This. That. No Other.

So while Champ and I spent the weekend enduring the endless — and mindless — chatter of beach-blanket homorons at Hanlan’s Point, Toronto Police were dealing with 4 gun murders. Four.

And what does our Mayor, David Miller, have to say about this?

Toronto Mayor David Miller said the latest rash of gun violence shows why Canada needs to toughen its gun laws, tighten border security and issue a complete ban on handguns.

Now, what seems to be missing from this story — and, frankly, any story concerning the exceedingly disturbing rash of shootings in Toronto — is any acknowledgment that the guns in question were illegal in the first place. So it’s not a matter of “toughening up” or “tightening” gun laws, or issuing a complete ban on handguns, since there’s little doubt that the commission of these crimes was with illegally-acquired firearms.

It’s a matter of enforcing the fucking laws already in place.

Calling for additional or stricter laws accomplishes only one thing: the appearance of control over the situation. Actual control over the situation would mean applying laws already in place.

And, indeed, last week Mayor Miller’s demands that $100 million be cut from the city budget would require Toronto’s Transit Commission to cut $30 mil from their budget. Take a look at these TTC milestones; in the past decade, not one real improvement to service — beyond accessibility upgrades affecting only a small part of the ridership — has been introduced. So the city is hemorrhaging money and not taking in nearly enough.

And who gets to suffer for it? The Torontonians who have no choice but to use the scaled-back, already expensive transit system. Well, here’s my suggestion:

Mayor Miller, Police Chief Blair? Walk over to Bay Street from City Hall and park your asses there for 30 minutes. Count the number of traffic violations at that one intersection for 30 minutes. Do the math. Figure out how much money the city could be taking in by actually applying the laws already in place, which are flouted so shamelessly — and dangerously — on our streets. Imagine for an instant how these easily-observed violations could not just shore up city coffers but, oh, I dunno, actually force a sense of fucking civic responsibility onto Toronto’s citizenry?

In my twenty years in Toronto, using Bay Street on a daily (if not more) basis, I have seen a police officer issuing a citation to a shitty driver exactly once. You cannot travel a single block during regular business hours on Bay, from Bloor to Queen’s Quay, without encountering some fuckwit committing either a parking or moving violation. Not. One. Block.

I swear, on that one street alone, you could make $30 million in traffic fines every year.*

We don’t need more and/or tougher laws. We need the political will to drop the ineffectual hand-wringing over gun violence. We need the political will to make “The Better Way” (TTC slogan) the preferred way, not the way of last resort. We need the political will to apply the laws we already have. Where is that political will?

*Hyperbole, people.