Great article on one of Canada's long-standing stupid arguments. Anti-gun groups seem to be searching for some utopia where if there are no guns, no one will ever be hurt. It's naive and delusional thinking. Canada's gun problem is its border, and now, 3D printing. It has never been the legal gun owners who should be proud of the hops they have to jump through. he beauty for politicians is it's the "shiny object" they can talk about as a distraction from all the other things they're failing at so it appears that they're doing "something". Same laws are just fine as they are. Canada's gun laws are the perfect example.
I used to be strongly on the other side of the gun issue, but this article and similar ones by Matt have totally won me over. I was wrong.
That's one of the things I love about substacks like The Line. They're proof that good faith arguments and debate really can change people's minds. That's often hard to believe these days but something I'm grateful for this Xmas.
Once upon a time, Americans could have looked to us for an example of good gun control. But the Poly group combined with a Trudeau government have shown them that the Canadian way is just partway along the slippery slope to "they're gonna take all our guns!" Also, look at what the government's touched in recent years: Phoenix pay, international relations, housing, vaccines, carbon reductions, etc. Do you really think they could manage central storage? And who would police central storage in the first place? Those storage facilities will be targets for anyone looking to get access to a lot of weapons. Is this government up to the task? They can't even do simple math on immigration and housing and public services.
C21 represents a piece of legislation that is entirely fact & data free! It will be expensive, difficult or impossible to implement & with virtually no demonstrable benefit other than clearly illustrating that this a government is willing to use firearms or anything else it believes is to it’s political advantage! C21 represents the largest seizure of legally purchased and owned property since the government of Canada interred the Japanese Canadians of the west coast during WW2 and seized their property - it was by a Liberal government too and was “good” politics at the time!
While extremely cogent and an accurate history of the Canadian disarmament exercise, this article sadly is another in a long series of preaching to the choir.
An article I read on how con men pray on seniors made the point that these criminals always bring emotion into play. And when emotion takes over logic goes out the window.
The current occupiers of the Ottawa Throne owe their power to a whole bunch of narrow swing ridings near Toronto. And stirring up the 905 area code Karens of various sexes is an easy way to maintain
Every new iteration of the "gun compromise" involves a deal. We give up those guns, accept these new restrictions; and they (the public, or the anti-gunners or whoever) accept the (hopefully) reduced risk that remains.
But they never keep up their end of the bargain. Let there be one tragic event, even in some other country where the compromise never applied, and they're back demanding a new compromise. They never actually accepted the risk at all.
You can't say you accept the risk if you're going to absolutely lose your shit every time it happens.
I think a dynamic in many advocacy organizations is that they tend to become increasingly extreme as they make progress. The less extreme voices tend to drop out when they feel satisfied with what's been achieved. The people who remain are the extremists, and the positions of the organizations reflect it. The organizations themselves retain political capital and branding from the previous successes, which lends the extremists credibility they might not otherwise have. Examples of this are everywhere.
As a longstanding PAL holder who's managed to get through 40-plus years of life without committing a crime or even throwing a punch, there's no end to the frustration I feel each and every time the Liberal government comes back to this issue in an attempt to bolster waning support from Montreal and Toronto voters.
As other commenters have stated, the laws that existed in 2015 were sufficient to allow both safety and a reasonable amount of breathing room for gun owners. To put it bluntly, our laws worked. There were no glaring loopholes or oversights. Then the Trudeau Liberals decided to fix what wasn't broken, cheered on all the way by voters who hold up their complete ignorance of guns and existing gun laws as a point of pride. And the arrogance that goes along with the zealous support really irks - gun owners rightfully pointed out that banning single-shot rifles and capping magazine limits on century-old bolt-action firearms does not equal a "ban on assault rifles," even by the loosest definitions, only to be told by their well-paid Public Safety Minister that they can't read.
As for the activist groups, it's clear that they're not seeking compromise. They're prohibitionists, full stop, and should be treated as such. We tried that with alcohol and look what happened. The fact that the government, activists, and RCMP all see a public gun ban as the only way to prevent a repeat of the Nova Scotia tragedy - in which a criminal with NO gun license, who was known to the police, and murdered multiple people with a cache of illegal guns smuggled in from the United States- shows that evidence-based decision-making is just a PR term used by Liberals. It isn't practiced in the real world.
An excellent insightful article, Tim! Most urbanites usually only experience the horrible misuse of illegal firearms through the media and lose all sense of good judgement when asked to assess any legitimate use. Their paranoid views then show up at the ballot box to support like-minded, intellectually feeble politicians who will bend to the demands of cadres of activists. The recent proceedings in Parliament on Bill C-21 demonstrated this problem in the starkest terms. Canadian democracy is in serious trouble when individual freedoms become unnecessarily restricted to the point expected compliance with the law is no longer respected. Certain well known lobbyists on this file have long passed a deserved empathy level to become perpetrators of disinformation and victimizers themselves! Should this trend continue, with the unwarranted excessive support they receive from politicians and an unsophisticated majority of voters, the undesirable consequences will not be surprising.
I always question the naive belief that if guns didn’t exist homicide and crimes would stop. Look at the mass murder with knives that happened this past year. Someone violent can turn anything into a weapon - whether it be mechanical or their bare hands. Maybe looking to the cause of crime would be a better use of their advocacy.
Editors at The Line wrote a year ago that maybe the Liberals had gone to the gun control well once too often. The draft legislation became a stealth operation, with many long rifles added to the list after committee hearings had finished. The bad faith aspects are bad enough, but the Minister in charge played fast and loose with the truth as to what the amendments really stated. The mess was withdrawn, but no lessons have been learned.
There have been no lessons learned by the general public either. Broad ignorance about the suitability of using certain guns in crime and the source of guns used in crime continues to curb the ability to have an adult conversation about guns in Canada. In my part of Canada, the likelihood of being stabbed by a random attacker is far greater than getting shot. And the stabbing odds go through the roof when domestic quarrels or liquor induced violence at social gatherings occur.
And finally, government legislation always brings the worst out of bureaucratic tendencies to empire build. Livestock owners in Canada can go to the local farm supply store and purchase RFRID tags, installed in each animal’s ears and a common, independent registry can trace those animals all the way through the food chain and back to the primary source. Cost: under $5.00 per head.
The gun control lobby might be on the fringes of sane input into gun legislation, but I would grant them credit for political savviness.
The anti gun lobby is deeply intertwined with the political fortunes of the Liberal Party. The main agitators have sprung from a terrible tragedy involving guns in Montreal. Montreal is a hot spot for Liberal electoral fortunes.
Connect the dots and we have a tired Liberal Government sagging in popular opinion polls and appearing to be one or two years away from a stint on the Opposition benches. The Montreal gun control lobby surely are alarmed at the prospect of losing influence with a friendly Liberal Government who never misses an opportunity to punish gun owners for political advantage. The window for influence is getting smaller and the Liberals can’t afford to alienate anybody at this point in time.
Gun owners may find another round of messy gun control legislation coming their way soon.
Thanks Tim, for saying what most journalists are afraid to. There are also other issues, the misinformation and falsehoods that the government and the anti’s are spreading, hearings that were virtual kangaroo courts lead by people totally ignorant of firearms knowledge, and of course a senate that is not serving the people but rather serving their liberal roots, I agree the system has more than failed, our constitution has failed and Canada is on the verge of becoming an Autocracy
The old slogan of when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns Is being played out in full view in Canada. The ban on the purchase or sale of handgun by licenced gun owners has had virtually no effect on the rise and increasingly brazen use of handguns by criminals. The number of shootings and deaths where handguns are used is increasing and being reported on a regular basis in the news media. A trend that is likely to increase as criminals know there are no serious deterrents to the possession or use of illegal handguns and minimal efforts to address the import and supply of handguns into Canada. The advent of 3D printing will also make it easier to acquire and use illegal guns.
It is unlikely that the reality of the failure of the ban on handguns to improve public safety will deter gun control advocates from pushing for their ultimate objective of having all firearms (excluding military and police use) made illegal. Nor will it stop the current government from using gun control as a vote gaining and virtue signalling tactic. It is so easy to claim gun control legislation is improving public safety when there is a minimal if any improvements but is sure makes it look like the government is serious about doing something.
Great article on one of Canada's long-standing stupid arguments. Anti-gun groups seem to be searching for some utopia where if there are no guns, no one will ever be hurt. It's naive and delusional thinking. Canada's gun problem is its border, and now, 3D printing. It has never been the legal gun owners who should be proud of the hops they have to jump through. he beauty for politicians is it's the "shiny object" they can talk about as a distraction from all the other things they're failing at so it appears that they're doing "something". Same laws are just fine as they are. Canada's gun laws are the perfect example.
I used to be strongly on the other side of the gun issue, but this article and similar ones by Matt have totally won me over. I was wrong.
That's one of the things I love about substacks like The Line. They're proof that good faith arguments and debate really can change people's minds. That's often hard to believe these days but something I'm grateful for this Xmas.
Transport Canada estimates that that 1074 Canadians are killed by drunk drivers and 63,000 injuries .
So using the 'logic' of C21 an almost total ban on motor vehicles is required, even if it saves only one life.
Once upon a time, Americans could have looked to us for an example of good gun control. But the Poly group combined with a Trudeau government have shown them that the Canadian way is just partway along the slippery slope to "they're gonna take all our guns!" Also, look at what the government's touched in recent years: Phoenix pay, international relations, housing, vaccines, carbon reductions, etc. Do you really think they could manage central storage? And who would police central storage in the first place? Those storage facilities will be targets for anyone looking to get access to a lot of weapons. Is this government up to the task? They can't even do simple math on immigration and housing and public services.
C21 represents a piece of legislation that is entirely fact & data free! It will be expensive, difficult or impossible to implement & with virtually no demonstrable benefit other than clearly illustrating that this a government is willing to use firearms or anything else it believes is to it’s political advantage! C21 represents the largest seizure of legally purchased and owned property since the government of Canada interred the Japanese Canadians of the west coast during WW2 and seized their property - it was by a Liberal government too and was “good” politics at the time!
While extremely cogent and an accurate history of the Canadian disarmament exercise, this article sadly is another in a long series of preaching to the choir.
An article I read on how con men pray on seniors made the point that these criminals always bring emotion into play. And when emotion takes over logic goes out the window.
The current occupiers of the Ottawa Throne owe their power to a whole bunch of narrow swing ridings near Toronto. And stirring up the 905 area code Karens of various sexes is an easy way to maintain
Every new iteration of the "gun compromise" involves a deal. We give up those guns, accept these new restrictions; and they (the public, or the anti-gunners or whoever) accept the (hopefully) reduced risk that remains.
But they never keep up their end of the bargain. Let there be one tragic event, even in some other country where the compromise never applied, and they're back demanding a new compromise. They never actually accepted the risk at all.
You can't say you accept the risk if you're going to absolutely lose your shit every time it happens.
I think a dynamic in many advocacy organizations is that they tend to become increasingly extreme as they make progress. The less extreme voices tend to drop out when they feel satisfied with what's been achieved. The people who remain are the extremists, and the positions of the organizations reflect it. The organizations themselves retain political capital and branding from the previous successes, which lends the extremists credibility they might not otherwise have. Examples of this are everywhere.
As a longstanding PAL holder who's managed to get through 40-plus years of life without committing a crime or even throwing a punch, there's no end to the frustration I feel each and every time the Liberal government comes back to this issue in an attempt to bolster waning support from Montreal and Toronto voters.
As other commenters have stated, the laws that existed in 2015 were sufficient to allow both safety and a reasonable amount of breathing room for gun owners. To put it bluntly, our laws worked. There were no glaring loopholes or oversights. Then the Trudeau Liberals decided to fix what wasn't broken, cheered on all the way by voters who hold up their complete ignorance of guns and existing gun laws as a point of pride. And the arrogance that goes along with the zealous support really irks - gun owners rightfully pointed out that banning single-shot rifles and capping magazine limits on century-old bolt-action firearms does not equal a "ban on assault rifles," even by the loosest definitions, only to be told by their well-paid Public Safety Minister that they can't read.
As for the activist groups, it's clear that they're not seeking compromise. They're prohibitionists, full stop, and should be treated as such. We tried that with alcohol and look what happened. The fact that the government, activists, and RCMP all see a public gun ban as the only way to prevent a repeat of the Nova Scotia tragedy - in which a criminal with NO gun license, who was known to the police, and murdered multiple people with a cache of illegal guns smuggled in from the United States- shows that evidence-based decision-making is just a PR term used by Liberals. It isn't practiced in the real world.
An excellent insightful article, Tim! Most urbanites usually only experience the horrible misuse of illegal firearms through the media and lose all sense of good judgement when asked to assess any legitimate use. Their paranoid views then show up at the ballot box to support like-minded, intellectually feeble politicians who will bend to the demands of cadres of activists. The recent proceedings in Parliament on Bill C-21 demonstrated this problem in the starkest terms. Canadian democracy is in serious trouble when individual freedoms become unnecessarily restricted to the point expected compliance with the law is no longer respected. Certain well known lobbyists on this file have long passed a deserved empathy level to become perpetrators of disinformation and victimizers themselves! Should this trend continue, with the unwarranted excessive support they receive from politicians and an unsophisticated majority of voters, the undesirable consequences will not be surprising.
I always question the naive belief that if guns didn’t exist homicide and crimes would stop. Look at the mass murder with knives that happened this past year. Someone violent can turn anything into a weapon - whether it be mechanical or their bare hands. Maybe looking to the cause of crime would be a better use of their advocacy.
Editors at The Line wrote a year ago that maybe the Liberals had gone to the gun control well once too often. The draft legislation became a stealth operation, with many long rifles added to the list after committee hearings had finished. The bad faith aspects are bad enough, but the Minister in charge played fast and loose with the truth as to what the amendments really stated. The mess was withdrawn, but no lessons have been learned.
There have been no lessons learned by the general public either. Broad ignorance about the suitability of using certain guns in crime and the source of guns used in crime continues to curb the ability to have an adult conversation about guns in Canada. In my part of Canada, the likelihood of being stabbed by a random attacker is far greater than getting shot. And the stabbing odds go through the roof when domestic quarrels or liquor induced violence at social gatherings occur.
And finally, government legislation always brings the worst out of bureaucratic tendencies to empire build. Livestock owners in Canada can go to the local farm supply store and purchase RFRID tags, installed in each animal’s ears and a common, independent registry can trace those animals all the way through the food chain and back to the primary source. Cost: under $5.00 per head.
The gun control lobby might be on the fringes of sane input into gun legislation, but I would grant them credit for political savviness.
The anti gun lobby is deeply intertwined with the political fortunes of the Liberal Party. The main agitators have sprung from a terrible tragedy involving guns in Montreal. Montreal is a hot spot for Liberal electoral fortunes.
Connect the dots and we have a tired Liberal Government sagging in popular opinion polls and appearing to be one or two years away from a stint on the Opposition benches. The Montreal gun control lobby surely are alarmed at the prospect of losing influence with a friendly Liberal Government who never misses an opportunity to punish gun owners for political advantage. The window for influence is getting smaller and the Liberals can’t afford to alienate anybody at this point in time.
Gun owners may find another round of messy gun control legislation coming their way soon.
Well thought out article.
Thanks Tim, for saying what most journalists are afraid to. There are also other issues, the misinformation and falsehoods that the government and the anti’s are spreading, hearings that were virtual kangaroo courts lead by people totally ignorant of firearms knowledge, and of course a senate that is not serving the people but rather serving their liberal roots, I agree the system has more than failed, our constitution has failed and Canada is on the verge of becoming an Autocracy
The old slogan of when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns Is being played out in full view in Canada. The ban on the purchase or sale of handgun by licenced gun owners has had virtually no effect on the rise and increasingly brazen use of handguns by criminals. The number of shootings and deaths where handguns are used is increasing and being reported on a regular basis in the news media. A trend that is likely to increase as criminals know there are no serious deterrents to the possession or use of illegal handguns and minimal efforts to address the import and supply of handguns into Canada. The advent of 3D printing will also make it easier to acquire and use illegal guns.
It is unlikely that the reality of the failure of the ban on handguns to improve public safety will deter gun control advocates from pushing for their ultimate objective of having all firearms (excluding military and police use) made illegal. Nor will it stop the current government from using gun control as a vote gaining and virtue signalling tactic. It is so easy to claim gun control legislation is improving public safety when there is a minimal if any improvements but is sure makes it look like the government is serious about doing something.