1 May 2020 Canadian firearms legislation changes

[Ed Storey]

The incoherent and ambiguous fire arms ban brought in late last week was not unexpected by our current Liberal government. The confusion over the latest list was amplified by weak and uniformed reporting by the mainstream media who did little to look into the list and basically parroted what was said by the Prime Minister and Public Safety Minister Blair. Today the Ottawa Citizen published a column which went beyond the Liberal rhetoric and actually looked at some of the omissions, and absurdities of the 1500 ‘Assault Gun’ list. The Citizen even quoted some of the PM’s speaking points such as “all of the firearms included under the ban were designed to kill the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time” and that “you don’t need an AR-15 to bring down a deer”.

Within the column the Citizen also reported that “the regulations prohibited certain firearms while allowing their competitors – based in foreign countries – to continue selling in Canada” and most likely alluded to the Chinese-made Norinco Type 97, which is not on the list. The column also highlighted just how partisan this whole ban is which panders to the masses of ill-informed voting Canadians who have never handled a firearm or know anything about them and quoted a spokesperson for Minister Blair who said “certain semi-automatic rifles were not included in the ban because they did not meet certain thresholds – primarily that they are not considered to be of “modern design” and not present in large volumes in the Canadian market”.

The balance of the current Liberal minority government’s power is based within urban Canada and specifically the GTA where gun crime is a hot button topic. As well, since most Canadians have no knowledge of weapons and even if the average person were inclined to look at the list, it is doubtful that he or she would be able to distinguish the difference between an American Tactical Imports Omni (even I had to look that one up) or a Recoilless Rifle M40A1. So based on a lack of accurate information from the government and little personal knowledge of firearms getting the average voter to not support this ban is perhaps wishful thinking.