MONTREAL — Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada says the fatal shooting of a city police officer should renew pressure for stricter gun controls, arguing there is no place for handguns or other firearms to be used on the streets of Montreal.Speaking Tuesday after the death of Const. Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, Martinez Ferrada said governments need to “fight back” against access to firearms in urban centres and revisit what more can be done at the federal level to curb gun ownership and handgun use in cities.“We have to fight back against people’s ability to own guns and use them in the streets in this manner,” Martinez Ferrada told reporters.“Just the question of handguns, for example, at the federal level … we have worked very, very hard on gun ownership and what to do about the people who are allowed to have guns, whether you’re a hunter or engage in other activities, but we don’t believe that there’s any room for people to use guns in a city like Montreal.”Martinez Ferrada said she believes even people with differing political views would agree more can be done to restrict firearms in major urban centres, though she acknowledged the issue is more complicated in rural and northern parts of the country where guns are used for hunting and by Indigenous communities.“I think we can go further,” she said. “I know it’s difficult because guns sometimes are not only in many areas for hunting, for indigenous communities, but in a city like Montreal, we need to have a better control of what’s happening in the streets.”.She said she wants the federal government to work more closely with cities on limiting access to firearms and improving public safety.“I’m sure that our federal government is something that we can talk about and see how can we better work on getting our cities more safe, especially on getting access to these guns,” Martinez Ferrada said.Her comments came a day after Benredouane was killed during a police intervention in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges district. Another officer was injured in the shooting along with a civilian Michel Mizrahi, 68.Details surrounding the killing of Mizrahi have not yet been revealed by authorities, as circulating social media footage shows a potential discharge of fire coming from a Montreal police officer at point blank range. The killing has reignited debate in Quebec over handgun restrictions and whether Ottawa should go further in giving cities tools to crack down on firearms in dense urban areas.
