I respond to an ill-informed Gateway article

In the January 10th issue of the Gateway (University of Alberta student newspaper) the below article was published in the Opinion section. I felt the "columnist" was ill-informed and decided to respond. My response follows the original article.

Handgun rhetoric may decide the election
Mike Larocque
If You managed to pry yourself away from the cycle of sleeping and eating that more than likely enveloped your Christmas break, you would likely notice the Canadian news media focused on two issues: elections and guns. In the past year, incidents of gun-related violence—and deaths—have skyrocketed. Thirteen of Edmonton’s 37 murders in 2005 were caused by guns, and in Toronto—the location of a highly publicized Boxing Day shooting of a 15-year-old girl—shooting deaths have jumped from 27 in 2004 to a record 52 lives lost last year. Considering that that number was under 15 only ten years ago, the statistics are startling. With the rash of gun violence coming to a climax in the middle of a federal election campaign, it comes as little surprise that the issue has become the focus of talking points and a subject of campaign promises across the political board. None of the parties can ignore it, but no one seems quite sure what to do about it, either. The only thing they do seem to know is that if they’re not talking about it, they’re falling behind. The Liberals, reaffirming an earlier campaign promise, vowed to make handguns illegal in Canada. The Tories, on the other hand, claimed that they would crack down on illegal handguns being brought across the border from the United States. The NDP championed improved social programs as the solution to the problem. None of them are right, but then, none of them are wrong, either. This situation is unfortunately a glowing example of the state of Canadian politics. Even with two solid years of focus on the Liberals and AdScam, the Tories have only managed to bring themselves neck and neck with the Grits, an unimpressive feat given that the Liberals has been pretty much on the defensive since 2004. The reason for this is that this election has been about who you shouldn’t vote for, rather than who would actually serve Canada best. And, once you’ve pandered to the segment of the public who are basing their vote on the corruption of the Liberals, it comes down to the issues, even if no one is really addressing them. None of the proposed solutions to Canadian gun violence is really a solution. Guns will still come over the border even if they’re made illegal in Canada, and tighter borders won’t help if firearm laws in this country aren’t tightened. When it comes down to it, people don’t care about money and scandal and corruption. Those things get them mad, but to most, it’s just business as usual. A teen girl getting killed on a street while shopping, however, is what will make people want to vote for a party, whether or not their “solution” is really any sort of solution at all. What this election needs is substance over smear. A few ideas that focus on fixing the problem, rather than appealing to a party’s base, is what will both win the election and save lives.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My Response
In his January 10th article “Handgun rhetoric may decide the election” Mike Larocque states, “…no one (political parties) seems quite sure what to do about it (the rash of gun violence in our cities particularly Toronto…)” Fact is, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) does know what to do about gun violence. The CPC has laid out a four-part plan to deal with the problem. First, preventing gun violence in the first place by reinvesting $50 million (over five years) in crime prevention and community programs that assist at risk youth. Second, stopping the flow of guns coming into Canada from the US by providing our customs agents with the support and equipment they need to stem the flow of these weapons. Third, hiring a minimum of 3500 police and RCMP officers across the country. And finally, if individuals make the choice to exclude themselves from society by carrying a weapon on Canadian streets the CPC will remove them from society by introducing mandatory sentencing for major firearms offences. This means that if you are caught on Whyte Avenue with a loaded, prohibited weapon, such as a handgun, you will go to prison for a minimum of five years. If you murder someone with that prohibited weapon, the sentence doubles to a minimum of ten years in prison. By contrast the Liberals have proposed a phony ban on handguns by outlawing guns that are already effectively banned. Some handguns used in crimes are stolen from people who do own those handguns legally for the purpose of target shooting or collection. So the rationale for the handgun ban is to confiscate these legally owned firearms so they cannot be stolen. This is akin to holding the owner of a stolen vehicle partially responsible for any crime committed where the vehicle was used. The ban will cause no weapons shortage in Canada, as the Liberals have refused to crack down on weapons smuggled in from the US. On gun violence Larocque says that neither party is right, nor is it wrong, but while the Liberals prefer a phony handgun ban to solve the problem, the CPC has a concrete plan to deal with urban gun violence.

Scott A. Penny
Engineering III