Weapon of Choice

I would like to credit the Canadian people for their thoughtful and measured response to yesterday's mass killing in downtown Toronto.  Ten people died, another fifteen people were injured in this latest incident--but few, if any, chose to focus on the weapon used in the attack.  It would have been easy to do, given that the same weapon was used in an attack that killed three in Germany earlier this month, and had been used against anti-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Eight people died in a similar attack in New York City last October.  Fourteen died and 100 were injured in Barcelona, Spain in August of last year.  A dozen people died in separate attacks like this one in London on the same day in June of last year.  Twelve were killed--another 50-injured in a similar attack in Berlin, Germany in December of 2016 and who can forget the 86-killed and hundreds hurt in the same way in Nice, France in June of 2016.

It would have been very easy for Canadians to call for immediate bans of the weapon used in Monday's attack given its track record.  But instead, they chose to focus on the man responsible for wielding that weapon in such a dangerous way.  Nobody blamed the opposition party in Parliament for "not doing enough" to stop such attacks.  Toronto police weren't taken to task to failing to "enforce the laws already on the books to prevent such attacks from happening" with that weapon.  Canadian school children stayed in class yesterday--and likely will again today--and will not take to the streets to call for their ability to use the same weapons to be taken away from them--and anyone else that happens to own one.  And they did not point out that yesterday's weapon is by far the most likely way they are going to die as a teenager.

No advocacy groups for the use of yesterday's weapons were branded "terrorist organizations".  The manufacturer of the weapon is not going to be sued by the family members of the victims.  The business that sold the weapon will not be vilified   Nobody is calling for incredibly expensive infrastructure in every Canadian city to "make sure this can never happen again".  I haven't seen anyone question why someone would even need a weapon of that style or size--when smaller, less-dangerous models are fine.

Of course, much of that is due to the fact that the weapon used in the Toronto attack--and all of the ones I listed previously--is a motor vehicle.  A rental van to be exact--like was used by Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and was used by the first World Trade Center attackers. 

More Americans die due to motor vehicle use than firearms every year.  Car crashes are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers.  More people are injured by vehicles every year than are injured by guns--even though there are more guns in the US than there are motor vehicles--by an estimated 50-million.  Now, they are more commonly being used for mass killings--especially in places that have taken great steps to limit all access to firearms.  And yet, no one in Canada or here in America will make a single suggestion to protect us from vehicles.  Perhaps it is because we have learned to accept the inherent risk in having motor vehicles in our society--even if very bad people use them to harm us--or very good people make mistakes in handling them.