Why try to ban handguns if banning murder hasn't worked yet?!

Murder has been a criminal offence in Canada for years. If murder is bad and yet people keep insisting on killing for one reason or another, in spite of the well-known consequences that follow the act of murder, what exactly do politicians and bureaucrats think a law banning hand guns in Canada will achieve?!

From what I understand, acquiring and owning a handgun for a law abiding citizen is not exactly easy... if one chooses to do so legally. If the law of the land isn't a factor, it has been shown on countless television shows that getting one "on the street" requires little if any effort.

How many people who hold up banks, kill rival gang members or deal in the drug trade acquire their firearms legally - and then register them? How many of these people who obviously have a complete disregard any or all laws will obey a new one?

They say a new law banning handguns should be passed. That will make it impossible for me to own one. That's fine - I want an XBox 360 before buying my first 9mm. Does anyone know what this law will ever truly accomplish? Will it have an impact on potential murderers, drug dealers or bank robbers who clearly could care less about criminal laws? Anyone who thinks so must be smoking the drapes, as Lowell Green often said.

Just to further make the point about how short-sighted we seem to be on this issue, look at an excerpt of today's Toronto Star editorial. Check out one of its main premises: "If pistols were made harder for criminals to obtain – if they were less prevalent in society – the bullets that ripped through 11-year-old Ephraim Brown on early Sunday might never have been discharged." Are they serious? Pistols made harder for criminals to obtain? Please.

How about we identify and address the real root of the problem? Lock up criminals and stop releasing them. If they kill once, they'll never kill again. Repeat offenders will be a mere memory when it comes to major crimes including those involving use of prohibited weapons. Further regulating prohibited weapons won't alter their frequency of use on the streets!!

After a while the numbers will start to drop. Banning guns isn't going to stop murders! If putting laws in place worked, there wouldn't have been any murders in Canada for years! Besides - given the penalty for murder (in theory) is much more severe than any other crime as it is, and we can't stop people from killing, how can we stop criminals from breaking a "lesser" law? We can't.

Think about it, people.