Since Christmas, two innocent bystanders have been hit by rounds and killed in Toronto. Both men killed had nothing to do with the original discussion that had degraded to pulling iron and banging away. The Mayor, David Miller, is understandably upset: Handgun violence is something that is somewhat alien to Toronto, or Canada for that matter.
We have a fix, that we have talked about before, which is called the "Double-Double" rule and it is time to remind the politicians and lawmakers about it.
Firearms: You can have as many as you want, as long as they’re longer than 18 inches. Have as many long rifles and shotguns as you want, as long as you have a locking, secure gun vault in your home, register the weapons and take a firearms safety course. Take prudent care of them, transport them unloaded, ammunition separate from the weapon, breech open or bolt out. No full-auto unless you’re a museum. No issue there.
Firearms under 18 inches in length? Not permitted. End of sentence. You can apply for a permit if you are a collector, but expect to be turned down unless you can demonstrate security of the weapons and that the weapons are legitimate collector pieces. A 1911 pattern Colt from WWII would be fine, whereas a Glock G21 would not be considered a collector piece. There might be the occasional exception, but it would consist of perhaps ten exceptions a year.
If you want to be a private collector of handguns, then you get to permanently disable the weapon by filling the end of the barrel with molten lead to block the barrel. A trigger lock or breech lock would be mandatory on any ‘collector’ handgun that is currently legally owned, even after disabling the firearm.
The "Double-Double" part kicks in on the criminal and sentencing side. If you are found with a firearm in your possession in the commission of a crime, your sentence doubles.
If you discharge the weapon, the sentence doubles again.
Or, succinctly, armed robbery: What would be a 7 year sentence becomes 14 years for waving a gun around. Let off one round, even accidentally, and it becomes 28 years. No parole. No mandatory release: Twenty eight years in prison.
As for innocent bystanders? Well, manslaughter usually convicts at 10 years, which just became 40 if done with a firearm under the "Double-Double".
Possession of an unregistered firearm under 18 inches in length, that has been fired at any time, would be 5 years, then under "Double-Double", instantly becomes 20 years. Unless the barrel and breech are packed with Cosmoline and you’re on the way to the police to turn it in, the illegal firearm is considered to have been fired.
It would only take a few convictions to explain to the bad folks that very long prison time is the result of using any firearm less than 18 inches long. It won’t stop the use of handguns, as professional criminals don’t care, but for those few occasions when someone merely stupid decides to escalate things, they might just decide to back off.
As for possession of an illegal firearm? It suddenly got very unattractive as you are looking at a solid 20 for having one to show to your buddies and make you think your dick is bigger than anyone else’s.
Firearms less than 18 inches long, except under very specific circumstances, have no legitimate purposes in our society except to threaten or kill other humans.
We don’t need them. We don’t want them. Double-Double makes the users drop them.
RoadDave 