As night follows day, Canada is lurching toward stiffer gun control laws following the nation’s deadliest mass shooting over the weekend, when 18 people were killed by a man disguised as a police officer.
Prime Minister Justin “Shoe Polish” Trudeau, not one to let a valuable crisis go to waste, has vowed to further impinge on Canadians’ ability to defend themselves, possibly including banning semi-automatic firearms.
From the Washington Post . . .
“I can say that we were on the verge of introducing legislation to ban assault-style weapons across this country,” he said. “It was interrupted when the pandemic caused Parliament to be suspended, but we have every intention of moving forward on that measure, and potentially other measures, when Parliament returns.”
What kind of firearm did the Nova Scotia shooter use during his rampage and how did he obtain it? For some reason, that information has yet to be revealed by authorities. But the shooter was reported to have owned a shotgun and two registered handguns. Yet Trudeau is pushing to ban “assault weapons.” Because of course he is.
Much as U.S. gun control groups immediately step up during similar situations to demand more infringements on Second Amendment rights, Canada’s gun-grabbers have wasted no time in calling on Ottawa for immediate legislative action to DO SOMETHING while the iron is still hot (and the bodies are barely cold).
Meanwhile gun rights groups in our neighbor to the north are doing what they can.
Rod Giltaca, chief executive of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, said it was too soon to debate guns.
“Just shy of 24 hours past the tragedy in Nova Scotia, the gun-control lobby is leveraging this community’s suffering for their own political gain,” he said. “No law in this country could have stopped a madman with this level of determination and resources.”
We wish Giltaca luck. But given that the national government is led by a far left anti-gun PM, momentum for a Port Arthur-like response — though hopefully not as radical — will be difficult to fight off.
UPDATE: TTAG spoke with Sheldon Clare, the President of Canada’s National Firearms Association. He had this to say . . .
Gun control is based on a lie that it has something to do with public safety. It never has – it has always been about civil disarmament. Compromise is what has got us to where we are.
I have been through some six Canadian gun grabs, all of which targeted my property, reduced its value and attempted to vilify me, and others like me who have used firearms their whole lives.
The three failed aspects of Liberal gun control (licensing, classification, and registration) serve only as barriers to lawful ownership, and are no barrier to illegal possession or use, and in no way prevent subsequent bad choices. We are always at the whim of the next example of failed gun control as we saw in Nova Scotia this past weekend.
We don’t accept gun control as a solution – it’s in fact the problem.