Montreal Is Calling For A Canada-Wide Handgun Ban After Shots Were Fired At A Daycare

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante has renewed her call on the federal government to ban handguns and assault weapons in Canada after a daycare in Rivière-des-Prairies was hit with bullets on Tuesday afternoon. No one at Bambino Village on André Ampère Avenue was injured when gunfire peppered the front of the daycare around 5:30 p.m., but children from a nearby primary school were outside at the time of the incident.

"The ban on handguns and assault weapons is now. We need this concrete gesture for our Montreal model of public safety to be fully effective," said Plante during an executive committee meeting on Wednesday.

"There is consensus in Quebec. We do not want firearms. We must fight the problem at the source and form a common front," she said, calling on other political parties in the province to back the demand.

A recent poll showed three in five Canadians believe gun violence is on the rise in their province. Quebec was at the top of that list. Around 65% of Montrealers responded that handgun laws weren't strict enough.

Plante said she's troubled by the growing number of crimes involving firearms in the city. Montreal marked its ninth homicide on May 11 — a fatal shooting in Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension.

"I have a message for criminals: We won't stop. Not until we keep all of our neighbourhoods safe, because it's our city… a safe city for all, where armed violence has no place," said Plante.

While local police are catching criminals trying to bring firearms into Canada through Quebec, there is still a constant flow coming from south of the border, she said.

In fact, there have been more mass shootings in the United States than days in 2022. According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been 213 mass shootings recorded by May 25, just 145 days into the year.

The mayor's comments come the day after a school shooting in southern Texas killed 19 children and two teachers.

On Tuesday afternoon, a teen gunman with an assault weapon opened fire on a classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, a school which teaches children between the ages of seven and 10.