Critics denounce Canada's addition of 300 "assault-type" firearms to the list of prohibited weapons
By bellecarter // 2024-12-11
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government faces backlash from conservative citizens as it announced new gun control measures, adding 324 makes and models of "assault-type" weapons to its prohibited firearms list. "These firearms can no longer be legally used, sold or imported in Canada," Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters. The policy was said to be implemented immediately. According to Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Bryan Larkin, the models that were assessed and added to the list fall under the government's 2020 definition of assault-style weapons. Previously, Liberals banned 1,500 models under that definition. An amnesty period until Oct. 30, 2025 is to be granted to current owners to comply with the ban. A buy-back program is being planned by the Trudeau administration but still hasn't been fully launched. However, Minister of Public Services Jean-Yves Duclos said on Thursday, Dec. 5, that a pilot program already running for the past month has collected and destroyed a "couple dozen" guns. The guns that are "surrendered" will be sent to Ukraine, as part of Canada's ongoing donations of military aid to the embattled country, Defense Minister Bill Blair said. "The Department of National Defense will begin working with the Canadian companies that have weapons that Ukraine needs … to get these weapons out of Canada and into the hands of the Ukrainians," he said. "We've been working very closely with our friends in Ukraine to ensure that weapons that were intended to be used in combat, could be made available to them.” Conservative public safety critic Raquel Dancho accused Trudeau's regime of going after lawful Canadians while being soft on criminals. "Trudeau's latest underhanded attack against lawful Canadians and his continued blind eye to actual gun criminals is an insult to the thousands of victims of gun crime who continue to be terrorized and lose their lives as a result of Trudeau's catch-and-release policies," Dancho said in a media statement. Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery echoed the sentiment, arguing they are "undermining law-abiding firearms ownership." "Alberta's government strongly opposes the arbitrary re-classification of firearms and the federal government's wasteful, ineffective and repeatedly delayed program to confiscate these firearms," he said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Canadian government will also be implementing measures stemming from Bill C-21 – the firearms bill that was adopted in 2023 – which proposed a more stringent definition of assault-style firearms under that legislation but dropped several amendments to the bill in February in response to a backlash. A spokesperson from the administration said that the new measures apply to some firearms that were included in the initial amendments, while others were left out. Some guns that were not included in the amendments have been included in the new measures, the spokesperson said. C-21 also included provisions to make it easier to revoke licenses and take firearms from people who commit violent acts.

Existing 5-year-old gun ban was a flop and has been costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars

Journalist Lorne Gunter sees the expanded gun ban as illogical because the nearly five-year "largest seizure of personal property in Canadian history" was not able to collect a single banned gun. Plus, confiscation has so far cost taxpayers more than CAD 70 million (U.S. $49.5 million). The ban on "assault-style" weapons was launched after the April 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting during which Gabriel Wortman, masquerading as a Mountie, killed 22 people, Gunter said, arguing that all of Wortman's five guns had been acquired illegally. (Related: Traitor Trudeau to freeze all handgun sales in Canada in latest act of WAR against citizens.) "One illegally in Canada, three others smuggled from the United States, while the fifth was taken from the hands of a policewoman Wortman murdered during his rampage," he added. He explained that the Liberals used "illegal ownership" to convince themselves that the best way to curb gun-related crimes "would be to ban hundreds of thousands of legally held firearms, just as the best way to prevent bank robberies is to ban legal withdrawals from bank accounts." "If legally owned rifles are such a threat to public safety, how come all the guns that were in place before the ban are still in the same hands today? The ban and confiscation have so far cost taxpayers more than $70 million without even one gun being collected by the government," he argued. Head over to Guns.news for related stories on governments' gun control policies.

Sources for this article include:

CBC.ca EdmontonSun.com
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