Toronto Mayor David Miller has raised the ire of Canada’s Olympians and law-abiding hobby shooters for embracing an ill-considered proposal to ban handguns that would effectively shutter gun ranges and clubs in the city.

Miller might as well ban shooting the breeze or fish in a barrel because a handgun ban, especially one that only applies within municipal limits, will do little to curb crimes committed by thugs and gangs with smuggled handguns.

“This is not going to have any impact whatsoever on gun crimes in the city of Toronto. This is about the mayor’s need to be seen doing something about gun violence,” said Larry Whitmore of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, which has 15,000 members spanning the country.

“The vast majority of guns being used by criminals in this city are coming from the United States. They certainly aren’t coming from legitimate, law-abiding gun owners.”

That sentiment was echoed by Avianna Chao, who will represent Canada this summer at the Beijing Olympics in the 10-metre air pistol and 25-metre sport pistol events. She expressed doubt criminals would even know how to fire the highly sophisticated target pistols and derided the measure as being more about politics than public safety.

“It’s crazy to think they’d be used for a crime,” she said. “This whole thing is just extremely disturbing. They’re trying to pass this off as a way to make Toronto safer … but what they’re doing has nothing to do with gun violence whatsoever.”

Miller’s proposal is predicated on the rather shaky assertion that thugs steal pistols from law abiding sports shooters. A city report recommending the handgun ban maintains that “up to” 40 per cent of gun crimes in Toronto are committed with firearms stolen from their rightful owners. But the RCMP and OPP peg that number closer to 10 per cent.

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