On May 1st, 2020, the Liberal Government banned over 1,500 makes and models of guns they labelled “military-style assault rifles.”
The same day, Angus Reid Institute trotted out a poll to support the ban, saying “an overwhelming majority” of poll respondents – 78% – “support or strongly support” the ban on assault-style weapons.[i]
Interestingly, the Angus Reid poll also showed “an overwhelming majority” of poll respondents – 86%[ii] – do not own firearms, nor do they know much about Canada’s gun laws.
That section of the poll was not so widely reported.
Most Canadians would be surprised to learn our firearm control laws are among the most stringent in the world.
They certainly won’t learn this from our government, because politicians don’t generally traffic in truth.
This was epitomized by our Prime Minister the day he announced his gun ban.
“You don’t need an AR-15 to bring down a deer,” Justin Trudeau said with all the indignation he could muster.
Canada’s Snake Oil Peddlers
Opportunistic politicians know they can sell anything to a grieving nation, and that’s precisely what Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair did on May 1st, 2020.
They grabbed the biggest bottle of snake oil they could find and peddled it to us on national television, along with grandiose promises their shiny new gun ban would fix the problems every other gun ban in Canadian history has failed to solve.
And Canadians bought their snake oil and gulped it down as fast as they could.
The Uncomfortable Truth
No law could stop the Nova Scotia mass murderer. He had no regard for human life. He had no regard for the myriad laws he violated for years leading up to his killing spree.
- Murder is illegal.
- Impersonating a police officer is illegal.
- Possessing guns without an RCMP-issued Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL) is illegal.
He meticulously planned his murderous rampage across the entire province and used RCMP uniforms, RCMP vehicles and illegal guns to do it.
None of these facts matter to our Prime Minister and our Minister of Public Safety.
- The Nova Scotia murderer did not obtain any of his guns legally.
- Three of the four guns he used were smuggled in from the United States, but the RCMP refuses to say where the fourth gun came from.
- The Nova Scotia murderer did not have a Possession and Acquisition Licence, so he could not legally own firearms, either.
Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair purposely ignored the fact this person violated every gun law passed in the last 100 years.
Why?
Because the facts in the Nova Scotia murders don’t fit their political agenda or their preconceived narrative.
No law can ever stop someone like the Nova Scotia mass murderer.
This is the cold, dark thought that terrifies every man, woman and child in Canada, and rightfully so.
We want to believe something can be done to stop monsters like him.
We want to believe so badly we’re willing to do anything, say anything, and pay any price – even when we know we’re lying to ourselves.
In our fear and our ignorance, we allow our government to sell us snake oil.
We buy into the lie, but laws built on lies cannot stand.
Education Inoculates Against Snake Oil Salesmen
Guns are scary, especially to those who don’t know much about them.
Guns are even scarier when they are used to murder many of the 22 innocent people who died on April 18th and 19th. Gasoline and matches killed roughly one third of those individuals.
I wrote Canadian Gun Laws: A Primer for People Who Know Little About Gun Laws for three primary reasons:
- to educate people who don’t know much about guns;
- to educate people who don’t know much about Canada’s firearm owner licensing system and the much time, training and money it costs to become a legal gun owner;
- to educate people who don’t know much about Canada’s already strict gun laws.
I also wrote it because most people who don’t know much about guns are typically fearful of them. They’re also fearful of the people who own firearms legally.
This is as unfortunate as it is misguided, but this ignorance is what disingenuous politicians count on at times like this.
We’re afraid and we will believe anyone who tells us they can take the fear away.
Even when they’re lying and, if we’re brutally honest with ourselves, we know they’re lying.
Knowledge is Power, they say, and education is the best inoculation against snake oil peddlers and the lies they sell.
If you do nothing else today, I encourage you to read Canadian Gun Laws: A Primer for People Who Know Little About Gun Laws.
Then answer this question.
“Could Justin Trudeau’s and Bill Blair’s gun ban stop a man like the Nova Scotia mass murderer, who violated every law passed in the last 100 years to kill 22 innocent people?”
Please tell me your answer in the comments section below.
Sources:
[i] http://angusreid.org/assault-weapons-ban/
[ii] 73% of respondents never owned a gun, plus 13% of respondents owned guns in the past but do not own guns today.
Perhaps the fourth gun was a C8 from the murdered RCMP officers car. It’s telling that the RCMP and Blair are being so secretive about the firearms used other than that one handgun was the officer’s duty sidearm.
It could take months for the RCMP to spin a credible story, not truths, but what they think will absolve them of their complete mishandling of this tragedy.
There is good reason to believe that the firearm that they are not releasing has been prohibited all ready in Canada
This would totally destroy the narrative of the liberal party
Don’t know any facts about the fourth gun. But did anyone consider that it could have been the murdered constables rifle that is kept in a rack between the driver and passenger seats in all police vehicles . They look very much like an assault style weapon but are also semi automatics . I have seen it myself while talking to a local police officer and was told it is a semi automatic . Now this is clearly speculation on my part but a question that should be answered. Maybe this is why no details are being released on the fourth weapon.
The semi-auto the RCMP are using is an AR-15. They like to call it a Patrol Carbine.
No the recent OIC ban would not have stopped him. No law would have stopped him. The only thing that would have stopped him is either:
1) one of the victims who knew him, that would have been armed and shot him as soon as he made any gesture of pulling out his gun or pointing his gun. or
2) one of the victims who did not know him, that was armed and would have had the presence of mind to shoot at what-appeared-to-be an RCMP member who was behaving erratically/tyrannically/unlawfully, or
3) a bystander who witnessed one of the executions, that was armed and would have shot the what-appeared-to-be RCMP member behaving like a murderer.
Before April 18, I doubt 2 or 3 would have happened because Canadians are conditioned to believe the RCMP have the authority to do whatever they feel like including shooting unarmed people. Thus 1 would have been the most likely scenario. Now, knowing that a it may be a murderer playing dress-up, I hope Canadians would be scrutinizing the individual dressed as a police officer and their actions more, and would use a gun in self defense against them if they were threatened.
Now with the right mind-set in place (hopefully), we just need to stop preventing the good people of Canada from training and arming themselves.
I am a senior who has been blessed to have lived eight decades in the Province of Ontario, Canada. My ancestry includes Sir James Whitney (sixth Premier of Ontario), and I have a problem with our current Federal Government who continuely thinks that their ideal is their ability to manipulate their own common sense, and to accept something that their intellect rejects. It is the same model of intellectual submission that Dictatorships have used throughout history.
The concept of a higher reasoning without any obligation to discharging the burden of PROOF.
Cops knew 5 years ago he was violent and had illegal guns, why was nothing done?
Lots of people knew he had guns, cop car and uniform, why did no one tell the cops?
Who started the argument, what was it about, and why did his girlfriend wait 8 hrs to tell the cops?
Why was Amber Alert not issued when they first arrived on scene and were told the killer was dressed as a cop and driving a cop car?
Why have they not told us what guns were seized? And what make and model?
Why did the folks who helped him make the car not report it?
He used the oldest trick in the book, planned it for years by the looks of it, pulled it off meticulously unfotunately, and many people paid with their lives for no reason if something had been done earlier, I feel they would still be with their families. And now for my last question
How many would still be alive if every one of them had a handgun on their hip and were properly and legally trained to use it, and why is the government letting criminals back onto the street because they don’t want them to get sick, but disarming legal law abiding citizens? Just saying…
No and you don’t need a car that does 2-3 X the speed limit. I wonder what personal vehicles they drive? Better still wonder if these people have ever held a FA or hunted.
All the firearms laws in the world could not have stopped this murdering rampage. Blair and Trudeau are idiots.
They should read their own laws of past and they would see (possibly) how ignorant they both are. Ban the Liberals and leave our guns alone.