Hundreds march to protest growing gun violence in Toronto
CBC
More than 200 people marched in downtown Toronto on Saturday in a renewed push for government action on gun violence in the wake of 302 shootings in the city so far this year.
The founder of Zero Gun Violence Movement, Louis March, says more action is needed to reduce gun violence, which he says has continued unabated in the city for months.
"Enough is enough," March told CBC Toronto.
"The gun violence continues. It just continues and the impact is so significant, and the government is still talking, waiting while people are dying."
As of Sept. 19, Toronto police have recorded 31 homicides by shootings out of a total of 302 shootings so far this year. Recent victims of gun violence include three people, one of them a Toronto police officer, killed in a shooting rampage across the GTA on Sept. 12, and a 17-year-old who died during a daylight shooting in Scarborough this week.
March said he and other organizers wanted to bring attention to the fact that gun violence is a major problem in the city.
"Gun violence doesn't happen in a vacuum. There's a lot of things that happened before it takes place, but there's a lot of trauma, hurt and pain that happens after, and no one seems to be able to come to grips with the magnitude of this problem and why we have to be better at getting ahead of it," he said.
March said individuals, families and entire communities are being devastated by gun violence.
"You can't undo it. You can't put the bullet back in the gun. You can't bring the person back to life," he said.
"Trauma is internalized because not many people want to hear about it, not many people want to deal with it.
"The government supports that are available are limited — with expiry dates — but that trauma continues. And sometimes it even serves in the cycle of violence later on, in terms of retaliation and so on. It's a mental health issue, it's a grieving issue, it's a trauma issue, and nobody wants to look at that side of the problem."
Numbers from Statistics Canada show the number of homicides committed by shootings has increased every year since 2018.
Figures from Toronto police show that in 2017 there were 392 shootings and firearm discharges, with more than 400 recorded in each of the following years up to 2021.
March said it doesn't surprise him to hear teens being charged in recent shootings in the city.
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