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Editorial - Senseless shooting needs proper response

It is sometimes easy to think that living in Canada somehow insulates us from the terror of mass shootings. Of course that is not the case, as was brought into focus for us all again as a gunman struck in the Greektown area of Toronto Sunday.

It is sometimes easy to think that living in Canada somehow insulates us from the terror of mass shootings.

Of course that is not the case, as was brought into focus for us all again as a gunman struck in the Greektown area of Toronto Sunday.

The shooting spree left two dead, one 18, the other only 10, and 13 injured ranging in age from 17 to 59s. Several of those suffering gunshot wounds remained in hospital Monday.

The gunman Faisal Hussain, a 29-year-old Toronto resident, is also dead although whether self-inflicted or killed by police remains unclear.

The shooter’s name is going to cause a ripple of concern, as it will conjure concerns of terrorist activity, although early reports suggest Hussain was a man with mental health issues rather than motivated by fanaticism.

It is important we wait for more details to come to light around how this tragedy happened, avoiding some knee jerk reaction leading to misguided retaliatory violence.

The reaction that may prove out to be warranted is a closer look at how we fund and support mental health care in this country.

Understanding mental health issues is clearly not easy, and how to best ensure proper care to help those suffering and to protect the public is something society clearly needs to focus upon.

We will also hear renewed calls for greater gun control, but again that may be the wrong place to focus efforts.

Canada is not the United States. There are already rather stringent laws regarding what firearms are accessible. Handgun registration became law in 1934, and automatic firearms registration was added in 1951.

It was a handgun used in the Greektown attacks.

Certainly stringent controls are needed, or you can end up with the near ‘old west’ madness we see south of the border where mass shootings are nearly a daily occurrence, with more than 150 in 2018 reported by June.

But, in the end, one is not going to keep every person wanting to use a firearm for an illegal purpose from acquiring one, any more than we have been able to stop illegal drugs and other illicit undertakings.

So it comes back to doing what we can do to prevent shootings like the one Sunday, and that means better mental health care to help those facing their personal demons without seeking a firearm and taking their hurt out on others.

That process can start locally by letting both our provincial health board and the provincial government know we value proper mental health care highly.