COVID and GUN control
You might have seen me post a bunch of stuff related to the new gun laws. Here's the long and short of it.
Yesterday May 1st 2020, the PM Justin Trudeau announced an order in council (OIC) to ban all “military-style” assault rifles.
An OIC is similar to an executive order in the states. It bypasses the democratic process of the House and the elected representatives of Canadians. Usually an OIC is used to make small amends to a bill. The OIC that PM Trudeau used yesterday was both unprecedented and ignored the largest petition in Canadian history (petition e-2341). That OIC was not a minor change and it has affected millions of lawful firearms owners, hunters, and sports shooters. Even though this may not affect you, you should still be concerned at this undemocratic move. Imagine if the next PM decided ban abortions or easy access to birth control using an OIC? This is undemocratic and condemnable by all Canadians, regardless of your views on civilian ownership of firearms.
Speaking on the firearms in question, our government has tossed around a great deal of misinformation. Fully automatic firearms have been prohibited in our country for decades. Centerfire, semi-automatic rifles may not hold more than 5 rounds. This has been law for decades. In those decades, we have not seen more than a handful of shootings targeting civilians and police, and a great deal of those, like the one in Nova Scotia and Danforth, were committed with illegally acquired firearms, sourced from the United States. You may not know this, but the famous AR-15 rifle has killed exactly one person in Canada in history. That gun was smuggled from the United States, and fired by an unlicensed individual. Our current gun laws, and Friday's OIC, do not prevent these crimes.
We see many comparisons with the United States and their issues with gun violence, but our laws are already an order of magnitude more strict. We have a mandatory licensing course, a minimum 28 day waiting period, registration of handguns and other restricted guns, and laws that mandate storing firearms in a safe. High capacity magazines for the ar-15, handguns, etc. are illegal, with a mandatory jail sentence if convicted of possession.
The shootings that occur in the United States do not happen here. We should not base further laws on the incapability of other nations to even follow our standards.
It is my belief, and the belief of many of my fellow Canadians, that this new OIC will not prevent criminal use of firearms, because those that commit crimes with firearms do not go through the trouble of becoming licensed, registering their firearms, and storing them securely in their homes.
People ask me what I would like to see done about gun violence in this country. Given that the extreme majority of gun violence is gang related, using smuggled guns, I feel we should be spending our money on gang crime units, and on border patrol. Not wasting our money punishing people who like to participate in 3 gun competition, hunt deer, and target shoot.
I've been shooting guns since I've been 8 years old. In the time since then, I've been called "potential school shooter". I've had police call the cops on me for gun pictures I've posted on Facebook. I've been shooting for 12 years and I've never hurt a fly. Destroyed dozens of clay pigeons and paper targets, but never taken a life, human or animal. For me, and 2.2 million other Canadians, it is a sport, a hobby, an interest. If you'd let me, I'd love to show you. I believe it may be impossible one day, because people do not know, do not understand, do not care, what sport shooting is about. Let me show you why we care about this sport.
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