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From yahoo.com newsheadlines quicklines @ 4:11pm
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Toronto gripped by US gun violence
Fri Nov 11,10:06 AM ET
TORONTO, Canada (AFP) - Residents of Canada's biggest city are living in fear of increasing gun violence and blame their neighbour, the United States, for exporting their gun culture and weapons north, officials told AFP.
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Area police reported hundreds of shootings this year, including 46 homicides. Some 1,782 guns were seized, including a cache of illegal weapons confiscated from a local online retailer this week -- Canada's first such bust that included a bullet-proof baseball cap and a military gas mask.
On Wednesday, as Prime Minster Paul Martin unveiled new initiatives to curb gun violence, three men were shot in the Toronto area, including an 18-year-old student outside his high school, prompting a temporary lockdown of a dozen area schools. One victim died in hospital.
"By and large, Canadians are pacifists. We're not gunslingers. This violence is a real departure for us," said police Superintendent Roy Pilkington of 31 Division, the city's most hardened neighborhood. "It's made a lot of people apprehensive about moving around the city."
The north Toronto district, where the superintended grew up, logged six homicides and 36 injuries in 77 reported shootings since January, including a young girl shot in the head and wounded after gunmen opened fire on a crowded bus. Despite 35 witnesses, the case remains unsolved.
"There is fear of retaliation if they speak to police in some sectors of the community," Pilkington said, blaming mostly gangs, some with international links, fighting over turf and drug sales and using guns imported from the United States, for the violence.
In its August edition, weekly Canadian magazine Maclean's noted that gang murders had tripled since the early 1990s in this country, in contrast to an overall drop in violence. The magazine blamed the rise in part on illegal arms from the neighboring United States.
In the past five years, Canadian authorities seized 5,400 weapons, mostly handguns. According to Maclean's, this represented a mere fraction of the guns that enter Canada from the United States.
"It's totally unacceptable. We don't want that kind of violence in our city," Toronto Mayor David Miller told AFP, echoing local residents who expressed concerns that America's gun culture is creeping north across the Canada-US border.
Last month, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew pressed US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice to take action to stop the flow of guns north into Canada.
Martin said Wednesday that battling the unprecedented wave of deadly shootings in Canada's largest city also means working with disaffected youth.
"We've got to come to grips with the problem of exclusion," he said.
Martin offered to spend 50 million dollars (42 million USD) to combat the sudden epidemic of violent crimes and gangs, as well as other "social investments aimed at reducing crime at its source."
"Violence and gangsterism have no place in our society," he said during a visit to a deprived Toronto neighborhood with the city mayor, blocks from where five police officers were fired upon in August.
Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said Thursday he would table legislation to amend Canada's Criminal Code to raise minimum sentences for crimes committed with a firearm.
This drew mixed reactions. Some even questioned the timing of the government's announcements, noting the worst took place in July and August, but a federal election looms now.
Pilkington said the violence was beginning to slow as winter approached, but he welcomed the latest initiatives.
"I hope it won't get worse before it gets better. Next summer will tell if we've made gains," he said.
"It's not a problem police and politicians can solve alone," he added.
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Toronto gripped by US gun violence
Fri Nov 11,10:06 AM ET
TORONTO, Canada (AFP) - Residents of Canada's biggest city are living in fear of increasing gun violence and blame their neighbour, the United States, for exporting their gun culture and weapons north, officials told AFP.
ADVERTISEMENT
Area police reported hundreds of shootings this year, including 46 homicides. Some 1,782 guns were seized, including a cache of illegal weapons confiscated from a local online retailer this week -- Canada's first such bust that included a bullet-proof baseball cap and a military gas mask.
On Wednesday, as Prime Minster Paul Martin unveiled new initiatives to curb gun violence, three men were shot in the Toronto area, including an 18-year-old student outside his high school, prompting a temporary lockdown of a dozen area schools. One victim died in hospital.
"By and large, Canadians are pacifists. We're not gunslingers. This violence is a real departure for us," said police Superintendent Roy Pilkington of 31 Division, the city's most hardened neighborhood. "It's made a lot of people apprehensive about moving around the city."
The north Toronto district, where the superintended grew up, logged six homicides and 36 injuries in 77 reported shootings since January, including a young girl shot in the head and wounded after gunmen opened fire on a crowded bus. Despite 35 witnesses, the case remains unsolved.
"There is fear of retaliation if they speak to police in some sectors of the community," Pilkington said, blaming mostly gangs, some with international links, fighting over turf and drug sales and using guns imported from the United States, for the violence.
In its August edition, weekly Canadian magazine Maclean's noted that gang murders had tripled since the early 1990s in this country, in contrast to an overall drop in violence. The magazine blamed the rise in part on illegal arms from the neighboring United States.
In the past five years, Canadian authorities seized 5,400 weapons, mostly handguns. According to Maclean's, this represented a mere fraction of the guns that enter Canada from the United States.
"It's totally unacceptable. We don't want that kind of violence in our city," Toronto Mayor David Miller told AFP, echoing local residents who expressed concerns that America's gun culture is creeping north across the Canada-US border.
Last month, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew pressed US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice to take action to stop the flow of guns north into Canada.
Martin said Wednesday that battling the unprecedented wave of deadly shootings in Canada's largest city also means working with disaffected youth.
"We've got to come to grips with the problem of exclusion," he said.
Martin offered to spend 50 million dollars (42 million USD) to combat the sudden epidemic of violent crimes and gangs, as well as other "social investments aimed at reducing crime at its source."
"Violence and gangsterism have no place in our society," he said during a visit to a deprived Toronto neighborhood with the city mayor, blocks from where five police officers were fired upon in August.
Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said Thursday he would table legislation to amend Canada's Criminal Code to raise minimum sentences for crimes committed with a firearm.
This drew mixed reactions. Some even questioned the timing of the government's announcements, noting the worst took place in July and August, but a federal election looms now.
Pilkington said the violence was beginning to slow as winter approached, but he welcomed the latest initiatives.
"I hope it won't get worse before it gets better. Next summer will tell if we've made gains," he said.
"It's not a problem police and politicians can solve alone," he added.