It is a widely known fact that Toronto has a really bad problem with gun violence. Pretty much every day you hear something on the news about shots fired, man gunned down, police injured, etc. etc.

While not being racist, it seems 9 times out of 10, the person shooting that gun is a young black male.

Of course, this doesn't mean that every single gun incident arises from a young black male - I've been held up at gunpoint six times and only twice was it a black youth ... but the point is, the reputation is out there and it is becomming a stereotype.

Two days ago, a local BLACK councillor proposed that police should be given power to randomly stop young black males and check them for guns or drugs. This is garnering A LOT of news coverage from all over North America.

I'm just curious as to what everyone thinks about this. Personally, I'm not even black and this idea really pisses me off. I don't see this helping AT ALL - all I see coming from this is more violence and a worsening of the trust most youth, especially black youth, have for the police.

First, if you look at the most recent per capita statistics, Winnipeg and Regina have violent crime rates that are three times that of Toronto. THere was an article about that in the Winnipeg Sun three or four weeks ago. Toronto's problem has been blown out of proportion by Toronto's media.

Secondly, randomly stopping someone just because of the colour of their skin is a breach of Ontario's human rights legislation, as well as the Canadian Charter. Unless someone wants to strip rights away from black citizens (which is eerily reminiscent of the Southern US in the 1950's), this racial profiling on steroids idea won't take off. It sickens me that it was even suggested.

I don't think they're blowing the problem out of proportion at all. Toronto's an amazingly safe city, but as of a week ago, I believe, we've had as many gun murders this year, as we had in all of last year. It's upsetting that suddenly you can't go a few days without waking up to the news of another shooting. Just because Toronto has a very low violent crime rate, it doesn't mean that it's not a serious issue when there's suddenly a huge increase in a specific type of violent crime.

Profiling? No, it's not right, but when you weigh the benefits, and maintain the mentality that a specific action isn't limited to a specific group, but give law enforcement the power to do it, so long as they remain professional, it will be an improvement.

Wow, complex sentance.

Basically, people need to know, yeah, the cops can do that. There's no reason to get all hissy and vile at them, and it's not your fault that many in your racial group are tards.