected border in the world
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with a country that has among the highest rate of gun ownership in the world.
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We still do a very good job at restricting and regulating firearms in Canada.
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The mainstream media is not standing up for gun ownership.
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This is why we're talking about these stories that the mainstream media isn't
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to keep the lights on through this important period in Canada.
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If you can chip in and support us with a few dollars or a few hundred dollars, please do.