Angry in the Great White North

From the Toronto Sun:

A 41-year-old TTC bus driver being hailed as a hero may never drive again -- he was hit in the eye with a slug fired by a gunman aiming at three passengers.

The driver of almost eight years and married father of two young kids, aged 10 and 1, was shot by a man standing outside his southbound Morningside bus at the northwest corner of Morningside and Sewells Rds. around 11:15 p.m. Saturday.

"He's a real hero, he's a very brave man," Toronto Mayor David Miller said of driver, Jim Pereira, now in Sunnybrook Hospital in serious condition.

"He very likely saved the lives of the three (men) who he let onto his bus, and then he gets shot by the people who were chasing them," Miller said.

"It's those three that need to come forward."

With all due respect, the three guys being chased probably forgot their guns at home. Maybe those three were innocent victims, but I doubt it.

Pereira stopped the bus to pick these three up who were frantically waving him down. Two others giving chase followed them onto the bus before Pereira could pull away, and all five exited through the rear doors. The three then raced to the front and got back on the bus, and that's when one of the pursuers pulled out a weapon and started shooting through the windows.

Of course, all five fled the scene.

Any description? Yeah, the standard one: "The five men are described as black and in their 20s."

Helpful.

Now Toronto has been reeling from black-on-black gun violence all summer. A total of 41 people have been shot and killed this year (as of September 21).

We know the federal Justice Minister is useless. Unless this is violence between gay couples, I don't Irwin Cotler really notices. No votes in it:

Cotler's view? Our gun laws are plenty tough, we don't need mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes (a position with which even Ontario's Liberal Attorney General Michael Bryant disagrees) and Cotler's not into "a quick-fix solution." Or any solution, apparently.

No minimum sentences for using a gun in the commission of a crime.

Why? Because it would unfairly focus on people who use guns irresponsibly, whereas the position of the federal government is that all people who own guns should be treated as criminals. I know it doesn't make sense, but what other explanation fits?

But back to our NDP mayor, David Miller:

As for Miller, he's demanding new federal spending for social and job creation programs for at-risk youths, which is fine for trying to prevent gun crime down the road but does nothing to address today's crisis of gangs and guns.

Typical NDP socialist prattle. Criminals, especially black youths, are misunderstood and bored.

Give them skills and give them jobs, and all will be fine.

He misses the point entirely. Lots of kids have summers where these is little to do. Not much money coming in means not a lot to spend on shoes and clothes and movies. You make do.

Or you join a gang, you deal drugs, you rip off convenience stores, and you shoot anyone who gets in your way.

The problem is not that these kids don't have jobs. Lots of people don't have jobs. But these kids choose to violence as a substitute, because in their hearts, they cannot conceive of a value to time beyond merely earning money for expensive jewelry with which to impress their fellow gang members. No one volunteers free time to help others, no one takes a job that might be less than they had hoped for in life because at least it's a job, no one embarks on a program of self-study so that they can improve their academic scores when school starts again.

They have no understanding of the concept of a social good. Without that, they are entirely driven by personal desires. Instant gratification is their goal. The closest they come to thinking about the future is wondering when they can make a move up in the gang heirarchy -- meaning someone is probably going to die.

They are the nihilistic product of a society which mocks faith in anything greater than itself. In Freudian terms, these gang members are all id -- driven entirely by need-gratification impulses. There is no superego, or conscience, since that is now handled by a government department somewhere. The ego construct is driven entirely by cathexis energy and no anticathexis...

OK, this is getting complicated.

Put more simply, they are animals parading as humans.

And for that reason, all the high-sounding reasoning from socialists is meaningless blather. Did Mayor David Miller try to explain Marxist theory to violent pit bulls in order to change their ways? No, he applauded the province's legislation to ban these vicious animals. Of course, because these creatures would not understand anything he said, and would not respond to any "socializing treatment" he could imagine.

So why is he wasting his time with these gangs? Like pit bulls, they should be rounded up, and if determined to be guilty, muzzled and chained for the rest of their natural lives.

But we won't be able to do that without a police force, and David Miller has never supported the police:

Within months of assuming office, David Miller became heavily involved in the polarized issue of Toronto's police budget. With tight city budgets, a steadily decreasing overall crime rate, and a more left-leaning city council wanting money focused on crime prevention and community policing, Miller and a sizable portion of other councillers want increases to the police budget curtailed. Heated arguments over differences in opinions formed between left and right wing councillers and between Miller and the then police chief Julian Fantino.

The police department was eventually given a budget increase, though much smaller that originally requested. The relationship between Miller and Fantino remained cool at best, especially after a comment by Miller to the visiting Lord Mayor of London amidst a serious police corruption scandal, in which 14 officers were charged. "Is your police force in jail?" asked Miller. "Mine is." (note that Miller is answering his own question)

To bad he can't come up with witty remarks about keeping criminals in jail along with his police officers.