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Is it time to ban the handgun?

In the wake of Sunday's downtown Toronto shooting, city council voted to ban handgun sales in the city. Should the rest of Canada follow suit? How far should government go?
CBC Radio ·
A woman walks by a makeshift memorial on Danforth Ave. where people are adding flowers and messages to honour and remember the victims of the July 24 mass shooting in Toronto. (Cole Burston/Getty Images)

Gun control

by Duncan McCue

I took a walk down Danforth Avenue this week and it didn't seem like the Canada we imagine.

What were once welcoming restaurants on a busy Toronto street are now makeshift memorials spilling over with flowers, candles and messages of mourning. 

Last Sunday, a man with a handgun robbed two young people of their lives, left thirteen others injured and awoke the entire city to the kind of violence less privileged communities experience all too often.

Toronto's surge in shootings and bloodshed this summer has gotten a lot of headlines, but mayors and police chiefs in other cities — Surrey, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Ottawa — have also spoken out about their struggles with rising gun violence. 

For good reason.

Crime rates are on the decline in Canada but firearms ownership and offences have spiked in the past few years.

Carrying a handgun is already illegal and so is possessing one without a license.

So, how do we end gun violence?

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