Why handgun ban wouldn’t work

BY BRIAN LOCKHART

Few things depict events as they actually happen quite like actual video footage of an incident.

The call for a ban on handguns by some politicians just fell completely apart when a Toronto Police video that was recently released  showed exactly why a ban won't work. 

The politicians love to call for a ban on guns after they have a recent crime wave involving handguns.

It sounds good to stand in front of a microphone or television camera and say they want to remove guns from the street by ‘banning' them, as if telling people they can't have guns will suddenly have all the criminals throwing away their weapons and turning their lives around so they get real jobs and spend their weekend working in soup kitchens and volunteering at senior citizens' homes.

Did you ever notice every time a criminal is gunned down in the street, the family always say “he was turning his life around”?

In other words, he didn't turn his life around quite enough and was still involved in criminal activity. For the most part, gang members don't go around shooting people they don't know. They target criminal rivals.

The video released by Toronto Police shows a man who was arrested for suspected drunk driving sitting in the back of a police cruiser wearing a set of police bracelets. He reaches into his waistband and retrieves a pistol which he drops on the floor of the car in front of him. 

The video was rather alarming for several reasons. The most obvious danger was having an armed criminal in the back of a cruiser with a police officer in the driver's seat in front of him. 

Thankfully this guy decided not to choose the option of shooting his way out of a situation.

The Toronto Police are doing their own investigation to determine how a handgun was missed after a person was arrested and patted down.

That part of the story is police business. I'm pretty sure the cop who missed the weapon didn't feel too good when he realized he had an armed criminal in his car.

According to a police spokesperson, the suspect was given a ‘level 2' search, meaning a ‘cursory pat-down,' when he was arrested. This is totally understandable considering the guy was being arrested for a liquor offence, not a bank shoot-out. At that point they probably didn't know much about his past history.

So would a ban on handguns have prevented this incident?

No, it wouldn't. An investigation revealed the guy in the back of the cruiser toting a pistol had already received a court-imposed lifetime weapons ban after he was convicted of shooting up a car outside of a grocery store in 2005. He's 38 years old. Obviously he didn't learn a lesson from this.

He has now had nine more charges leveled against him, including eight gun-related charges. He also has several narcotic convictions on his record. This guy is no boy scout and if he's packing a pistol in his waistband as a matter of course, it's not because he needs to defend himself against the other guys down at the union hall.

Obviously this guy isn't bothered about rules or laws or the fact that the courts have already issued their own handgun ban specifically naming him as a person not allowed to have a weapon.

Police agencies are doing a good job of catching the criminals with illegal weapons. However, they are frustrated by a court system and judges who release multiple offenders back onto the street within hours of their arrest. 

This video shows the real problem with guns – specifically those that are illegally obtained. In the hands of lawless people who don't care about the rules of society and don't care if firing a weapon on a crowded street endangers the lives of innocent people, they wreak death and destruction.

There are millions of legal gun owners across the country. They are overwhelmingly law-abiding people who store their guns in locked cabinets as required, attach trigger guards as required, and use their guns where appropriate. Appropriate meaning in areas where hunting, target shooting, and in northern areas where protection from wildlife is allowed. 

If the politicians think banning guns in their city is a solution they should all take a look at this video and explain why a guy who is already banned from owning weapons ignored the ban.

If a criminal flagrantly disobeys a court order and gives the middle finger to the judge, the court and society, declaring a gun ban certainly won't cause him and his gang buddies to toss away their weapons. 

All a gun ban will do is penalize lawful gun owners while continuing to give carte blanche to street criminals who know they'll be back on the street before the ink is dry on the police arrest report.