I’m glad to see someone taking this problem seriously. I wonder how gun owners will feel about it, and how the National Firearms Association (NFA) will react if it passes.
There’s two lobby groups, actually. The Canadian Firearms Association is the older one, modelled in the NRA. It’s gone through some internal fights that ended up in lawsuits about control of the organization. Dunno how active they are now.
The other one is the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights.
There has been minor tinkering with Australia National Firearms Agreement (NFA) since enacting in 1996. All have introduced some weakening and/or inconsistency between jurisdictions. A lot of this was facilitated by Liberal/National Party governments with slim majorities shoring up their right wing base. But there is a recently arrived new sheriff in town, the “Teals”, and they aren’t playing that game.
The key difference here is that the pro-gun lobby know that one mass shooting incident here (let alone one of the scale of Christchurch, NZ) and the shutters will come down really hard.
I wholeheartedly support all of these measures. I especially support this item “increasing criminal penalties for smuggling and trafficking of firearms”. Smuggling from the US is the major source of illegal guns in Canada. Tougher penalties may not be a deterrent for career criminals, but they’re not a danger to society while they’re languishing in prison.
You might want to clarify the verb “table” as used here. AIUI, it means exactly the opposite in England as it does in the United States. What does it mean in this context, in Canada-speak? (From the context here, I gather the Canadian usage is like the British usage?)
British usage: Put the proposed legislation on the table.
American usage: Put the proposed legislation off, or onto the back-burner.
Here in Canada, we use the British usage of “to table.” In other words, the proposed legislation is put on the table, for Parliamentarians to discuss and debate, and eventually vote on.
I was under the illusion Canadian gun laws were weak. But after reviewing the laws, decided that they were not. Using a gun substantially increases penalties already. I do not think getting a gun should be very easy, and I hope adequate measures are in place to guarantee safe usage.
So the question is whether these laws will further reduce crime. If it does or reasonably could, they make sense. If, as is sometimes the case in politics, this is words in lieu of action, then there might be more appropriate measures.
I am okay with stricter gun laws. But I prefer they make a difference. Will these? Some make more sense than previous attempts, so there is hope.
Given my knowledge of SovCits and other shit-for-brains crazies I can’t wait to hear about how Canada is violating the Second Amendment and, yet again, proving it’s a commiefascist state.
The New York Times suggests several laws might have saved lives - recent ones and the many since Columbine. It was suggested these changes may have reduced gun deaths in the US by one third, and 446 lives.
Raising minimum age of gun purchase to 21.
Expand background checks to private sales.
Punish those who do not store guns safely, failing to secure them from children and criminals.
Banning the sale of large capacity magazines.
Remove guns from people in crisis.
Banning so-called assault weapons (30% of shootings involved guns banned under an expired 1994 federal law).
So my question is, how many of these are a factor in Canada? What do the new laws do to address these?.
This is my understanding of the position in Canada in response to the six points:
1. Raising minimum age of gun purchase to 21.
The minimum age for a Possession and Acquisition Licence is currently 18. I’ve not seen anything in the news that suggests this will change under the proposed federal amendments.
2. Expand background checks to private sales.
This is already in place. A private seller has to be satisfied that the purchaser has a PAL, which can only be obtained after background checks.
3. Punish those who do not store guns safely, failing to secure them from children and criminals.
Already in force. Failure to store firearms securely is a criminal offence.
4. Banning the sale of large capacity magazines.
Already in force, based on criminal law amendments made in 1991 in response to the Polyyechnic slayings in 1989.
5. Remove guns from people in crisis.
I think this is the “red-flag” proposal in the new federal bill.
6. Banning so-called assault weapons (30% of shootings involved guns banned under an expired 1994 federal law).
Already in force by changes enacted after the Nova Scotia shootings in 2020.
The New York Times article (paper, pp. A1 and 25, Sunday June 5, 2022 by Bui, Parlapiano, Sanger-Katz) suggests in four shootings guns were legally purchased by those under 21.
There is some evidence that those under the age of 25 do not have fully formed pre-frontal cortices. Accordingly, it is possible they are more willing to do extreme things or are more susceptible to antisocial impulses. Whether this should further factor into which guns are available is a question for someone with more expertise.
What kind of monsters are you people? There a long standing American, FUCK YEAH!, tradition of the first hunt. Where sons go to the getting place and buy multiple ARs and enough magazines to equip an army platoon . . . so they can hunt deer, that’s it, it’s all about deer hunting.
The more squeamish amongst us might have concern with this traditional right of free expression there is the possibility that if they can’t shoot Bambi then school children might represent an alternative.
A couple of points I wanted to make. In a post in another thread in which a gun owner suggests a number of “common-sense proposals” for stronger gun control in the US, I guesstimated that those proposals might (optimistically) reduce gun violence by about 35%, which is remarkably close to the New York Times estimate. I also pointed out that achieving such a reduction would still leave mass shootings happening at more than one mass shooting every single day (it’s currently at about 1.54 per day so far this year). It would also leave gun homicide deaths at well above 10,000 per year, and total US gun deaths at nearly three times that number. So is that good enough? It still leaves the US totally off the charts compared to other advanced countries.
The other point I should clarify is that gun regulation in Canada is already far, far more strict than most proposals that have ever been made for the US. As I pointed out in that same post,
Most such countries, for instance, have extremely strict requirements on the possession of any handgun and many types of long guns, such that very few people are allowed to possess them; these countries also have very strict laws on the transportation of any gun. Any kind of open or concealed carry of the type widely practiced in the US in most circumstances would immediately get you arrested.
So as @Northern_Piper has noted, most of the gun control measures that the NYT times mentions (and more) are already in place in Canada and have been for years. The proposed new legislation is to strengthen them even further.
I’m on the fence about #1, increasing the minimum age for gun purchase to 21. On one hand, one could argue that the conditions of a Possession and Acquisition Licence are already sufficient to exclude potentially irresponsible gun owners. OTOH, we were all kids once and we all know that youths are disproportionately prone to being irresponsible and reckless. One has only to look at automobile insurance rates for those under 25 to see that. When I was young, most car rental companies wouldn’t even rent to anyone under 25 (not sure if that’s the case today).
So there’s an argument to be made that similar criteria should apply to gun ownership. I suppose the big difference from the US is that the PAL requirement weeds out many of the higher risks, of any age.