Police report that the Nova Scotia shooter possessed his guns illegally. For the Moms who Demand Action out there who need a little extra help, that means he broke Canada’s already strict gun laws in order to commit mass murder.
Authorities still haven’t disclosed what kind of gun(s) he used (but does anyone think that if he used an AR-15 or some other kind of particularly scary rifle, it would take this long to reveal that fact?).
Never mind, though, that everything the shooter did was already illegal north of the border. The push to further restrict the rights of law-abiding Canadians is on. It’s exactly the same playbook we see the civilian disarmament industry run here in the U.S. after a high-profile shooting.
Same as it ever was.
Countries around the world have moved quickly in the wake of mass shootings to enact tough gun laws.
Take a look at New Zealand, which last spring moved within days to ban semi-automatic assault weapons after a gunman shot and killed 51 people and wounded 49 others at two mosques in Christchurch.
Take a look at Great Britain, where the government acted quickly to introduce sweeping gun control when a man shot and killed 17 people, most of them young children, at an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996.
On Monday, Prime Minister Trudeau said his government was “on the verge of introducing legislation to ban assault-style weapons across this country” when the COVID-19 pandemic caused Parliament to be suspended. He vowed to act on the legislation soon.
Trudeau is right to act now. That’s because Canada’s record on gun-related violence isn’t great. In fact, we rank fifth in rates of firearm deaths among the 23 largest industrialized countries. Also, we rank fifth highest in the world in civilian gun ownership.
And the public would support him. Polls indicate some 83 per cent of Canadians support a ban on possession of military-style assault weapons by civilians and 67 per cent favour a ban on handguns.
It will take some guts on the part of our federal leaders to take on the loud — and often abusive — gun lobby. Do they have it in them?
– Bob Hepburn in How many more must die before we act on guns?