| She has some personal motivation for doing so. Her two sons of the New Westminster-Coquitlam NDP MP are constables with the Vancouver Police Department who have related stories to her about body armour-wearing gangsters.
They’re obviously concerned about the proliferation of armour among criminals.
“They come into contact with gangsters wearing state-of-the-art body armour,” she said, “and they also have high velocity weapons that can pierce the body armour police wear.
“The gangsters are better equipped than the regular police officers.”
On Thursday, Black introduced a private members bill proposing additional penalties for people who commit crimes while wearing body armour. The legislation also calls for those who have been convicted of violent crimes to be prohibited from owning body armour.
“The recent spate of gang violence in B.C.’s Lower Mainland has revealed chilling examples of notorious criminals who, decked in body armour are emboldened with a sense of invincibility,” she said in a press release. “These armed and dangerous gangsters have no regard for the lives of the public that they are endangering.”
She added the Conservative government needs to adopt an anti-gang strategy and beef up legislation used to tackle crime. “I don’t have ownership of this idea and I’d be very happy if the government took it on as their own.”
Black is not the first local politician to propose changes to body armour regulations.
Last month Port Coquitlam NDP MLA and public safety critic Mike Farnworth called on the province to regulate the sale of body armour. Victoria should also ask Ottawa for a Criminal Code amendment to make body armour use an aggravating factor in sentencing, he said.
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