r/canadaguns • u/AutoModerator • Jun 13 '22

Weekly Politics Thread

Please post all your Politics or Ban-related ideas, initiatives, comments, suggestions, news articles, and recommendations in this thread. Unless new information is published in the media, recurring articles related to the gov'ts ***possible*** legislation are to be posted here. These threads will be weekly, until it's necessary for another per-week.

Previous politics threads can be found here. Previous threads can be found here.

We understand that politics is a touchy subject, and at times things can get heated. A reminder of the subreddit rules, when commenting, where subreddit users are expected to abide.

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u/Batsinvic888 Bats888 on YouTube Jun 15 '22

One thing I've noticed over the last 3 years as I've gotten into the politics of guns is how enabling the Firearms Act is for future gun control. Like what purpose could the GIC being able to suspended transfers be for except a handgun ban? The May OIC is the most blatant example of this.

Now I am not old enough to even have been alive for the passing of the Firearms Act, so for the people that have memories of it, was the enabling of future gun control a major sticking point of the bill? Or was it just so shit that focusing on what could come in the future was just not a priority

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

The Liberals always planned on bringing in more gun control after the act was passed but the party fell apart when Jean Chretien resigned as Prime Minister in 2002. It brought down his entire government. Paul Martin took over temporarily as head of the Liberal Party and stayed until the election and at that point their gun control scheme stalled. The reason all that is relevant is because we would have seen a lot more gun control from the liberals had their party not lost power when they did. They setup the firearms act with the intention of bringing in more and more gun control with each passing term. Their goal was always a total ban on firearms in Canada and they didn't try to hide it in the nineties. It wasn't until they knew they were close to defeating Harper and the CPC that they suddenly changed their tune.

Even when Chretien was in office, the LPC always knew another party would take over at some point, so they intentionally made the Firearms Act easy to manipulate but hard to repeal. That's what they're doing with C-21, the LPC have stated their intention to make it as hard as they possibly can for any future government to undo. We're seeing a repeat of the Chretien administration with Trudeau, and C-21 nearly mirrors the legislation passed under Chretien but goes even further. We've got the new air gun ban to go with the old airsoft ban, a total prohibition on replica guns even if they're kids toys or replicas of antiques. The handgun freeze, the new extended record keeping. More magazine restrictions and more rules and regulations to contend with, by the time it's done the legislation we're told "won't affect law abiding gun owners" will wipe out shooting sports in the country and crush countless legitimate businesses. On top of that, I'm sure the LPC is already planning more ways to attack gun ownership in the future. They knew exactly what they were doing with Firearms Act in 1995, don't doubt it.

TLDR: There's no way to condense this without using foul language.

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u/TechnologyReady Radical Centrist Jun 15 '22

I don't understand people saying "making laws difficult/impossible to reverse by future CPC governments."

Can anybody explain what this means? If the LPC brings in gun regulations by OIC, the CPC can remove them by OIC just as easily? This isn't a one-way street.

Any legislation actually passed would have to go through Parliament, so the CPC would need a majority or coalition. But this isn't "harder" than the LPC currently have it. It's the same process. They have their coalition.

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u/NightFuryToni Jun 15 '22

Wild guess... I think what people really means is that it's politically unpalatable to reverse rather than legally and procedurally impossible to reverse. If a politician tries to reverse them, the anti-gunner lobbyists will scream bloody murder and so-so party is trying to cater to criminals. Remember that a lot of these OICs and bans came along after some tragic event in order to pass by emotions, and not passed by logic.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

The fact they had this bill ready to go and were just waiting for some kids to die in America before they played on everyone’s emotions. How fucking sick is that? When they got the news of the Texas school shooting were they excited? Did they feel happiness because this was what they were anxiously waiting for? Turns my stomach. Evil shit.

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u/DistortoiseLP Jun 16 '22

If they were waiting for an American shooting to unveil it with, I'm unclear why they wouldn't have taken the opportunity presented by the Buffalo shooter a week earlier.

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u/throwa37 Jun 16 '22

The Buffalo shooting could very well have been the actual event they intended to capitalize on, with Uvalde being a "lucky" occurrence that just happened to play out right as the bill rolled out.

It's obvious that it was one or the other, though. The bill is obviously in an incomplete state, with many measures (like the storage and magazine provisions) being deferred to regulations that aren't done yet. It's also very telling that the handgun sales ban was announced just before the summer break - I'm sure their preference would have been to enact the "freeze" as soon as possible after the announcement, but they made the calculation that making their announcement on the heels of a high-profile atrocity was worth letting handguns fly off the shelves over the summer.