The Story About Gun Violence in Toronto
2018 has been one of the most dangerous years in the history of Toronto. Since 2013, gang-related offences in Canada’s largest cities have almost doubled, according to Public Safety Canada. Maclean's recently put out an article stating in 2018 Toronto was Canada's 18th most dangerous city in firearms offences compared to in the year 2016 when Toronto ranked 52nd in Canada for firearm offences. Throughout the summer of that year, there were several incidents of gun violence involving guns that had never been seen before.
For example, on the night of July 22nd, 2018, there was a mass shooting on the Danforth and Logan Avenue. The incident fatally injured thirteen and killed two innocent civilians whose only crime was to spend the evening outdoors. One of the fatalities included a ten year-old girl!.
The perpetrator of the horrific incident was identified as Faisal Hussain, a 29 year old Canadian man of Pakistani origin. Apparently, Faisal was going through a really tough time dealing with the death of his sister in a car crash and ongoing coma of his brother due to either a drug overdose or a stroke. The weapon Faisal used in the mass shooting was a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol. After he committed his terrible deed, Faisal killed himself during a shootout with Toronto police officers. The Toronto Police Department is still investigating the motives behind the mass shooting.
After the incident, the local police and the Toronto community automatically assumed that the attack was a terrorist attack, especially after ISIS`s own news agency, AMAQ, a news outlet linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), claimed responsibility for the attack. The Toronto police thought Faisal may have acquired the gun from his brother’s house in Pickering, where they found and seized thirty three guns.
After the deadly incident, residents in the Danforth area started a campaign to raise money for the victims and the families. Doug Ford (Premier of Ontario) said that this was the worst shooting of the year and expressed his sadness over the shooting. Since the incident occured in Greektown, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Greece offered his condolences, which brought some comfort and peace of mind to the people in the neighbourhood. The people of Toronto also received a lot of moral support from people around the world. On social media, the hashtag #Toronto Strong became hugely popular. I think that the incident was a wake-up call to many people in Toronto and made them realize that gun violence is a major issue that needs to be dealt with.
In an op-ed in the New York Times this summer, University of Toronto sociologist Jooyoung Lee said shootings this year had him and many Torontonians questioning the Canadian “sense of exceptionalism. Mass shootings are no longer a uniquely American problem,” he wrote. A Women gave her feedback she said “In some communities in Toronto, at 5 or 6 p.m., the life on the street is gone because people fear coming out at night. There is a mother with three teens who won’t let them out of the house even to put the garbage out. This is Toronto in 2018. There is fear and despair in these neighbourhoods.”
In the greater Toronto area there are some neighbourhoods where the violence is much higher. For example some neighbourhoods to avoid would be Rexdale, Jane and Finch, Malvern, Along Queen street and Bloor street. If you want to surely be safe in the city, those neighbourhoods carry most of the city's crime because there is a lot of metro housing and impoverished neighbourhoods that the city doesn't want to gentrify. For example the Jane and Finch area isn't being gentrified because of lack of money, and nowhere for the current people living in those neighbourhoods to go. Many of the youth in these neighbourhoods end up following the criminal path due to all the problems them and there family face growing up ex ( lack of food, bills, bad neighbourhood, etc).
There has been many people in Toronto awaiting change in the city from politicians, mayor, police department to just regular citizens. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he wants to tackle a surge of gun violence in Canada by targeting criminals who use weapons illegally, rather than supporting an outright handgun ban. The City of Toronto's Police chief has recently put out a statement saying that there would be an extra 200 officers patrolling the city during the night to hopefully restrain the recent gun violence. Global News did a survey during August of 2018 about what Torontonians think of the gun violence. Once Global News completed the survey, and added up the information they found out that 81% of Torontonians think that there is gun issue in the city.
As a result of all the gun homicides in the city of Toronto for 2018 this was the most dangerous year in Toronto's lifetime. There was a grand total of 51 deaths in 2018, that is including 604 victims due to guns in the Greater Toronto area. Many Torontonians still have hope that there will be a decrease with all of the precautions the city's taking to stop the violence.
