There is no reason to believe Liberals would pay at the polls in next year’s federal election if they take plans for a national ban on handguns and assault weapons to the people.

But if the plan is to send Bill Blair out on a consulting tour, a charade to give the impression of action without a definitive commitment, further damage will be done to these perpetually listening Liberals. And the damage would extend to Blair, the minister of border security and organized crime reduction.

Although politics can often mean sublimating principles in a bid to be the good team player and follow the mandated strategy, treading the political waters would be a poor fit for the former Toronto police chief.

His years as the top cop in Canada’s largest city get mixed reviews with carding, police budgeting and the G20 fiasco weighing down much of his legacy.

But he earns high-profile praise when it comes to his commitment to cutting gun crime and his understanding of the desperation and alienation at play leading to gang membership.

You won’t hear Blair utter the words “long gun registry’’ but he was a strong advocate of the former Liberal government’s registry and he backed a previous call for a handgun ban by former Toronto mayor David Miller.

He can listen, but Blair already knows the answers.

The government can start by plainly stating that a ban is not a magic solution, that it cannot pertain only to cities and that results will take years to become clear. It must push back against those who say this is too late.

Blair knows all this as well.

“Blair is probably the best person in the cabinet to take this on,” says Alok Mukherjee, who worked — and occasionally clashed — with Blair during a decade as chair of the Toronto Police Services Board.

Wendy Cukier, the long-time gun control advocate, has also worked with Blair for years, calling him “tough … strong, with a commitment to the importance of prevention and a comprehensive approach to this issue.’’

But anyone who has watched the chequered history of gun control in this country knows a study can buy time until other issues fill the news void. The pro-gun lobby is organized and effective while the majority of voters who would back a ban do not take to the streets.

For a government seeking to recapture its progressive bona fides following a term in which the symbolic has won over substance, a handgun ban can be sold as bold, even if it actually isn’t.

There can be no rural-urban divide over handguns. There is no daylight between downtown Toronto and rural Saskatchewan when it comes to the carnage that comes from gun proliferation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced the question head on during a recent stop in Kapuskasing, a riding where a ban would conjure memories of the former registry.

“There’s been a lot of politics played around guns in this country by all parties, including mine,” Trudeau said.

“Canadians are actually united on one thing. Nobody wants innocent people to be victims of gun crime. Nobody wants gun violence to be a fact of life in our cities, in our communities, urban or rural, right across the country.’’

The balance, as always, Trudeau noted, is to protect citizens while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Blair has said the government would study the gun control experience in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Both are islands, neither share a border with the most heavily-armed country in the world, so comparisons are imperfect. But even in these countries, results are more nuanced than stark.

Australia moved following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, in which 35 people were killed, banning assault rifles and most semiautomatic rifles and shotguns and buying back and destroying up to a million firearms.

Ultimately, gun crime dropped precipitously but there has been backsliding by every Australian jurisdiction that moved dramatically 22 years ago, according to one recent study in that country.

The UK acted after a 43-year-old man using legally owned handguns killed 16 children and a teacher in the Scottish Dunblane massacre of 1996.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Initially there was little impact on gun crime statistics. Gun-related offences have been rising in England and Wales over the past four years, but still there are about half as many as the early 2000s.

There are more than a million restricted and prohibited firearms in this country. This will be a long slog and progress will be slow. But it’s a start.

And Blair already knows that, too.

Tim Harper is a former Star reporter who is a current freelance columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @nutgraf1

Read more about: