Excuses for violence...

It's amazing how the Toronto Star just can't grasp the reality of the shooting violence in Toronto.

If you take a bunch of young men and stick them in a ghetto. If the ghetto is in a city that offers no work that will pay enough for them to improve their lives.

If they don't have the kind of education that permits them to get a better education that might improve their lives. If the only readily available job is dealing drugs, an occupation that has always had a high-risk downside. If it's easy for them to get guns. What do you expect?

If the young men are immigrants from countries where one of the traditional means of settling disputes is violence.

If the young men — as most young men do — believe status and respect are pressing goals. Not status and respect in the community at large, but simply among other young men. If that is the only thing they care about, perhaps because it is the only thing there is for them to care about.

Remember that these are young men. Testosterone rages in them. Adrenaline pounds through them in surging waves.

Proving your manhood comes naturally to young men. Perhaps it is the most natural thing of all.

First off, this columnist would never say the same about white men committing crimes. Secondly, if they are immigrants from countries with lots of violence....doesn't that raise the question of why we are allowing them to come to Canada. Right now, there are aboutg 1,000 murders per year in Jamaica. Perhaps, there are other immigrants we should be welcoming to Canada than Jamaicans.