So gun violence has been in the news, a bunch of people were shot while we were away and Mayor Tory immediately reiterated his call for a handgun ban which I thought immediately was stupid because Toronto Police chief Sanders said the shootings were gang related, do we expect gang members to forfeit their guns?  Anyway I do have a bit of hope because of this response by the police chief.

“We are not going to arrest our way out of this,” Saunders told reporters at police headquarters Friday morning, calling for a “multi-faceted” approach to addressing gun violence in his second news conference about the surge in violence in the past week.

He said of the recent shootings, they “by and large have street gang connotations to them or are street gang related.” He said that doesn’t mean at times innocent people are not impacted and acknowledged it has been traumatic for those people.

There have been 19 incidents since Aug. 3, including a daytime shooting in East York on Friday that killed one man and injured another person.

Saunders said the shootings are a reality for many communities and are primarily located in areas that form a “U” shape of neighbourhoods in the city — parts of northwest Toronto, downtown, and Scarborough — that are stuck in a cycle of poverty and where people lack access to opportunities for education and jobs.

Source: Toronto Star

I don’t like Chief Sanders because I think he’s too much of a politician but he’s right here, if we truly want to deal with the issue of gun violence we need to look at and deal with all the factors that lead to someone picking up a gun in the first place.  This is a start, I’m glad that the police chief is saying the right things and hopefully other politicians follow suit with action rather than just words.

Throwing money at more policing will not solve this problem but at least our leaders are starting to get the right idea.