The response to Sunday’s shooting in Toronto is a mixture of wonderful and stupid. Sadly, the stupid will outlast the wonderful.
But in the spirit of optimism, let’s start with the good.
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The scene of the crime isn’t quite in my backyard, but it’s damn near enough. Toronto is a big city. Even life-long residents can’t know all of it. But the Danforth is one of those areas where people go. It’s packed with restaurants, bars, nightlife, public parks — no one in the city can long avoid the Danforth unless they’re living in a shell. You’ll be hard pressed to find a single person without at least one point of familiarity there: a place to eat, a bar for live music, a friend they visit in the summer.
Or the fountain at Logan and Danforth.
It’s not much. In a city full of monuments, it’s a humble one. But on Sunday, it was where the shooting began, and where one of the victims, Reese Fallon, 18, was shot (she died mere steps away). And the fountain is now where Torontonians are gathering, to lay wreaths and write messages on the street with chalk.
It’s nice to see. Inspiring. Heart-warming. And so on. But what’s even better to see is how quickly life is getting back to normal. I was there on Monday, less than 24 hours after bullets flew, when the police tape came down and the streets reopened. Moments — literally moments — after that happened, the Danforth was packed again. Restaurants, bars and businesses began opening immediately.
And this is important: it was packed because people showed up. Conspicuously. They were there to be there. And they’re still showing up. It’s fantastic.
And then there’s the rest. And it’s pretty stupid.
As a society — as a media, as a public, as a democracy — we have just lost our ability to respond properly to these events. We have, over and over again, the exact same stupid reactions.
Take, for instance, the ridiculous tug-of-war between the “mental health explains everything” brigade and the “he’s-a-terrorist” faction. Right now, the facts as we know them are this: Faisal Hussain, the shooter, was a Muslim. He was someone with mental health issues, which had on at least two occasions required police intervention.
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That’s it. Those are the facts.
Now let’s look at the questions: how serious were his mental illnesses? Were they treated? Had there been a recent change in his condition? Or his treatments? Was he under the direct care of a doctor? Had his past episodes suggested violence? Was he involved in any terror groups? Had he self-radicalized online? Was he in contact with recruiters for ISIL or other organizations? Did he prepare any statements linking his act to any ideology or group? Was the attack carefully planned? Did he have help sourcing the weapon, a handgun?
You might have noticed that the questions, at this time, kinda outnumber the known facts. We have partial answers to some of the above questions — at least, we think we do. But this investigation is young, the police have a very complicated scene to process, and a lot of this work will have to be done via computer searches, and those take time.
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In short, we need to shut up and wait patiently. For a few more days.
We can’t, of course. A sizeable minority of people heard “Hussain” and settled upon jihad as the answer — the sole answer. They won’t change their minds. An equally large group — larger, actually, I’d guess, but who can say — is all in on mental health as the only explanation.
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Which is pathetic, because there’s no reason it has to be that way. It’s entirely possible that Hussain was both mentally ill and influenced by extremist Islamist ideology (as has been suggested by some reports) at the same time. It’s mind-blowing, I know, but terrorism and mental health issues aren’t actually mutually exclusive. And the only people who are acting like they are are the culture warriors who don’t need the facts. Those, after all, only get in the way.
And then there’s the gun control champions. They’re out in full force, as per usual. Indeed, on Tuesday, Toronto City Council passed a series of motions calling for a crackdown on legal gun ownership in the city. Proposals include shutting down the few remaining gun ranges, banning the sale of handguns and ammunition within city limits and possibly using zoning laws to prevent gun possession in Toronto, even by lawful owners. It’s far from clear that they can do anything of these things, given that firearms are under federal jurisdiction, but that didn’t stop them.
It’s also far from clear it would matter even if they could. Around the time Council was doing this, of course, the police began to quietly inform the media that the gun was not legally registered, Hussain did not hold a firearms licence and his brother, apparently, was involved in smuggling guns into Canada from the U.S. Canada’s gun control laws would never have mattered here.
But sure, let’s shut down those shooting ranges. The facts of this case shouldn’t dampen anyone’s zeal. Getting ahead of the facts to throw around their opinions isn’t just for the public. It’s for our elected leaders, too.
It’s stupid, and sad, and oh so predictable. It’s just another routine mass shooting — a tragedy for the victims, a unifying experience for the survivors and an invitation to grandstand by the politicians.
Just like the next one will be.
Matt Gurney is host of The Exchange with Matt Gurney on Global News Radio 640 Toronto and a columnist for Global News.