Eileen Mohan has become public face of gun violence in B.C., advocating for changes so others don’t suffer loss that tore her family apart.
“I have been waiting for 15 years for a leader to have the courage and to take a stand on gun violence,” said Mohan, whose son Christopher was a bystander killed in the Surrey Six gangland murders in October 2007.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referenced B.C. gang violence last month when he introduced Bill C-21, which includes a freeze on the sale, purchase or transfer of handguns like the Glock. The new gun control measures also include making it easier to revoke firearms licences from domestic abusers, as well as increasing maximum sentences for smuggling and trafficking of firearms.
“I’m very alive to that risk. And that’s precisely why we need to pass this legislation as quickly as possible,” he said. Police resources are stretched thin across B.C. with vacancies at some RCMP detachments reaching as high as 30 per cent.“We want to give police more resources. We know that they need more resources at the border. So Budget 2022 does allocate additional federal funding for the and the RCMP, which we expect will be apportioned to the border,” he said, noting there’s going to be more X-ray technology available to screen commercial trucks coming across.
CFSEU Supt. Duncan Pound said the anti-gang agency works closely with the CBSA and the National Weapons Enforcement Support Team “to develop strategies in order to suppress the ability for cross border trafficking of firearms and other commodities.” Former and current law enforcement officers told Postmedia that they welcomed tighter gun laws, including the handgun freeze. But they also said that criminals are extremely entrepreneurial and will adjust their tactics to get their guns.Article content
“If and when people are convicted, what kind of sentence will they receive? You just can’t have one piece of the puzzle. You’ve got to have a whole system working in sync, and it doesn’t always do that,” Porteous said. “I have hopes that this will be helpful. But I would have to adopt a wait-and-see attitude.”Article contentanything that government can do to help restrict firearms in this country because those firearms end up falling into the wrong hands.
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