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The next time you hear a politician speak about banning handguns, think about what he or she’s not saying.

Governments can only do so many things at once. Every day spent on ridiculous new restrictions for legal gun owners, is time not spent on measures that would actually reduce gun violence in Canada.

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By diverting resources away from changes that would save lives, politicians who advocate for gun bans are complicit in the crimes that continue to take lives every day.

This column is not about why gun bans won’t prevent a single shooting – or why more pointless paperwork for law-abiding gun owners won’t reduce gun violence. Instead, it’s about some of the many things government could do – if it actually wanted to – to save lives.

Here’s seven, just for starters.

Keep gun violence in perspective.In 2017, only about 0.2 per cent of deaths in Canada were homicides. Of those, less than half (40%) were committed with guns. More than half of those gun murders were gang-related. Overall, Canada’s murder rate has been declining since 1977.