Somewhere in Toronto is an elderly man (or, if deceased, his offspring) who carries with him in his deepest memories of three decades past, an encounter with this wicked teenage street punk who crossed the line from being a cowardly purse snatcher, car thief and B&E artist, to a gun-toting robber. Thank God, just thank God.
Oh, I had every reason to hate and steal and assault, according to the book. A product of a violent birth father, dumped into the Neil McNeil Orphanage in downtown Toronto shortly after birth and adopted five years later by an alcoholic couple, I committed my first house burglary when I was 7. I committed my last crime shortly after my 18th birthday and in between I spent exactly two days in jail.
When I was 17, a friend showed me where his police officer father stored his service revolver.
The next weekend when they were at their cottage, I broke into this friend's home, "borrowed" the gun and found myself sticking it in the face of this absolutely stunned gentleman at Yonge St. and Bowood Ave. in North Toronto. He had no money, and I had no bullets -- thank God -- so I took off. I broke back into the policeman's home and returned the gun.
So here's the point of my story. I grew up with social workers "counselling" me ad nauseam. I had basketball courts and baseball diamonds and floor hockey. I chose drugs and alcohol and truancy.
I didn't get my gun from U.S. gun smugglers.
What stopped me from my criminal path was a total abject fear of the law and jail -- and a streetwise older copper who picked me up on "suspicion" of house burglary. He looked this punk straight in the eye and said I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail or dead. Neither appealed to me.
And so, after three years repeating, I got my Grade 12 diploma and set out on a straight path, without bleeding heart liberals trying to love me to death and without politicians trying to engineer my life.
Since then, I have spent more than 30 years trying to make amends by living straight, serving others and obeying the law. And I've succeeded.
Do you get it, folks?
Andrew Lyle Smith
Riverside, Calif.
I'm really sorry to keep getting up on this particular horse. I wouldn't do it if I didn't feel it was of supreme importance.
And to those of you who resent the federal election campaign--who, let's face it, resent any election campaign--I have news for you: politics doesn't rest on a calendar's whim, because everything is politics.
Crime certainly doesn't take a break simply because it's Boxing Day. Witness the horrendous shootout that took place on Yonge Street in Toronto on that day, killing one fifteen-year-old girl and injuring six others. All these people were simply out shopping for bargains. The evidence suggests that up to fifteen (!) teens were involved and that, in some undisclosed way, this was payback for one man having been roughed up earlier in the day, in another part of the city entirely. How that works I have no idea.
There are those who suggest we shouldn't politicize the death of Jane Creba. I respectfully suggest we must. Because her death--and a string of deaths just like hers over the past year, 51 in Toronto alone--could have been prevented, had different political and cultural conditions obtained. In the wake of such tragedy, it is imperative that we closely examine our society and arrest the apparent downward spiral.
There are so very many issues that require immediate redress in our 'justice' system alone.
- Why is bail accepted for virtually any crime, up to and including murder?
- Why is parole so easily granted in the vast majority of cases?
- Why is it deemed acceptable to simply 'disappear' any number of crimes via plea-bargain?
- How did we get to a point where convicted felons get double or even triple credit for time served?
- Why are youths who clearly know and take advantage of the considerable loopholes offered them, still treated with kid gloves, so to speak?
Then there's the whole gun issue I have spoken of before. If you move in certain circles, you can get a gun as easily as the rest of us can buy groceries. Our governments at all levels have mostly stood by and allowed this to happen. Don't think for a second it won't be just as easy should handguns be banned. For the most part, they already are.
And then there's the obviously low regard these various punks have for the lives of others. How did they come by this mindset? Could it be they got it from our own justice system and the picayune punishments it hands out? Are we not giving some suggestion, when murderers walk free, of how little regard we ourselves have for the lives of their victims?
If you live in a rural area, chances are gun crime isn't a daily concern of yours...yet. Then again, residents of Mayerthorpe, Alberta might feel differently. I would suggest that crime and justice should be a central issue in this federal election...for all Canadians. We each of us have a stake in the society we are striving to build.
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