Scarborough man killed by stray bullet outside Toronto club

Print

Text

Grieving friends of John O'Keefe, the Scarborough man slain by a stray bullet from a registered handgun this past January, made an emotional plea Monday to Toronto politicians, supporting a national campaign by Mayor David Miller to ban handgun ownership outright in Canada.

"Think of the person that you love the most - now imagine they are shot dead on your safe street," said Andrea Aster, who told the committee that O'Keefe, who had attended Scarborough's Neil McNeil Catholic Secondary School, was her first love.

"Imagine your horror and your rage. I cherish our freedoms and know that we must exercise care in giving them up. Many genuinely believe that handguns should be allowed but regulated. The problem is that regulating their use presupposes people will abide by regulations. That's unrealistic. A young man who brings a handgun to a strip club to impress his buddies...won't be governed by regulations."

O'Keefe was killed by a bullet, allegedly fired from a legally owned handgun outside the Brass Rail strip club on Yonge Street south of Bloor in early January. O'Keefe was described by police as "absolutely an innocent bystander" in the shooting.

Aster and other friends of O'Keefe came to Monday's Executive Committee meeting to urge unanimous support of a request to the federal government to ban handguns. Describing the pain that O'Keefe's death had caused to his family, his young son, and the wide circle of friends O'Keefe had kept, they succeeded.

Mayor David Miller unveiled a video plea to Canadians to take part in an online petition, asking the federal government for a complete ban on handguns. The video was uploaded to YouTube, and the website (www.toronto.ca/handgunban) includes a petition that can be filled out online, or printed out and mailed to Ottawa.

The plea is one that Miller has made consistently - often in the wake of shooting deaths such as O'Keefe's. Each time, the request has been dismissed in Ottawa.

But he said with the voices of O'Keefe's extended family and others whose lives have been transformed by gunfire, it will be difficult for Ottawa to ignore the request.

"Those stories are so powerful that no government can ignore them," said Miller. "Second, this is a minority Parliament and this is up to Parliament. Parliament can act. The Liberal Party promised to support this, and parliament can choose to act and outlaw handguns in this country. Today we saw how right that is."

Miller will be reporting back to council in June with other strategies the city can embark upon to ban the legal ownership of handguns.