‘Ban the damn guns!’ Hamilton’s mayor calls for action after 7-year-old shot

Hamilton’s mayor is calling for a ban on handguns after a seven-year-old boy was shot in the city’s east end.

“This is the kind of thing you worry about when folks are out brandishing guns out there. Some innocent person becomes the victim who had nothing to do with whatever crime is going on,” said Eisenberger.

Police say the boy was on the main floor of his Gordon St. home around 8 p.m. when “multiple gunshots” were fired into the house from the back yard.

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Fred Eisenberger called the incident “tragic” and “unacceptable.”

“There’s no reason why anybody in the urban environment needs to have a gun. There ought to be an opportunity for cities to ban them and if the federal government was to give us the opportunity I’d certainly take that up with this council,” Eisenberger added.

This is the third shooting incident in the city so far in 2020 but the first where someone suffered injuries.

On Jan. 16, Hamilton police received reports of a shooting in the area of Celtic Dr. and Carpenter Ave. in Stoney Creek.

Residents reported hearing what sounded like two gunshots. Police searched the area and located two large calibre casings on the roadway.

Five days later, residents in the area of Glen Castle Dr. and Mount Albion Rd. called police after hearing gunshots around 11 p.m.

Officers responded to the scene and discovered a home had been struck by several bullets.

Eisenberger believes the rise in gun violence is a “symptom” of other issues affecting the community.

“It’s a complicated issue,” he said. “It has everything to do with poverty. It has everything to do with housing. It has everything to do with good parenting and people being given good opportunities. Do they see good opportunities being given in their future? All of that leads to different choices people make and that could lead people to gun crime or crime in general.”