To deal with gun violence, take aim at poverty

In the wake of the brazen shooting at the Eaton Centre earlier this month — leaving two dead, several injured and a city badly shaken — politicians and pundits have started pushing various quick fixes for gun violence in Toronto. Citing statistics showing an increase in shooting incidents year-over-year, too many are quick to draw parallels to the ‘summer of the gun’ in 2005.

It’s led to a lot of reactionary melodrama.

On one side, you have calls for more tough-on-crime legislation with harsher penalties for violent crimes, including mandatory sentences.

The federal government is a big fan of this kind of thing. But as a violence-prevention strategy it comes up short: people engaged in crime aren’t weighing the potential legal penalties in their heads when they reach for the gun in their pocket.

By that point, it’s already too late.

And so there’s the other argument, which says we should focus on reducing the number of guns on our streets, getting them out of the hands of would-be shooters.

Coun. Adam Vaughan made headlines last week with a push in that direction.

He wants to look at banning the sale of bullets.

Vaughan’s argument didn’t go over well.

Mayor Rob Ford immediately opposed the idea, noting concern that a ban would inconvenience the city’s nebulous population of hunters.

Other councillors more sensibly pointed out that most of the guns and bullets used in crime are obtained illegally anyway, smuggled in across the border.

The truth is that both of these slapdash responses are off target.

Yes, we need to ensure that our court system is providing fair sentences that balance justice with public safety. And it’s also true that there would be some value in looking at the city’s — if not the country’s — current regulations on gun ownership and purchasing.

But politicians can’t focus only on hasty regulations and laws when one of the major drivers of violent crime is staring them in the face.

Torontonians have got to wake up to their city’s poverty problem.

New statistics from Social Planning Toronto report that nearly one-in-four of us live in poverty.

In areas most afflicted by gangs, guns, drugs and violent crime, that number is even higher: 37 per cent in the ward around Jane and Finch, 40 per cent near Regent Park.

The figures are mind-blowing.

And the correlation between high poverty areas and violence is impossible to ignore.

This city can talk endlessly about sentencing guidelines, policing, anti-gang strategies, gun control and other measures, but the conversation is incomplete if no one’s looking at the root issues: things like housing, education and unemployment.

If we really we want to get serious about addressing gun violence, then it’s way past time for Toronto to finally take aim at poverty.