The mother of two young girls shot on a Scarborough playground is adding her voice to a growing number of calls for a handgun ban both in the city and country-wide.
Stacey King has joined forces with the Coalition for Gun Control to launch a new gun control campaign aimed at drawing attention to what they call a “gun violence crisis.”
The effort includes a temporarily-erected 13-foot-tall bullet sculpture, shaped like an exclamation mark, and placed beside the 'Toronto' sign in Nathan Phillips Square.
A number of signs have also been set up on sidewalks across the city, including one outside Toronto City Hall. The glass signs are hollowed out and filled with hundreds of shell casings. The question, “How many more shots before gun violence takes over our city?” is printed on either side.
“I will be a strong advocate against gun violence,” King told CP24 at the launch on Tuesday.
“If I have to try to put a stop to it, I’m going to do the best for my children.”
King’s young girls were at a playground on Alton Towers Circle on June 14 when two armed men fired up to 10 shots.
Police believe the shooters were targeting a man who was at the playground with his child at the time.
Instead, the bullets struck the young girls.
“This is not something a mother should ever have to go through – having her children playing in a playground by her house, in her backyard, and they get shot? That’s traumatizing,” King said. “It’s traumatizing to me, it’s traumatizing to my family, it’s stressful, and it’s frustrating. I’m angry.”
Three arrests have since been made in connection with the daylight shooting, but King said her girls are still unsettled.
“My kids cry at night. They have nightmares,” King said.
“How do you explain to a five-year-old why she got shot? How do you explain to a seven-year-old why she was grazed by a bullet? How do you explain to a nine-year-old that she can’t run anymore because the bullet is still in her leg? How do you explain that to anybody?”
President of the Coalition for Gun Control Wendy Cukier said she believes Canadians are “preoccupied” with concerns over guns smuggled into the country illegally, when legal handguns traced to Canadian sources are just as problematic.
“Every illegal gun begins as a legal gun, either in the United States or in Canada,” she said. “What we’ve seen in recent years with the proliferation of legally owned handguns – there are now almost one million – the percentage of crime guns sourced in Canada has increased.”
She said part of the campaign includes a petition called “Trigger Change,” which asks Canadians to show support for a national ban on handguns, currently under review by the federal government.
“Canadians have had enough,” Cukier said.
“We know that two-thirds want a ban on handguns and more than 80 per cent want a ban on military assault weapons. Too long have gun laws hijacked the public agenda. We’re calling on Canadians to speak out and to sign the petition.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory stepped up his advocacy for a city-wide ban on handguns last week in the wake of a police press conference which highlighted to a number of recent shootings in the northwestern corner of the city.
Back in the summer, not long after the shooting that injured King’s children, Tory sent an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking for permission to enact legislation required to make such a ban possible.
Currently, the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair is looking into a possible ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada.
As part of the consultations, Blair has conducted eight in-person roundtable sessions in four locations and has met with numerous experts and stakeholders on the topic, his office told CP24 last week.
A website was set up in October to garner feedback from residents about the possible ban as well, but the deadline for submissions recently passed.
Blair is expected to release a report on his findings in early 2019.
Cukier and King hope the petition from the coalition will show just how concerned Canadians are about gun crime.
“Flowers and prayers are not enough for the victims of gun violence. They want action and they want strong gun control,” Cukier said.
“It certainly won’t solve the whole problem but it will make a difference.”
