{"id":6771,"date":"2018-12-04T10:05:53","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T10:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=6771"},"modified":"2018-12-04T18:16:32","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T18:16:32","slug":"6771","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=6771","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with Toronto&#8217;s Gun Violence Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\">[vc_row content_placement=&#8221;middle&#8221;][vc_column][vc_video link=&#8221;https:\/\/youtu.be\/MBWqnQjBJEg&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<span class=\"wpsdc-drop-cap\">A<\/span> man was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries after yet another shooting in the city of Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>The Toronto Police Operations Centre reported that on Nov. 8<sup>th<\/sup> at approximately 1 a.m., a man in his 20s was shot on Blossomfield Drive in North York.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was about a little after 12 and basically there was about fifteen pops, and then rapid fire,\u201d said a resident of the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s kind of getting rough back in the jungle here\u2026 it\u2019s getting dangerous again. Yeah, it\u2019s not good,\u201d She said.<\/p>\n<p>This shooting is another signifier that gun violence in Toronto is a growing issue.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_gallery interval=&#8221;3&#8243; images=&#8221;6911,6912,6913,6915&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221;][vc_btn title=&#8221;Toronto Police Operations Twitter&#8221; color=&#8221;danger&#8221; size=&#8221;lg&#8221; align=&#8221;center&#8221; i_icon_fontawesome=&#8221;fa fa-twitter&#8221; css_animation=&#8221;bounceIn&#8221; add_icon=&#8221;true&#8221; link=&#8221;url:https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FTPSOperations%3Fref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Etfw%257Ctwcamp%255Etweetembed%257Ctwterm%255E1062576107952713728%26ref_url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fglobalnews.ca%252Fnews%252F4661169%252Fshooting-ann-arbour-lovilla-toronto%252F||target:%20_blank|&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=&#8221;https:\/\/youtu.be\/An_z10UJig4&#8243;][vc_column_text]Founder and full-time youth worker at Amadeusz, Tina-Nadia Gopal Chambers, says that youths in Toronto are acquiring firearms because they feel the need to protect themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Amadeusz, the non-for-profit organization based in Toronto, conducted a research report in association with The City of Toronto&#8217;s Toronto Youth Equity Strategy (TYES), Humber College, and Laidlaw Foundation called Look at My Life: \u201cSparks\u201d for Firearm Possession among Young People in Toronto, which is comprised of data collected by interviewing 10 people ages 15-30 who have been convicted and incarcerated for possessing a firearm more than once.<\/p>\n<p>The research showed that youths are obtaining firearms because certain \u201csparks\u201d which included \u201clack of economic opportunity, issues in the traditional education system, family issues, and all of these different issues,\u201d said Gopal Chambers. She outlined that systematic barriers such as racism, poverty and inequality create an environment where young people feel the need to carry a gun.<\/p>\n<p>Gopal Chambers described that due to these \u201csparks\u201d youths are triggered to equip themselves with guns. She added that these systemic failures that cause a young person to go out and acquire a firearm are what need to be investigated and resolved in order to combat the surge of gun violence the city of Toronto is facing. \u201cWe are looking at it as the victim and the shooter\u2026but what we are not realising is that the shooter is the victim,\u201d said Gopal Chambers.<\/p>\n<p>The battle against Toronto\u2019s gun violence issue focuses on enforcing the law, and putting those responsible for gun violence behind bars, though Gopal Chambers doesn\u2019t believe that this tackles the underlying issues. \u201cAre we going to only invest in corrections and policing, or are we going to look at other innovative solutions?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>A huge part what Gopal Chambers identifies as the issue behind youths possessing weapons is a lack of government support to the research for solving the problem at its source. \u201cWe\u2019re not getting the long-term funding to hire the staff to work with these young people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The main point that she stressed is that through identifying the root causes of gun violence, Toronto can work towards a new model whereby firearm crime is not as common.<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row content_placement=&#8221;middle&#8221;][vc_column][vc_video link=&#8221;https:\/\/youtu.be\/MBWqnQjBJEg&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A man was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries after yet another shooting in the city of Toronto. The Toronto Police Operations Centre reported that on Nov. 8th at approximately 1 a.m., a man in his 20s was shot on Blossomfield Drive in North York. \u201cIt was about a little after 12 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[263],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}