The first rule of gun club is, you don't talk about gun club.

Ranges that cater to sport shooters are increasingly secretive and an outsider's attempts to gain access to a gun club, such as the one hidden in the rafters at Union Station, are difficult, if not impossible without an invitation from a long-standing member.  Media attempts are even more vehemently thwarted, and Tony Bernardo, Executive Director of the Canadian Sports Shooting Association, understands why.

"Nobody will talk to you, because when the media picks this up it's all about sensationalism, it's got nothing to do with reality," he told CityNews.ca in an exclusive interview.  "The reality of it is these things (guns) don't hurt people, criminals hurt people.  You ever see a gun pull its own trigger?  I don't think so."

In a city where gun collectors and sport shooters usually avoid drawing attention to their controversial hobby, Bernardo is a booming and unapologetic defender of one's right to bear arms.

His fervent and vocal defence of handgun use for sport shooters has earned him more than his share of negative attention and he's not shy about pointing his trigger-finger at Mayor David Miller, whose equally passionate call for a handgun ban has gained steam after the senseless murder of John O'Keefe.

O'Keefe was an innocent victim gunned down as he walked past the Brass Rail Tavern on Yonge St.  The hand gun used in the crime turned out to be legally registered and the man accused of pulling the trigger was a member of  "The Grange" gun club in Gormley.

Despite the negative attention surrounding O'Keefe's killing, Bernardo is adamant that legally registered handguns are rarely used to commit crimes, and he claims to have the stats to back his argument.

"The mayor has got the real numbers (but) he's not looking at them because this is not about reality, this is about him trying to deflect from his inability to do anything about gang crime on the streets of Toronto," he stresses. 

"There were 106 murders last year in Canada committed with handguns, only four of them were ever in the registry...these things are not a criminal's weapon of choice."

Bernardo notes that there are about 15 gun clubs in the GTA, and they're frequented by lawyers, doctors, stock brokers and other professionals.  They are also used by well-respected athletes training for international competitions.

The club at Union Station has been utilized by international competitor, Avianna Chao, and Paralympic shooter Karen Van Nest.

"The Olympic team, the Commonwealth Games team, they all compete with these things.  Now maybe the mayor is talking about perhaps exemptions for those people, but this is a non-sensical argument."

"We thought the mayor was simply uninformed, so we informed him.  We informed the whole Toronto city council, they ignored all the real information.  All the stuff that came from Stats Canada and the Department of Justice, they ignored it all.  It's about political agendas, not about reality."

"There's 1.1 million handguns legally owned in Canada that never kill anyone.  These things are used for recreation, for target shooting."

In the end, Bernardo believes a ban on handguns in Ontario would have little effect on the type of gun play that continues to make ominous headlines. 

"These guns don't originate in Canada, they come in with the drugs.  Hello?  Nobody is getting this picture.  Almost all the gun crime you're seeing on the streets of Toronto is gang violence.  Gang (members) are not target shooters."