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Almost exactly a year ago, several months after the first article, The Canadian Press interviewed a different Toronto cop who confirmed that handguns used in crime in Toronto, and that can be traced, are still mostly traced back to the U.S. In a year-end press conference on Friday, Toronto police chief Mark Saunders confirmed that remains true, with updated figures — a whopping 82 per cent of traceable guns used by criminals in Toronto have been smuggled in from the U.S.

But the focus on legal guns continues. That might have made sense if it really was a 50-50 split. But it’s not, and never was or has been. The evidence continues to be that the recent spike of gang-related shootings in our major cities is being sustained by guns from the U.S., but the Liberals want to spend hundreds of millions buying back rifles (including tens of thousands of mundane hunting rifles) and further restricting legal handgun ownership.

The progressive dislike of handguns and certain kinds of rifles in Canada isn’t a public policy issue. It’s an ideological preference. Millions of Canadians do not understand how tight our laws already are, how they could be reasonably improved, have no interest in shooting sports and cannot fathom why anyone would feel differently. They’d rather live in a country with fewer guns. For a brief moment last year, there was a news story that gave their cause ammunition, but even when that story was completely debunked, the focus on legal guns remained. This isn’t about gun control. It’s dislike for guns and gun owners.

That’s fine. We’re all entitled to our views. But it’s important we be honest. The changes the Liberals will soon bring down will cost hundreds of millions of tax dollars, anger and inconvenience thousands of citizens and devastate a thriving sports shooting industry, but won’t stop the shootings in our cities, or, Canadian data suggests, reduce suicides. It’ll just disarm law-abiding, non-violent Canadians. That’s the goal. It always has been.

National Post



magurney@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/MattGurney