Politicians Will Not Face Reality

Turning murder into politics
By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD

Quote:
At least McGuinty has more sense than Toronto Mayor David Miller, who suggested the summer of the gun was all former premier Mike Harris's fault for cancelling after school basketball programs.

Toronto's asleep at the wheel on gun violence
By MOIRA MacDONALD

If you want to see an end to the violence we saw this week at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate, don't look to the schools.

The most accurate lead paragraph of any of the Toronto newspaper stories I saw on the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners came from the Globe and Mail. It read: "Toronto's plague of gun violence ... tore into a North York school yesterday ..."

In other words, the violence didn't start in the school. What had been going on for years invaded the school. And the solution won't be found in the school, -- unless you consider a Berlin Wall of security devices to keep out the nastier realities of the world a solution.

Trouble is, we as a city have gone to sleep on gun violence. The only thing that seems to wake us up is when the killing crosses "the line," whether that's a killing near the busiest shopping intersection of the city on the busiest shopping day of the year (the Boxing Day shooting of Jane Creba, also 15 years old) or at a public school, where many of us entrust our children.