Canadian Liberal's Handgun Ban Opposd by Most Voters

Interestingly even 44 percent of Liberals oppose the handgun ban proposal from their own party.

A majority of Canadian voters think Prime Minister Paul Martin is shooting blanks with his plan to fight violent crime with a handgun ban, a Leger Marketing/Sun Media poll found.

Almost 60% of 2,013 Canadians surveyed don't buy the PM's vow that an outright ban will have the desired effect.

Martin made the election promise last week in Toronto in response to a spike in shooting deaths and injuries, pledging that a new Liberal government would get tough on crime. But since then questions have been raised about whether provinces will opt out of the Liberal election promise and instead of a country-wide ban it will be applied piecemeal.

Tory MP Jason Kenney called the Liberal handgun ban a "phony" election promise meant to score points with voters living in high-crime neighborhoods.

"We're in favour of tough gun control, but we recognize that this is a phony election promise," Kenney said yesterday, pointing out that a majority of Canadians back his party's position.

Kenney also accused the PM of trying to divert attention away from the fact that he's not offering anything to stop the thousands of illegal guns crossing the border into Canada or to reduce the level of gun violence.

TORIES GETTING TOUGH?

Kenney said a Tory government would get tough on criminals by imposing minimum mandatory sentences on gun-related crimes.

Respondents in Alberta and the Prairies were most critical of Martin's plan, where as many as 77% dismissed it outright as ineffective.

Though 50% of Liberals polled are favourable, 44% are not.

The survey is accurate plus or minus 2.2% 19 times out of 20.