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Toronto’s gun culture? I wish. If Toronto had a gun culture, it would be way better off.

I’m referring, of course, to Wednesday’s heated debate at city council on two firearms-related issues. Council voted to give the Sportsman’s Show an exemption from a city policy that forbids the promotion of guns on city property, so it could hold its annual event, which includes the display of hunting guns, in city-owned Exhibition Place.

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Council also agreed to pressure the federal government to preserve the records of the now-scrapped long-gun registry. (This just in from Ottawa: Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t seem to care what Toronto council thinks.)

[np-related]

It was the first motion, however, that caught my interest. Councillor Gord Perks slammed the notion of giving the Sportsman’s Show an exemption.

“We took a position as a city council that the promotion of guns, the sale of guns and the display of guns in our city reinforces and builds the culture of guns in our city,” the councillor said.