Good news for Canadian gun owners, but there’s still a dispute about Quebec registrations, and that is sticking around until that dispute is resolved.
While the then-governing Liberals sold the registry to gun owners as a minor, reasonable bureaucratic nicety, they also had the bad habit of trotting it out in public as a sign of their government’s commitment to public safety and ending gun violence. You can’t blame the people who had to register their firearms for feeling like the government was treating them as mass-shooters in waiting. Or, at the very least, a political punching bag.
That’s one of the primary things that motivates my opposition to gun control, because in fact, they do think we’re all mass-shooters in waiting. It’s patently obvious from their rhetoric that’s the case. But I don’t think they can solicit donations being nice to gun owners. The reason all the anti-gun groups have become so hateful is likely because that keeps the checks rolling in from those looking to buy a stronger self-image at the expense of looking down on others.
Canadian gun owners are well within their rights to thank the Tories for scrapping the hated registry while still demanding changes — clarifications and improvements, mostly — of Canada’s gun laws. Clarifying safe storage laws and rationalizing the classification system that divides guns into non-restricted, restricted and prohibited groups (with different regulations for each) would be a good place to start.
It is very important for Canadian gun owners to build on that victory, and not just go home and savor the victory. Canada will likely never be like the United States in terms of gun laws, but it could probably be better than it is today.
Canadian gun owners also need to work on their own Gun Culture 2.0
Right now they’re very hamstrung by “Sport and Hunting”.
Which is part of hwo they have such onerous Safe Storage Laws, no CCW, minimum sizes for handguns, and capacity restrictions.
As long as the only “acceptable” reasons for owning a gun up there are eithr sport or hunting they’re going to be working on a rearguard action.
If you want to know what would happen if the Fudds got their way, Canada’s a good example.
“Minimum” sizes?
I hunt with handguns from 22LR to 44 Mag, depending on the game I’m after!
It would suck to have to use a 44 Mag for Squirrels!
Not caliber. Barrel length. Under 105 mm (4.2 in) it falls under the Prohibited class.
Which means you need a special prohibited licenses which are only given at the discretion of the Chief Firearms Officer of the province or the RCMP.