Ban not enough to end gun violence

Ban not enough to end gun violence

Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post Published: Tuesday, April 08, 2008

In inviting speakers to the city's executive committee to back his call for a handgun ban, Mayor David Miller yesterday uncorked a flood of emotion in Committee Room One. This committee is the Mayor's salon, where one can speak personally to him (albeit on a tightly controlled agenda; he had security guards throw out a man protesting a lack of shelter beds).

It was a cathartic morning, like a therapy session for locals rattled by the spray of gunfire that has claimed so many lives in town in the past few years. It was also a shock: the range of speakers make it impossible to file "gun violence" as something that happens to someone else in a bad part of town.

"I knew John O'Keefe for 20 years," said Andrea Aster. "He was my first boyfriend. He was brilliant and huge and beautiful. Think of the person you love most, and imagine they are shot dead on your safe streets."

Mr. O'Keefe, 42, died Jan. 12, shot by a stray bullet on Yonge Street after leaving the Duke of Glouchester pub. Edward Paredes, registered owner of a Baby Desert Eagle 9mm recovered at the scene, and Awet Zekarias are in jail, charged with first-degree murder.

Yesterday a dozen friends of Mr. O'Keefe held the packed room at rapt attention for more than an hour, describing the man a handgun felled. Mr. O'Keefe left behind a nine-year-old son, Iain O'Keefe-Kaufman, who lives with his mother.

Sean Daly, a friend, said, "I love you, Jennifer [his wife] loves you, we all love you, it shouldn't have happened this way."

Audette Shephard, who works in the global transaction banking division at Scotia-bank's head office, stood in her banker's suit, fronting six women from United Mothers Opposed to Violence Everywhere. Each lost a son to gunfire in Toronto; Ms. Shephard's son Justin Shephard died June 23, 2001, on the Rosedale footbridge. No one has been charged.

"The Canadian Charter allows us the right to walk around without being shot to death," she told the committee.

The best speech came from Abdi Warsame, 39, a spokesman for the family of Abdikarin Abdikarin, the 18-year old whose shooting death last month in Lawrence Heights was caught by a security camera.

"In Mogadishu, my beautiful city, guns are just like toys, and I don't want Toronto to become like that," he said, tears streaming down his cheek.

The call to ban guns united all races yesterday, and it was refreshing to see council working together, too: Councillor Michael Walker, a frequent critic of the Mayor, brought the gun-ban motion to the committee, and the Mayor supported him yesterday. But banning guns is hardly going to rid our town of violence, and council is ultra vires anyway in this field of federal jurisdiction.

Some speakers suggested municipal leaders should better spend their time on solutions in their control. Mothers said cuts to after-school programs in poor neighbourhoods lead kids to gangs. Mary Almeida, who raised her son in social housing near Christie and Dupont streets, added outside the meeting, "They just cut off all the programs that they had for little kids."

In one telling moment, Councillor Howard Moscoe quizzed David Mitchell, who grew up in social housing and now chairs the board of the Toronto Community Housing Corp., which owns 58,000 homes.

"Should the presence of a gun in a household be grounds for eviction?" Mr. Moscoe asked.

"What we'd be doing then is further exacerbating the situation," Mr. Mitchell replied.

The committee then passed a motion calling on Ottawa to ban handguns. Everyone felt better. A true solution to gun violence may take more work.

pkuitenbrouwer@nationalpost.com