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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Nearly 400 Firearms Seized As Toronto Police Pursue Project Safe City

09/22/2009  | CityNews.ca Staff

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Nearly 400 firearms have been pulled off the streets as Toronto Police pursue Project Safe City.

Of those weapons, about 150 were hand guns and about 250 were long guns.

The investigation was conducted by the Guns and Gangs Task Force, and its aim was crime prevention.

"We have not laid any criminal charges related to those firearms," outlined Superintendent Greg Getty.

Instead of large raids targeting specific communities, officers focused on the weapons registry and gun licence records.

That's because, police cautioned, about 30 per cent of all gun crime comes from legally registered weapons.

Chief Bill Blair pointed out that there have been 259 shooting occurrences in the city this year. While that’s an increase over the past two years, the homicide rate is down more than 20 percent.

"We've had some issues with guns, and although crime is down in virtually every category in the city, the one thing that has remained a continuous concern for us, is the availability of guns in our community," Blair said.

"The efforts that we're making, to make guns less accessible to criminals who are inclined to do harm with them, is keeping our city safer."

"We worked really hard this summer to get as many of these guns out of the community as possible."

 
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