It never ceases to amaze me how little knowledge journalists have of firearms.
And they don’t even try to study up a bit before they write an asinine editorial like “Guns blazing.”
To start, countless hunters use semi-automatic rifles and shotguns to harvest game, both big and small.
Countless collectors, target shooters and action shooters use semi-automatic firearms for perfectly legal and harmless pursuits.
These firearms have plenty of uses other than to harm people.
Recently something as common and harmless (if used properly) as a van was used to murder and injure a number of innocent people in Toronto.
You have absolutely no idea of how many people in Atlantic or other parts of Canada oppose semi-automatic firearms. As well, you have no idea how many Canadians own and enjoy semi-automatic firearms for perfectly legal pursuits.
(Public Safety Minister Ralph) Gooddale’s bill does nothing to enhance public safety and only serves to place further restrictions on law abiding gun owners who already have more than enough stupid, useless regulations to deal with.
People in Canada already have to have extremely thorough background checks to get a firearms licence, which are reviewed every day and can be revoked at any time.
Guns already cannot be bought, sold or traded to anyone who does not have a valid licence. Now to address the registry.
The Liberal way has always been to chip away at gun owner’s rights in the name of compromise, and compromise with them always leads to us losing.
There is no more room for compromise with these people. Their only objective (and they have stated it on many occasions) is complete disarmament of law-abiding Canadian gun owners, other than police and military.
The Americans had sense enough to include the Second Amendment in their Constitution, just to prevent this from happening.
Of course, criminals will always have guns because they don’t care about the law.
Gooddale is proposing that records be kept of all guns sold by dealers and that every gun sold privately be cleared through the Firearms Authority and be assigned a transaction number which will be recorded.
What is this if not a registry? Shame on us for pointing this out? How dare you.
We have already lived through Liberal gun control. We know.
Also, a number of Swiss Arms and CZ sporting rifles are to be prohibited under this new law. The RCMP tried this on a whim, for no good reason, a few years ago. The Conservatives reversed this and took the power to arbitrarily ban certain firearms based on their appearance from the RCMP, who obviously abuse it.
When the country descended into madness and elected the Liberals, they promised to give this power back to the RCMP, which is part of this new bill. But don’t worry, these prohibited firearms will still be able to be brought to the range. For now.
In the 1990s, the government prohibited a large number of firearms based mostly on appearance. At the time I owner a semi-automatic FN FAL. No different than any semi-automatic .308 hunting rifle. I was allowed to bring it to my local range for a couple of years, then one day I got a letter from the CFO. My rifle was now considered too dangerous to be brought to the range anymore.
It’s been locked in my safe ever since and is now practically worthless because of this. There is no doubt that if this law passes, they will do the same to these latest sacrificial lambs. And it will do nothing to increase public safety.
In closing, all Canadian firearm owners should do everything in their power to stop this far reaching legislation from passing and to get rid of the Liberals next election.
Two more examples of how well gun control works: News items — Three teens shot in gun-free London over the weekend; Seven killed in Australia’s worst mass shooting in 22 years.
All praise the antis and the Fudds.
Scott Manning
Proud NFA, NRA and CPC member
Torbay
