I think what we're getting at here is the practical versus the theoretical, or perhaps more accurately, it's the practical versus the importance that legislators have in directing to the courts that which they perceive to be important. It's for that reason...even though I understand that the statistics tend to indicate there has been a lowered incidence of firearms, you can't tell that to the people living in Toronto. We had the year of the gun; everybody's heard about it. It was rather shocking.
But there is still a role, not driven by statistics, but driven by the public perception and the need to know that the situation has been taken in hand with legislation. I'm not talking about being tough on crime, because there are a lot of issues with that type of phraseology. What I'm talking about here is a much more specific nuanced approach that tells the courts and the public that firearms and offences committed with firearms are particularly problematic and that we have to deal with them. I think it's for that reason that even though you can make statistical arguments, and as a practical matter the courts have already dealt with it and reversed the onus, if you will, in a de facto way, legislatively there is nonetheless some value in pointing out that this is a concern.