LILLEY: Shootings up but Trudeau Liberals look to the wrong solution – Toronto Sun

The numbers are staggering, 484 shootings in Toronto last year with 764 victims.

Compare that to 2014, just five years earlier, when there were 175 shootings and 237 victims. Or compare it to Torontos infamous Year of the Gun in 2005 where there were just 262 shootings and 367 victims.

The number of victims has gone up every year since 2014, now there are more than three times as many victims as half a decade ago. The number of shootings has gone up every year but 2017 when it took a bit of a dip but overall, shootings in 2019 are sitting at almost triple the rate of 2014.

Toronto isnt alone in dealing with this problem.

In this file photo taken on July 10, 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses a joint press conference with his Latvian counterpart following their meeting in Riga, Latvia.ILMARS ZNOTINS / AFP/Getty Images

Shootings are up in Calgary with 83 by the end of November compared to 47 the year before and still well above their multi-year average of 71 shootings. In Ottawa, there was a slight decrease after years of increases and the nations capital is still well above where they were in 2014.

Its a function of an increased drug trade due to fentanyl, mostly smuggled in from China, being protected by guns snuck in from the United States.

As members of the street gangs are protecting their environment for the distribution piece of that drug activity, this is where it comes, this is where there is the big game-changer, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said in a year-end news conference on Dec. 19.

The chief says that there is no one act that can or will solve the problem in his city but that there needs to be a multifaceted approach. Still he acknowledged that the problem is driven by gangs selling narcotics while using illegal guns.

I believe 82%, give or take, of the crime guns in the city are coming from the United States, Saunders said.

So, if the reasons driving this are drugs from China and guns from the United States, both of which are illegal, why is the Trudeau government trying to solve the problem by banning rifles used in hunting and target shooting?

Mostly because it is easier than dealing with the problem of stopping guns at the border.

There are new sophisticated ways that guns come into the city, Saunders said when asked about methods of gun smuggling such as attaching guns to the bottom of cars. He wouldnt elaborate but tales of cross-border shoppers being used by organized crime to unwittingly smuggle guns across the border abound.

A car is targeted at a cross-border shopping centre, guns and a tracking device are attached to the car and after the shopper returns home, the guns are retrieved.

Stopping that is part of the problem. Instead, the Trudeau government is about to spend twice as much, $600 million, to buy back guns, as they plan on spending over five years to fight guns and gangs in our cities and towns $327 million.

The feds have earmarked only $86 million over five years for the border.

Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld told the Calgary Herald that the federal governments actions dont match with what his city is dealing with.

I guess the issue that will have to be reconciled is that with the shootings were having in Calgary, theyre not being perpetrated by lawful, law-abiding handgun owners, Neufeld said.

The Trudeau Liberals are even promising to allow municipalities to ban handguns despite refusing to release any data that suggests banning licenced firearms would reduce shootings by gangsters with illegal weapons.

The battle over guns promises to be one of the big political stories of 2020. Lets hope that the Trudeau government starts to live up to their claim of the first term that they are evidence-based policymakers.

If so, they will abandon their gun buyback and handgun ban ideas and start focusing on actually reducing gun crime at the source.

In 2017, the federal Liberal government announced a five-year plan to fight guns and gangs across Canada. Of that money, $214 million was to be made available to the provinces.

On the border specifically, the government said: $86 million is provided to the CBSA and RCMP to help prevent illegal firearms and concealed goods from coming into the country illegally, while providing necessary resources for firearms investigations.

In September 2019, the Liberals made an election promise saying a re-elected Trudeau government would move fast on banning all military-style assault rifles, including the AR-15.

The promise included a proposal to buy back up to 250,000 rifles from licenced gun owners at a cost of $600 million. Despite being used in several mass shootings in the United States, there is no history of that rifle being used as a crime gun in Canada.

Continued here:

LILLEY: Shootings up but Trudeau Liberals look to the wrong solution - Toronto Sun