By Ray Rivers
December13th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
“In 2022, Indigenous individuals made up 17% of firearm-related homicide victims in Canada, with higher rates for rifles and shotguns (40%) compared to handguns (7.6%). This percentage is over three times their representation in the general population (5%).
Additionally, women represent close to 9 in 10 victims of firearm-related violent crimes committed by an intimate partner. At the same time, men aged 18 to 24 are most likely to be victims of firearm-related violent crimes.
Measures to reduce access to firearms are expected to have a higher impact in rural areas, and western provinces, which experience firearm-related crimes at a higher rate compared to the rest of Canada.” (The Canada Gazette)
The federal government has finally introduced regulations prohibiting assault weapons – essentially automatic and semi-automatic firearms. These weapons are designed for war – only for killing people en mass. They have no other purpose. And no respectable hunter would lower themselves to using an automatic weapon to bring down their prey. Among other things these weapons were not designed for accuracy, but rather to kill the enemy with a barrage of bullet projectiles.
In 2020 the manufacture and importation of over 1500 assault rifles was banned but that didn’t apply to those weapons already in circulation in Canada. So that is now the subject of the new regulations prohibiting the use or transport of over 2000 models and variants.
Guns that have been deactivated.
Current owners have been given an amnesty period, until October 2025, to come into compliance. Owners, including gun shop operators may send these weapons back or export them out of the country. They could surrender them to the government for fair compensation, or have them deactivated at a government-approved gun shop at government expense.
During the amnesty these weapons are not to be fired, the lone exception being indigenous and others who can demonstrate that they hunt for sustenance. They may still continue to use the weapons for that purpose until October 2025. The federal government has been in consultation with Ukrainian officials about forwarding surrendered weapons, to assist them in the defence of their country against the Russian invasion.
The government is treading very carefully in this initiative after a false start on gun control last year and, of course, the long gun registry which became a politicized hot potato for the Chretien Liberals. Although police forces everywhere applauded that registry, it’s tough minded implementation, including a hefty registration fee and potential prison sentences for those out of compliance, turned the registry into just another east-west political football.
Typical rife found in thousands of barns across the country.
Police noted that the registry was extremely helpful when approaching a domestic dispute since long guns were a primary vehicle for domestic homicide. The Quebec government tried to retain the data collected in that province, even after Mr. Harper had shut down the registry. But Harper won the right in court to destroy all the information that had been collected.
We can expect the western red-necks to once again yell and scream that this is just another ideological move by a ‘woke’ government. They will complain that such a regulation violates their freedom and human rights. Indigenous hunters will complain that they will need to trade up/down for single shot magazine rifles. And gun shop owners will once again bellyache that they’ve been caught off guard by another draconian action of an anti-hunting government.
Mr. Poilievre has unsurprisingly jumped into the fray promising to reverse this as well as everything else the Liberals have done. The NDP, with much of their support in the western provinces, are between a rock and hard place. They know this is the right step for public safety in a civilized modern nation, but their western base is dead opposed to any more gun control.
Mikhail Kalashnikov and the gun he invented.
Perhaps it all comes down to what kind of society we want and what we expect of government. Should we allow military grade weapons in the public domain? Are we prepared to tolerate the kinds of consequences we see in the US where assault firearms are everywhere and mass shootings the order of the day? Or is public safety more important than someone’s trophy M16 or AK47. Also known as the Kalashnikov, the 47 today ranks as the deadliest, most prevalent and most game-changing individually wielded weapon in the history of military armament.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
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Joe – thanks for your comment – I didn’t call anyone in particular a western redneck but I accept your criticism all the same. We can all do better. And speaking of which, how do you feel about the language and insults Mr Poilievre has been using?
Ray: Same, no place for it, attack the policy not the person. I think you and I can agree on that.
Pax vobiscum
Interesting article, Ray. As you know, I voluntarily spent 1961 – 1967 in Combat Defense units (Strategic Air Command) in various places, earning ranking and medal as “Expert All Small Arms”. Coming back to the U.S. I saw the beginnings, and then the surge in civilian “assault style weapons”. I assure you I would not have carried one of these make-believe weapons to a real gunfight. But the public, entranced by a spate of movies, loved them, claiming they were for home defense and hunting. In fact, they are the stupidest choice for home defense as their over penetration puts everyone in the house at risk and they are unwieldy in tight quarters. For hunting, I can only imagine the hunter is in search of a ready made stew, as that will be pretty much the remains of his kill.
The U.S. is currently experiencing a resurgence of firearm idealization as found in Robert Heinlein’s 1942 book Beyond This Horizon. “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
— From Robert Heinlein’s Beyond This Horizon. Interestingly, the government posited by Heinlein was Republican, as it is now.
You also know I have written extensively on this subject, including material on real gunfights – from one who has been there.
I understand this week in the HOC Trudeau claimed that some of these so-called assault rifles have been collected. Can anyone verify that the 22-gauge plinkers made it to the Ukrainian frontlines?
Name calling usually has me bail on a conversation. Calling someone a “ western red-neck” because they have a different opinion is a hallmark Liberal tactic.o
There isnt a day that goes by when someone in Canada isnt killed by a gun or more often now by a knife. Something that was never heard of when I was growing up. So what changed? More “rednecks” or society in general? Violence in society amongst other things includes verbal attacks and insults, including referring to some Canadians as a, “western red-neck”.
Gary
Another nail in the coffin of the “soon to be turfed from governing” Liberals. Oddly, the voters who go and on about gun safety are the urban dwellers who are more threatened by illegal handguns in the hands of street gangs than by some farmers’ long guns. Spending the money on more detection at the border would do more for safety and security than this “for show” nonsense.
Do farmers really keep their guns in barns?
Editor’s note: I did when I had a barn.
Ray, your article is full of false and misleading arguments. Let’s start with your use of “assault weapons”, a term which is used to describe fully automatic weapons which have been prohibited in Canada since 1977. This government’s current assault on legal gun ownership had nothing to do with automatic weapons. The Trudeau Liberals use the meaningless but misleading term “assault-style weapons”; yes, the guns LOOK menacing but in general they are no more dangerous than traditional hunting rifles and shotguns.
Further, you make several statements that talk about firearm-related violent crimes implying that legal gun owners are the ones responsible for the surge in violent crime and homicides since 2015 but we know that this is NOT true. Violent crime is surging, in part, due to the increasing use of ILLEGALLY-obtained firearms smuggled across the border from the USA–a problem which the Trudeau government has done far too little to solve.
Be honest Ray, the ONLY reason for the Trudeau Liberals’ obsession with firearms is as a wedge-issue against the Conservatives who represent rural ridings where legal gun ownership is overwhelmingly supported. Of course, it is also possible that the Liberal government’s focus on the gun issue may be better explained by Sigmund Freud.
Wow – this disingenuous OP unabashedly spews disinformation to justify the unjust and veiled Liberal ideologically motivated civil disarmament agenda. Totally discrediting himself as a partisan radical.