Canadian Liberals cynically play gun issue

While my research indicates that it is much more effective to increase the penalty for the crime you want stopped rather than imposing a penalty for how it is stopped, it is interesting to see how the Liberals have a difficult time even imposing a stiffer penalty on gun crime. They want to ban guns (which is basically obeyed by law abiding citizens), but Liberals don't want to impose a greater penalty on criminals who use guns in crime. Might it be because they want to keep the issues alive so that they can argue for more restrictions on law-abiding citizens?

Yesterday, in the dying hours of Parliament just before an election is forced on them Monday, they tabled a bill to, wait for it, get tough on gun crime.

Of course, it will die on the order paper as soon as Parliament is dissolved -- two days from now.

Among other things, the bill proposes increased mandatory minimum sentences for some gun crimes, an idea Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, who introduced the legislation, opposed until just a few weeks ago. Even so, this Liberal bill falls far short of much tougher sentencing provisions proposed by the Conservatives.

Besides, everyone knows the Liberals aren't serious about this. They just want to have something to wave at voters when they're accused on the campaign trail of being soft on crime -- particularly violent urban gun crime of the type that has plagued Toronto since the summer.