When bullets and ballots collide

Find your riding! 2009 Lower Mainland shootings compared with B.C. electoral boundaries."If I were a gang member right now, I would keep real quiet until the election's over," a local political observer said to me recently.

It was a sort of throwaway comment, the point being that someone who works to circumvent the law would probably be best served by not giving those who make the law too much fodder around election time.

Yet it's worth noting that so far in April, Vancouver has been (mostly) spared the seemingly daily shootings that have plagued us this year, and indeed sporadically over the last several years as a gang war simmers its way through our streets.

Who would have thought names like Jarrod and Jamie would be bandied about as freely in the press as Gordon and Carole? Abbotsford's Bacon brothers have even made for fashion commentary, courtesy of a certain editor at The Province newspaper.

Here are a few words looking at the awkward intersection of gangs and politics this campaign, published today in 24 hours and on The Tyee:

Keith Roy is feeling nostalgic these days. The Vancouver realtor recalls the good old days in his city, when the only gun that went off was the nine o'clock cannon in Stanley Park.

These days, Roy feels like he reads about a new shooting almost every morning.

"That's not the city I grew up in," says Roy.

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