More than 16,000 people signed his Internet petition to ban handguns since he first made the appeal on Monday, Mayor David Miller told a Scarborough business audience yesterday. "Letters of support for this long-overdue action have also been pouring into my office from the moment the public became aware of this cause," he added.

The cause also captured attention at Queen's Park, with both Premier Dalton McGuinty and Attorney-General Chris Bentley voicing support.

"We'll take a look at what more we might do," the Premier said. "But obviously, when the feds have got responsibility for criminal law, there are some severe restrictions in terms of how far we can go and what we can do."

Acknowledging the restrictions on provincial authority, Mr. Bentley repeated the demand for a handgun ban that he and Corrections Minister Rick Bartolucci made in Ottawa in March.

"The feds could do it instantly and then we'd have the tools that we need," he said. "In the meantime, we'll do whatever will be effective in promoting community safety."

Toronto MPP Mike Colle added one suggestion with a private member's bill that would empower police to suspend the driver's licences and confiscate the vehicles of Ontarians caught driving with illegal guns. Mr. Miller has promised to introduce similar local measures to suppress gun use this summer.

In the absence of concrete initiatives, the mayor is employing increasingly passionate rhetoric to shame Ottawa into action, denouncing "so-called hobbyists and collectors [who] put innocent lives at risk."

The mayor also attacked the Harper government's claim that handguns are already banned in Canada, using the example of slain Yonge Street bystander John O'Keefe to emphasize the dangers of legal handguns.

"The bullet that killed him came from a legally registered gun," the mayor said. "If handguns were illegal, John O'Keefe would be alive today."

Local and national police report that more than one-third of handguns used in Toronto crimes come from "domestic sources," according to the mayor, "stolen from so-called 'legal' gun owners whose storage methods didn't work."

The only voices that have not been heard in the campaign, which began this Monday amid heart-wrenching testimony at city hall from several victims of gun violence, are those in favour of the status quo.

Although some Toronto councillors say they have received private complaints, no handgun enthusiast has had the temerity to join the public debate in Toronto today.

Yesterday's audience of business people in Scarborough sat on its hands when the mayor trumpeted his tax cuts, but came to life at the first mention of the handgun ban.

"The rates of homicides of young men in countries that have very strict gun control are significantly lower than those in countries that don't," Mr. Miller said later. "It's that simple. If you want to increase public safety, you get guns out of people's hands."

Banning handguns would not only lessen the violence that has become almost common on city streets, according to the mayor, it would "make an incredibly powerful statement about the kind of city and the kind of country we are."

But that, of course, is precisely why the federal Conservatives are resisting the call. Immune to the pleas of urban widows and orphans, they are acutely sensitive to the potential for emotional distress among rural libertarians.

Parliament's response to the mayor when he presents his case in June will depend entirely on who's in charge at the time.