TORONTO - A city that prides itself as one of the safest in North America is bewildered by a surge in violence that has produced a record number of shooting deaths this year, the latest a 15-year-old girl on a street filled with holiday shoppers. Canada's prime minister and Toronto's mayor blame weapons smuggled in illegally from the United States, but others point to a growing gang problem.
Whatever the cause, Canadians recoiled Tuesday after a gunbattle the previous day in Toronto left the teenage bystander lying dead and six other people wounded in a street near a popular shopping mall.
It was the 52nd death inflicted by a firearm this year in Canada's biggest city, which is nearly twice as many as last year and raised the overall homicide toll to 78 _ not far below the record 88 homicides of 1991....