Matt Gurney: The Liberals' mounting firearms problem
The Liberals may not wish to be seen talking much about the gun ban over the next few years, as the Nova Scotia shooting inquiry, based on what we already know, could make for an awkward accompaniment
Author of the article:
Matt Gurney
Publishing date:
Aug 12, 2020 • Last Updated 2 days ago • 5 minute read
Police display a cache of illegal weapons that were seized from a home in Kelowna, B.C., in 2007. Handout PhotoThe federal Liberal government may find itself a victim of unfortunate timing: it will be defending its bogus “assault weapons ban” in court just as a public inquiry offers up evidence that such a ban isn’t aimed at the right target.The May 1 order-in-council that banned several types of rifles — some with numerous variants, all of which were previously legal to own and some of which are owned in significant quantities — is now subject to a series of lawsuits. The National Post reported this week that the suits may be combined into one constitutional challenge. Alberta and Saskatchewan may intervene, as well.
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Even if the Liberals are found to be on sound legal footing (given their broad authority in these matters, don’t be shocked if this happens), they’ll find themselves on the defensive for as long as the case takes to resolve.
In the main, the Liberals probably don’t mind that. The ban is inherently for show, a bit of performance art for the benefit of their urban base. Indeed, the Liberal assault weapon ban isn’t either of those things — it doesn’t target assault weapons (those are already banned), or even ban them (government comments to date suggest that existing owners are likely to be allowed to keep their firearms, just not acquire new ones, but will face new restrictions on how they are used).
Since most Canadians know little about our firearms laws, every time some prominent Liberal gets in front of a microphone and says “assault weapons ban,” Canadians who don’t actually have the first clue how our gun-control system works or what an assault weapon is (and is not) will nod and feel better about life. They won’t realize that the ban will spend a ton of money without meaningfully improving public safety, but as ever, what they don’t know (probably) won’t hurt them. (The handgun ban proposal is even more dumb, but that’s another column.)
Yet there is a danger to the government here. The Liberals may not wish to be seen talking much about the ban over the next few years, as the Nova Scotia shooting inquiry, based on what we already know, could make for an awkward accompaniment.
A key part of our gun-control system is the ability to, if necessary, remove guns from licenced individuals. Such a system will never be perfect, but in theory, at least, it offers police a chance to step in and disarm an individual ahead of a tragedy. Based on what we already know about April’s mass killing in Nova Scotia, the attacker was a walking, talking red flag. Law enforcement had reportedly been tipped off repeatedly that the attacker was dangerous and had a cache of illegal guns.
None of this has yet been definitively established — the attacker was killed by police during the incident, so he will never be tried. But the information was gathered by police during their initial investigation into the incident, and if the upcoming inquiry confirms it to be accurate, it suggests a shocking failure by the RCMP to intervene, despite ample warning, before a massacre. This would not be convenient for the Liberals.
The problem is this: critics of the ban are entirely right when they say that what the Liberals propose misses the mark. Canada’s millions of licenced gun owners commit very few crimes with their firearms. Any effort to crack down on them is largely wasted effort from a perspective of improving public safety.
That’s not to say the existing system couldn’t be improved; surely it can. But Canada’s gun control system already does a good job doing what it’s supposed to do — licencing, registering and regulating the millions of legal owners and their firearms. The gun control system is useless, however, when dealing with gangs and organized crime that bring in their guns from outside the country, which is believed by police to represent a majority of the firearms used in crime here (in some locations, the overwhelming majority).
As I’ve noted in previous columns, Toronto, despite a rash of shootings in recent years, doesn’t have a gun control problem. The gun control system is working just fine within its area of responsibility: the lawful ownership, storage, repair, sale and use of legally owned firearms. Toronto has a gang and organized crime problem.
Expecting the gun control system to solve those problems is bonkers. It can’t, and won’t. It’s the wrong tool for that job. Responding to Toronto’s gang problem with more gun control is like sending in a dentist to fix your toilet, and when that fails, concluding that your failure was in sending too few dentists.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matt-gurney-the-liberals-mounting-firearms-problem