The Police Board faithfully touts Mayor Miller's anti-firearms policy presenting it as a consensus. It is not in fact a view held by all. Many police from all agencies and ranks condemn the long gun registry as a waste of resources. They include the Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police and at least two police associations.
The Toronto Police Board laments a shortfall in resources but sympathy is hard to come by when they only offer more of a failed policy, to wit the registration of long guns. As for a handgun ban, this is really just a bit of feel good rhetoric. There are very few handguns registered to private individuals in the City of Toronto and these are already severely regulated. It would appear the Police Board needs a reality check. Bans have an unbroken history of failure wherever they have been tried to wit Prohibition, drugs, firearms, cigarettes. Bans fail whenever there is a demand. There will be no control of illegal firearms until the gangs that create the demand are suppressed. That is the historical fact that is denied at our peril.
The Police Board serves at the pleasure of Council and as such parrot the political line right or wrong. So far I am hearing the same old line with the same old lack of results and same old excuses.
Since when was more of a failed policy a reasonable solution? Justify your resource allocation through successful programs with measureable results.
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