CALL FOR BAN ON HANDGUNS MET WITH SHOOTINGS

More Gangs Feared; 'There Seems to Be an Acceptance Of
Violence'

TORONTO - Less than 48 hours after Toronto Mayor David Miller launched
a push to have handguns banned by the federal government, the city
recorded three more shootings.

Elsewhere this past week, Calgary police were appealing for tips
following two shootings that injured two young men. Neither shooting
was a random act, said Calgary police, who summed up the gunplay as
just the latest example of the "blatant disregard gang members have
for innocent members of the community who could have been hit by
errant bullets."

Michael Chettleburgh, author of Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous
World of Canadian
Street Gangs, warns of a rise in the number of young people joining
gangs and says the
increasing gunplay on Canadian streets is a symptom of a burgeoning drug trade.

"Where there are guns and gangs there are drugs," Mr. Chettleburgh
said. "A lot of the violence you see right now across the country, and
it is different in different cities, is driven by gang rivalry
associated with protection of markets."

Mr. Chettleburgh researched and wrote the 2002 Canadian Police Survey
on Youth Gangs for the federal government and will release the results
of a new survey this year.

In Winnipeg last month, a 15-year-old street gang member was one of
three charged in a triple murder after masked shooters opened fire at
a house party.

The shootings, a police source told the Winnipeg Free Press, were a
result of increasing hostilities between the Central -- a
youth-oriented street gang--and Indian Posse gangs.

Edmonton has logged a series of gang-related shootings since January,
including several incidents where shots were fired into houses.

And Vancouver has seen 14 gang-related homicides since January,
according to police.

Last year, several highly public "gangland style" shootings at
restaurants, along with the deaths of two innocent bystanders during a
targeted drug-related hit at a Surrey apartment, spurred police to
create a multi-jurisdictional gang unit.

Only six months old, the Uniform Gang Task Force -- made up of 60
officers from Vancouver and surrounding municipalities along with the
RCMP -- is in the process of becoming permanent, says Vancouver police
Inspector Dean Robinson.

The head of the integrated unit says police have laid "loads of
charges" and seized three submachine guns among other weapons as the
high-profile squad tries to move gang violence out of the "public domain."

While there has no doubt been an increase in the prevalence of guns,
it is the type of firearms and their use "at the drop of a hat" that
worries Insp. Robinson most.

"We've gone from seeing fairly unsophisticated revolvers, to
semi-automatic pistols to hunting rifles sawed off, to machine guns
and military-grade assault rifles," he said.

Toronto Deputy Police Chief Tony Warr said the propensity for violence
has reached down from major drug dealers to minor drug traffickers who
carry guns because they are afraid of getting ripped off or shot by
their competition.

"Where in the past it would have been a fist fight, now it is a
gunfight over the same minor issues," he said. "There seems to be an
acceptance of violence more generally by the community and it is
reflected in the way kids are acting in school, what we see on
television and by these gangs where, if they have a problem, they
shoot a person."

In 2006, 8,100 people across the country were victims of violent gun
crimes including robbery, assault and homicide, according to
Statistics Canada.

Although the number of violent gun crimes in Canada has not risen in
recent years, the number of young people using guns in violent crimes
has risen in three of the previous four years. That rate has gone up
32% since 2002, according to Statistics Canada.

Mr. Chettleburgh estimates there are between 11,000 to 14,000 gang
members under the age of 21 across the country, up from 7,000 in the
2002 Police Survey on Youth Gangs.

Part of the spike is due to a growth in young people joining gangs,
Mr. Chettleburgh said, but it is also due to better police
intelligence as a result of more money and resources being dedicated
to gang units in the wake of high-profile gun violence in recent years.

In Toronto, Mayor Miller acknowledges a Canada-wide handgun ban isn't
a panacea, but says it is the "the next step" in helping to reduce the
number of victims of violent gun crimes. Mr. Miller plans to
personally deliver the petition to Parliament Hill in June. So far, it
has 20,000 signatures.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has called Mr. Miller's campaign
well-intentioned, but says handguns are already subject to a ban for
all but a few licensed owners and collectors.

Instead, he argues for more police and tougher mandatory jail time for
serious gun crimes, particularly those that involve gangs and criminal
organization.