Tracey Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR), said the Liberals figured out “there is no way to ban the ’scary' stuff without also banning the hunting stuff.”
She said they’ve made licensed, law-abiding gun owners the focus of gun-control legislation when they should have been going after criminals using illegal guns.
“If the Liberals were genuine in their concerns, they'd deal with Canada’s pressing issues: the opiate crisis, an explosion in gang violence, bail reform, and a marked decline in mental health. These are the determinants of violence, with or without firearms,” Wilson told The Epoch Times.
She said while it’s positive that Canada’s 2.3 million gun owners will not face any more “immediate bans,” the government still plans to ban any new semi-automatic, centrefire rifles that have a detachable magazine that can hold more than six rounds.
The CCFR and other groups sued the government in six different legal actions over an Order-In-Council in May 2020 that banned over 1,000 different models of previously legal firearms, with a hearing held in Federal Court in April.
The applicants included CCFR, firearms manufacturers and suppliers, hunters, and sport shooters. A decision is pending from the hearing, which ran from April 11 to April 20.
The new amendments, if passed, would not ban any current, legally owned shotguns and rifles. It would only apply to future firearms coming on the market, and place the responsibility on gun manufacturers to properly classify the firearm.
This is a marked departure from the previous amendments, which would have banned thousands of semi-automatic firearms, including centrefire rifles and shotguns used for hunting.
In February, the government withdrew those amendments after an outcry from gun owners, industry groups, politicians, and indigenous groups.
Revised Plan
On May 1, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino announced that his government had revised its plan for Bill C-21, and would now only ban certain types of “AR-15 style” firearms. A national handgun freeze remains in effect.Mendicino said the government will “protect families” by banning AR-15 “assault-style” guns and will introduce new amendments to Bill C-21, a gun control act, to “take action against large capacity magazines, which can be fed into a gun and turn it into a mass shooter.”
“We’ve seen too many deaths as a result of assault-style firearms, AR-15-style firearms,” he said. “These reforms are about keeping AR-15 assault-style firearms off of our streets, while at the same time respecting gun owners significantly.”
The latest announcement had a more conciliatory tone toward Canadian hunters.
Mendicino said the government “understands that hunting isn’t just a pastime. It’s a tradition passed down from one generation to the next. I want to be clear that our government is not targeting hunters and law-abiding gun owners.”
“They are proposing a watered-down definition that applies only to future models and can be easily circumvented,” said spokeswoman Nathalie Provost. She said it was “a betrayal of all the victims of mass shootings.”
According to Mendicino, the government will introduce a new “standard technical definition” that contains “the physical characteristics of an assault-style firearm.” The bill will only apply to firearms designed and brought on the market after Bill C-21 comes into force.
“We will save lives with it,” he said.
“Ignore his latest flip flop: Trudeau said on this tape he will ban hunting rifles,” he tweeted the same day, along with a video of Trudeau stating back in December, “There are some guns, yes, that we are going to have to take away from people who were using them to hunt.”
