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In the wake of the random shootings along Toronto’s Danforth Avenue on the evening of July 22, Toronto city council voted 41-4 to ask Ottawa to permit council to ban handgun and ammo sales within Toronto city limits.

It would be hard to think of a more useless action.

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Even if most handguns used in Toronto shootings were legally acquired here in Canada (they are not), a handgun ban in one municipality wouldn’t prevent guns from entering that community so long as the suburb or county next door did not have a similar ban.

How would a ban on sales in Toronto keep the city’s criminals from driving out to Vaughan or Peel or Whitby and returning with a gun?

The Toronto motion is more about appearing to do something than it is about actually doing something, but that might appeal to the Trudeau government which is usually more about feel-good than do-good.

Actually doing something to combat gun crime would mean standing up to individual criminals and gangs. But individual criminals and gangs can be dangerous people who fight back. Much easier to harass legitimate gun owners who typically capitulate without a firefight.