On Thursday, the eve of the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, the federal government
announced it was banning scores of new kinds of firearms. The government did not immediately have available for media a list of those firearms. And at first blush this might seem like an almost impossibly basic failure, even for this twitching, lurching zombie of a government.
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As with most anniversaries, this one happens on the same day every year. The Liberals always co-opt it as a gun-control wedge issue, and often use it to unveil new legislation or regulations. How many hours in advance did they decide to do it this year, to have been so unprepared? Six? One and a half?
The pitch boils down to, 'vote for us or you'll get shot and Putin will win'
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But I can almost see this gang being surprised at the question, because of course these announcements are never really about the guns themselves.
Canada’s list of banned firearms includes “the AR15.Com ARFCOM” and “the AR15.Com AR15.Com.”
AR15.com is a website, not a gun, no matter how many times in a row you say it.
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ARFCOM is also not a gun, but rather a nickname given said website by its users. That’s how seriously this government takes gun control, even as the vast majority of weapons involved in crime flow unmolested across the American border.
The measures come on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the killing of 14 women at Montreal's École Polytechnique, one of the largest mass shootings in Canadian history.
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December 6 is an opportunity for Liberals to appeal to people who think all guns should be banned, or at least all guns that look to city folk like “assault weapons.” Tagging it down the road without actually collecting a singe firearm, for the next government to deal with it one way or the other…
The new measures would add 324 additional makes and models of "assault-style" weapons, and their variants, to its list of prohibited firearms.
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…And this year’s gambit is even more cynical than average. A mandatory buyback program is in a “pilot project” stage for distributors and retailers, but won’t kick in for individual gun owners until October 2025 — which is, not at all coincidentally, the latest-possible date of the next federal election (at least under the current fixed-election-date law).
The list isn’t about the list. It never is. It’s about creating a wedge issue, hoping some Conservative MP will be crazy enough actually to stand up for gun-owners’ rights — at which point, the Liberals imagine, Canadians will swoon en masse in shock and abandon any hopes of changing governments. Vote Liberal or you’ll get shot, basically.
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That’s not even close to the most cynical part, though. The Liberals really have outdone themselves this year. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc says they’re looking at sending guns bought back from retailers and distributors — and presumably, eventually, from individuals — to Ukraine, to help its brave soldiers fend off the Russian menace?
We are to believe that after nine years of Liberal governance it is legal to sell and own useful weapons of war in Canada. That doesn’t just seem unlikely: The standard-issue rifle for the Ukrainian army
is the AK-74, which has long been prohibited in Canada.
It should also sound to the city folk the Liberals are courting like a colossal failure of gun control.
But I’m sure the idea earned whoever came up with it many high-fives around the strategy table. Not only will they lure Conservatives into supporting gun-owners’ rights, they’ll lure them into revealing their sympathies for Russia. Vote Liberal or vote for Putin, basically. It almost certainly won’t move the needle;
polls suggest Canadians don’t even want free money from the Liberals anymore. And the party will find itself in an even deeper pit of ignominy.
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Thursday’s order-in-council added 324 new firearms to the government’s list of prohibited weapons, but with an amnesty period that’ll outlive the current government by well over a week, licenced firearms owners are now content to sit and wait.
Many gun owners planning on turning over their firearms now sitting put until the next federal election, said one policy expert
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The amnesty period for Thursday’s new prohibitions will expire on Oct. 30, 2025 — 10 days after the deadline for Canada’s next federal election, one that poll numbers and cratering government support suggest the Trudeau Liberals will handily lose.
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“The government has not worked with gun owners or made sincere effort to bring them on board, even though they are the main stakeholders.”
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Gary Mauser, professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University and senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, agreed.
With the Liberals on Thursday adding so many new models to the list, retailers and distributors with those models will have to wait longer
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“Gun owners know the current amnesty period hasn’t changed so they don’t worry about police raiding their homes to collect the newly-banned possessions that they purchased and use legally,” he said.
“They know that the Liberals are still trying to figure out how to collect the hundreds of thousands of guns they’ve already banned — the police won’t do it unless they get a massive increase in their budget. Canada Post simply isn’t able to do it;, their substations aren’t secure enough, nor are their employees adequately trained or even bonded.”