KRUGGEL: The CBC missed a big chunk of this story: Firearms

If you live out west, especially in a small town or a smaller city then you know oil isn't the only thing people talk about. Yes, I'm talking about firearms. 

 

The National Energy Program (NEP) did come up in the 1990s, but it wasn't as big a thorn by 2015. Justin Trudeau showed that he could sell the Liberals in the west. He got 4 seats in Alberta. That was almost unheard of. Sure, the NEP was still something that pissed people off, but that crowd was smaller. It was growing older and the memory was fading.

 

His later moves on the Carbon Tax, Northern Gateway, Energy East, etc did hurt the Liberal brand in the West. No one denies that.

 

The CBC, for all their skill, is overly focused on energy as an issue. 

 

Jean Chretien actually laid the foundation for anti-Liberal sentiment in the West back in 1995. Perhaps, he stoked the fires.

 

This was the C-69 aka the Firearms Act. It declared all privately held firearms prohibited in Canada. What the Act does is give an owner an exemption from the law for 5 years. This has been a sore spot in a lot of this country, but never more so than Western Canada.

 

The No Compromise merchandise showing half a maple leaf and on the other side a facsimile of rifle are still easy to find on the streets even on a city on Vancouver Island. I see them here, and more frequently than I would expect. 

 

In the 2015 election campaign Justin Trudeau came out west many times, and on one occasion he had a .22LR and went shooting. He pledged the Liberals were done with firearms regulations. What we had worked, and that was good enough.

 

In 2017, less than 2 years in office he brought in the bill C-71 which is the retailers' firearms registry. Retailers would register every firearm sold, regardless of classification. People rightly called that a betrayal by Trudeau. Then came the de-coupling of the ATT from the license. You had to have that paper on you at all times. Minor, but that was just a needle to annoy people.

 

Could it get worse? Miraculously, renewals went from a couple of weeks to several months. Even the online renewal system which electronically submits the data with 100% accuracy can take up to a year. Some people still say they gets theirs back in a month. I just did mine, 5 months. There were no issues. No red flags. It just takes that long.

 

Then in 2020 Justin Trudeau used the mass shooting in Nova Scotia as a reason to go after the sport shooting community. He banned 1,500 different varieties of firearms. This was despite the fact that the shooter in 2020 did not have a firearms license, had been banned from getting one, and had smuggled his firearms in from the United States. He'd been reported to the RCMP 3 times by people stating he issued threats and had illegal firearms.

The RCMP did nothing. 

 

Sport shooters were punished.

 

Justin Trudeau used that shooting to attack the entire sport shooting community. He called Modern Sporting Rifles or MSRs weapons of war and assault styled weapons. This is despite the fact none of them are used by any military in the world, and they aren't capable of automatic fire. His ban affected not just MSRs, but .22LRs. These are small calibre firearms. 

 

Just to be clear, they won't pierce police or military body armor, and no one would ever use them in a war. Even terrorists don't use the kinds of firearms. 

 

Last December, Trudeau sent Dominic Leblanc out to announce a ban of almost 500 more firearms altogether. These included smaller carbines like the Just Right Carbine which is a 9mm. He called this a weapon of war. A 9mm is not a weapon of war. More to the point, I've seen the Just Right. It is specifically designed as a sporting rifle and nothing else. 

 

The firearms moves by Trudeau motivated online firearms forums on social media. Hundreds of people got involved in discussing the issues and how to deal with them. Thousands more have signed up for groups like the National Firearms Association and the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights. 

 

There are 2.35 million licensed firearms owners in Canada. In 2015, I would have wagered that the Conservatives had 50% of that vote. That was disproportionately high given what they got on election day. 

 

Today, I would say they have 90% of that vote. Honestly, I might be a bit low. I'm not kidding.

 

While Ontario has more firearms owners than any other province, the per capita rate of holding firearms is still higher out west. 

 

I know some people on the left choose to mock people that are sport shooters, mock the community, and look down on them. I've seen them commenting here. I read the slurs. 

 

I would say back: is enacting stupid, ideologically motivated policy worth the shit storm you're getting in return? Is going after licensed owners of firearms worth losing government over? Is further alienating Western Canadians a good move?

 

A rational person says NO to all three questions.

 

The ABC crowd doesn't always answer NO.