Jovane Clarke, 22, was identified as the victim of the Sheridan Mall shooting at Jane Street and Wilson Avenue, an attack that was described as targeted by Det.-Sgt. Mike Carbone of the Toronto police homicide squad.

“This particular case is concerning. It’s very violent. It appears that these individuals were targeting Mr. Clarke. It’s no doubt in my mind that that’s who they were trying to kill,” Carbone said.

The victim drove into the mall at the busy dinner hour and parked his car in the parking lot. Four men approached his car and two of the four shot at him. They later chased the victim into the mall and sustained firing at him, Carbone explained at a news conference at 31 Division.

Considering that the parking lot and the mall were filled with shoppers, it was fortunate that no one else was hit by a bullet. Clarke was pronounced dead on scene by a team of paramedics who were called to the scene.

The Las Vegas Attack of October Second

In about a month after, America has been thrown into mourning in a related event.  This time it was a man identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, who stationed himself in the 32nd floor of a luxury suite of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and fired into a crowd of thousands of country music enthusiasts who had come to enjoy a concert.

At least 59 people lost their lives in the attack while over 500 were injured. Authorities are still going through the personal and financial records of the shooter in a desperate quest to unravel his motive. It was reported that Paddock took his life on arrival of the police.

Automated riffles are regulated but at least one of the rifles recovered from the luxury suite of the gunman was equipped with a "bump stock" to enable it to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, the law enforcement said.

The proliferation of arms linked to spate of violence

A 1996 study comparing Canada with eight other western nations showed that nearly 22 percent of Canadian households had a firearm. As of September 2010, there was a staggering total of 1,831,327 valid firearm license as revealed by the Canadian Firearms Program. This was nearly 5.4 percent of the Canadian population.

The provinces with the most licenses were Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. In the United States, gun laws vary remarkably from state to state irrespective of the existing federal firearms laws. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution also protects the right to keep and bear arms.

According to a CBS News poll of 2016, at least 36 percent of Americans own a firearm or live with someone who does – the result has been higher in previous years.

The aftermath of the Las Vegas Attack, it has been revealed that Nevada, which happens to be the home of Paddock, has the weakest gun law. The incidence has led to a renewed call for talks on gun laws with the aim of finding a lasting solution to gun violence.