[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Envitro

This whole issue is such a non-issue (when it comes to legally owned/posessed) handguns and firearms overall.

You're not recognizing that almost all guns are born legal then become illegal at a later date. A legal gun can become an illegal firearm at a later date regardless of the behaviors of the manufacturer/owner between purchase and activity that makes it illegal.

The stats are clear. A PAL/RPAL holder is 3-4 times safer and less likely to commit any crime than the average everyday Canadian. Taking away their sporting equipment is literally a solution in search of a problem.

This is a stat is specious because most weapon owners are from rural locations and rural areas traditionally have dramatically lower crime rates. The existence of a gun really is irrelevant because those rural residents already have extremely low crime rates.

If you want to solve the problem of daily shootings in the GTA or GVA, then work on gang supression, social programs to divert at-risk youth, tackle the opiod/addiction crisis, and fix our revolving door legal system for repeat offenders, especially ones with firearms prohibition orders (which is a massive joke to begin with).

It's both. You can do this by these social programs, but that then blends into the philosophy of defund the police. You can also do this by enforcing stronger security requirements on gun owners so it limits the outcomes of activities that happen where a weapon then becomes illegal. There's a mix there. This is a complex problem and it requires complex solutions.

Talk to police officers, they'll tell you what needs to be fixed. Oh hell, the police chiefs and police association reps are giving testimony on bill C-21 in committee and are all saying the same thing (i.e. this won't fix anything, and you're going after the wrong people). BUT, as usual, this government doesn't care if they fix the issue, as long as they plant a political landmine at their opponents feet.

I would have the police in the discussion, but I would not reference the as an authority in any shape or form. All due respect to you and the brotherhood Envitro, but police officers are all over the roadmap on this issue and it varies from what is happening in their specific community. Cops are traditionally some of the most conservative people in the land and will gravitate to the side of more guns. They stay there until there is an officer involved shooting where a cop dies, then they scream about getting the weapons out of the hands of the criminals, not differentiating that many of the criminals are not criminals until they commit their first crime, like shooting a cop. Cops are reactive and emotional for the most part, with a proclivity to authoritarianism. So maybe not the best source of authority for gun related matters.

Ironically, Chiefs of Police lean more left on this issue. They are more often to support greater controls on guns, but they rarely agree on where and how those controls should be implemented. Of course the top cops are more political in their commentary and where they land, so it could be they just like to head toward the middle for greater community support.

If we want to address this matter we need to bring constituents from all walks of life to the table and try to find common sense approaches to identifying weapons for sale, the purchase process which should include extensive background checks, and then rigid requirements for securing weapons. We can best prevent legal weapons from becoming illegal weapons by imposing proper security and handing requirements.