Toronto's SummerOf Bullets

For some strange reason, this year Toronto had a disproportionate number of shooting deaths.

One fine example is in the title's link.

For police, it’s yet another seemingly senseless murder. For friends and family of 21-year-old Rommel Molina, it’s a heartbreaking tragedy.

And for the rest of us, it’s another ominous example of the casual disregard for the most precious of gifts -- life.

Well, no Scheiße, Sherlock! Another stupid fight - another stupid death. A swinging dick with a contraband sidearm trying to make a big name for himself, proving to someone, somewhere, that he could be a made man. Probably grew up watching "Oz" and thinking that he could soon be a prison godafther. Probably thinks that "The Sopranos" is one hell of a reality show.

The shooting occurred in the Jane and Lawrence area - not to far from the infamous Jane and Finch. I knew that area - mainly industrial parks, discount stores, an oil refinery, cheap housing. Not necessarily a slum area, but it's still a bit gritty for a normal existence.

One person lived near the park where Rommel got shot. He wasn't too pleased with the situation.

“We've got prostitutes, junkies, the whole shebang over here,” adds a resident named John. “I mean I can't even take my kids to the park because I'm afraid that they're going to get jabbed by a needle.”

This is just one example of this wave of quasi-gangland stupidity that is tainting the new generation of teen humans. Fingers point to the new urban culture, loose morals on tv, lax parenting, easier access to narcotics - people can argue about it until the cows come home to roost.

Here's another example:

The body of a man who a police source said had been shot twice in the head was found in the stairwell of a downtown apartment building yesterday.

Toronto Police said the victim was found at 2:56 p.m. in the fourth floor stairwell of a 10-storey building on Bishop Tutu Blvd., in the Queen's Quay and Bathurst St. area.

Jesus... that's not far from my old Naval Reserve Unit that I went to every Monday and Wednesday nights.

It's kind of sickening to think that a few years ago, arguments were settled by fists, and that gun crime was an "American" thing that we would neither understand nor suffer.

But in a city a big as Toronto, you'll always get big city problems like overcrowding, pollution, gridlock and crime. Rational people should never be resigned to these facts since they're all linked to each other in many ways. Rational people demand action, not just "community policing" or hugs and kisses or kind words of encouragement.

But hippie anarcho-socialist mayor David Miller would prefer to stick to his own class-struggle status quo, mainly because he's a prisoner to his own paradigms that have congealed to become like a coffin: keeping the good feelings in while shutting out the chaos of reality. Eventually, the socio-ideological air of the restrictive "happy place" will become stale, and the mayor will have to face the reality of his surroundings, the megacity that he has inherited from Mel Lastman (who was, IMO, THE WORST MAYOR THE CITY EVER HAD!), and the police that exists to maintain the order. But the absinthe-soaked ideological ramblings of Marx and Engels that glue the coffin shut may be too strong for Miller to break. So the Torontonians that I left behind suffer.

Throwing in more police is not enough. My suggestion is that the education system should drop the group-hug ideology and add discipline to the mix. Community standards isn't just for tv shows, movies and pop music, after all. And since too many kids (thankfully, not that many!) ape their favourite stars in order to belong to some makeshift clique, the parents should really step in to find out what makes their kids' culture click, and why are they attracted to it.

That's how you stop violence. But then again, that's only one good possible solution out of many.

And until there is a real solution to the problem, more stupid people will be causing more stupid gun deaths. And more stupid politicians will make more stupid decisions that will go nowhere even faster.