Mayoral candidate Olivia Chow reiterated her support for a federal ban on handguns on Monday. Rival John Tory called the proposal an “empty gesture.”

Chow, who endorsed a handgun ban during an April chat on thestar.com , officially added the idea to her platform in an announcement at Ephraim’s Place, the North York community centre named for Ephraim Brown , the 11-year-old shot dead in 2007.

“There’s no reason why anyone needs a handgun in a big city like ours,” she said.

Former mayor David Miller and former premier Dalton McGuinty both urged the federal government to implement a ban. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has rejected their pleas, noting that handguns are already restricted by law to target shooters, collectors, and people who need them for their jobs or for the “protection of life.”

Tory said a ban would not be effective.

“Handguns are already strictly regulated by the federal government,” he said in a statement. “What Ms Chow doesn’t seem to understand is that criminals and gang members don’t obey the law. Calling for such a ban isn’t leadership. It’s an empty gesture.”

Tory said he would work with the federal and provincial governments on a “coordinated approach that gets real results and keeps illegal guns off our streets.” He did not offer specifics.

Council passed a bylaw under Miller that restricted the manufacturing of guns in the city and forced shooting ranges on city property to close. Chow did not issue any proposals for new municipal action.

She used the appearance near Jane St. and Sheppard Ave. W. to contrast herself with incumbent Rob Ford , who has not explained his relationships with alleged gang members accused of gun trafficking. Ford has opposed gun-control proposals — though he has tabled a kind of people-control proposal , calling for gun criminals themselves to be banished from the city.

Ford, who remains under criminal investigation, later accused Chow of “political grandstanding.” He said the police have sufficient resources to “clean up our streets.”

Chow also spoke of the value of after-school programs and the youth outreach workers Ford’s 2012 budget sought to cut . She called for expanding partnership programs that pair police with community workers and organizations. And she said she would join other mayors in lobbying the federal government to do more to stop the flow of illegal guns from the U.S.

“We need better gun control,” Chow said, flanked by children from the Toronto City Mission's Sonshine day camp. “We have a mayor that for the last four years justified the use of guns. He opposed the long-gun registry. What I want to do is work with big-city mayors to tighten control so there’s no illegal guns coming from the States. And we need a ban on handguns.”

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Candidate David Soknacki said in April that he has seen no evidence that handgun bans are effective. He pointed to violence-plagued Chicago, which had a municipal ban on the possession and sale of handguns for 28 years.

Candidate Karen Stintz said the issue is moot, since council made a formal request for a handgun ban in 2008.

Correction - July 17, 2014: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the children flanking Olivia Chow were from Ephraim's Place day camp.

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