St Catharines Mayor: It’s past time to clamp down on gun violence
Published June 13, 2022 at 10:21 am
A gun incident that left one dead and two injured in St. Catharines on Sunday morning (June 12) has Mayor Walter Sendzik declaring that gun violence has no place in the city and that stronger laws are needed.
“We know that our city is not immune to gun-based violence,” said Sendzik. “While it doesn’t happen as much here in St. Catharines as in cities in the GTA, it is clear that access to guns is increasing these types of horrific events – no matter the city.”
A major part of his concern is that the gun violence so prevalent in the United States is starting to find its way across the border.
“While we are a border community to the USA – we are a society that must never normalize the use of guns. We have seen the damages done to communities in the USA with less gun control.”
Sendzik is looking for a crackdown on gun abuse by making the punishment more severe.
” We need a justice system that enforces stiff penalties on those who break our laws. We need to focus on the root causes of gun-based violence within our communities,” he said, adding, “While personally I support the banning of handguns, I recognize a hand gun ban will not reduce use of illegal hand guns unless our laws are better designed and fully applied in the courts.”
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Looking around the world to countries such as England and Australia who have virtually eliminated guns in their societies, he said it’s time to take a page from their book.
“Other countries have created pathways that have greatly reduced gun violence and we can do the same. It will take all orders of government to achieve it and it is something that we should all be demanding.
Below is his full statement on Sunday morning’s violence.
