WE'RE ALL AT RISK WHEN RIVAL GANGS GO TO WAR

Given the brazen, broad-daylight shooting of Red Scorpion leader
Jonathan Bacon and others right outside a popular Kelowna hotel, we
need to get real about the gang problem we have in this province.

It isn't going away. And it involves merciless punks who think nothing
about spraying bullets around indiscriminately while going about their
dirty business -- not caring about killing/wounding innocent people
along with their targeted hits.

So we're truly surprised to learn from the Kelowna Mounties that,
according to Const. Steve Holmes, "police believe that the general
public is not at risk."

So the public is not at risk? Well, tell that to Eileen Mohan, mother
of Chris Mohan, one the innocent victims of the socalled Surrey Six
gangland shooting in Whalley in 2007. Or tell that to the family of
innocent bystander Ed Schellenberg.

We have to stop sugar-coating this. We have a mini-war on our hands.
And it's no use pretending it doesn't involve regular citizens who
actually work for a living and pay taxes.

We're not only in the firing line in a world where gangbangers are
armed with automatic or semi-automatic weapons. We're also on the hook
for all the health expenses, the police and court time and all the
other costs they cause.

We're also involved if we buy the marijuana, cocaine or other drugs
that fuel the illegal drug trade they control.

Yes, we must all get real about this, and stop pretending this
violence is occurring in some far-off land. It's here in our own
backyard. And we must deal with it in the toughest, speediest way
possible, with all-night court sittings if need be.

Above all, we need to stop glamorizing the gang life and glossing over
its obvious shortcomings.

The fact is it is nasty, brutish . . . and often short. And it
corrupts us all.