How Bill C-21 turned from banning handguns to hunting guns | 24CA News
Confusion was on the agenda at a parliamentary committee final week after the Liberal authorities introduced in last-minute amendments to its contentious gun management laws.
The proposed modifications to Bill C-21 have been tacked on by Liberal MP Paul Chiang after it had handed second studying — drawing complaints from opposition MPs who accused the federal government of sneaking in modifications that will broaden the scope of prohibited weapons to incorporate searching rifles.
The modification provides lengthy weapons to the banned listing in 4 alternative ways. First, it has a clause that will successfully ban any rifle or shotgun that would doubtlessly settle for {a magazine} with greater than 5 rounds, whether or not or not it truly has such {a magazine}. Critics say that features many rifles designed for hunters, not troopers.
The listing additionally names weapons that fall afoul of two guidelines nominally supposed to ban highly effective navy weapons reminiscent of .50-calibre sniper rifles and mortars. One rule bans lengthy weapons that may generate greater than 10,000 joules of power, and the opposite bans weapons with a muzzle wider than 20 millimetres. Critics say these guidelines would ban every thing from vintage blunderbusses to the Nine O’clock Gun in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.
Lastly, the modification prohibits, by title, a lot of semi-automatic firearms that do not need removable magazines and do not meet the definition of an “assault-style firearm,” or infringe the opposite two guidelines, however which the federal government desires to ban anyway. They embody plenty of lengthy weapons in large use by Canadian hunters.
24CA News requested to talk with Paul Chiang concerning the amendments however was instructed he was travelling and unavailable.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino insisted that hunters will not be being focused.
“We have a plan to eradicate gun violence once and for all,” Mendicino instructed the House of Commons on Friday. “We are not going to target those guns which are used conventionally for hunting.”
Here’s what we all know and do not know concerning the modifications.
Will the ‘Plinkster’ be banned?
That’s not fully clear.
“The Mossberg 702 .22 Plinkster long rifle. Will that hunting and target-shooting rifle be prohibited as a result of C-21 legislation?” Conservative MP Bob Zimmer requested on the parliamentary committee.
“No,” replied Murray Smith, technical specialist with the federal government’s Canadian Firearms Program.
But actually, the Plinkster (“plinking” refers to taking pictures tin cans) is considered one of lots of of frequent searching rifles and shotguns individually listed for prohibition within the amendments.
The change captured among the confusion attributable to the modification. But the modification itself is obvious: if adopted and handed into regulation, the .22 Plinkster would turn out to be a prohibited firearm.
What do the opposition events need to say?
Conservative MP Rachel Dancho known as it “an attack on hunters.”
“The arbitrary criteria that the Liberal government has snuck into their legislation at the eleventh hour without democratic debate does not make these firearms any less of a hunting tool,” she mentioned.
While Conservatives have lengthy opposed some Liberal gun management measures, this time the NDP additionally balked.
“The amendment came out of nowhere,” mentioned NDP MP Charlie Angus, whose driving covers an unlimited swath of northern Ontario that features many distant First Nations. “This was a handgun bill. We suddenly saw this other legislation that has a lot of people who are legitimate gun owners worried. I think they overreached.”
And after Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price weighed in on the matter, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet lamented on Twitter that the invoice had satisfied Price “and so many others that gun control’s goal or effect is to hurt hunting.”
The National Police Federation (NPF) described Bill C-21 general as a missed alternative to cut back gun crime.
“Bill C-21 does not address criminal activity, illegal firearms proliferation, gang crime, illegal guns crossing the border or criminal use of firearms,” it mentioned in its written submission to Parliament.
And on the prohibition of legally-held firearms, “the NPF would caution that it diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”
What do advocacy teams suppose?
Heidi Rathjen of pro-gun management group PolySeSouvient instructed CBC Radio’s The House she agrees with the invoice and amendments, however mentioned they’re “very complicated technically” and “difficult to explain.”
“But in terms of communications, I think the Liberals could have done a much better job.”
24CA News: The House11:01Confusion and controversy over new firearms laws
The House speaks to gun management advocate Heidi Rathjen, co-founder of the gun management group PolySeSouvient, about whether or not controversy over a proposed modification to the federal government’s firearms laws would possibly put in jeopardy her thirty-year-long quest to have assault rifles banned.
Rathjen defended the rule that bans rifles that generate over 10,000 joules. “We’re talking about .50-calibre military weapons that can pierce military equipment and structures,” she mentioned.
But the rule would additionally ban some very costly elephant and buffalo rifles that will extra probably grace collectors’ show cupboards than be used for searching.
“Many of these old firearms date back to before the 1900s,” says Tony Bernardo of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. “Some of these guns are worth a half-million dollars or more. Many of them are single shots or they’re double-barrelled, and the finest examples of the engraver’s art.”
Matt DeMille, the director of insurance policies and packages for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters mentioned new federal measures transcend their “stated intent” of lowering gun violence.
Bernardo says crime is not going to be diminished by utilizing taxpayers’ cash to purchase and destroy these costly relics, although he is fast so as to add that there is no such thing as a point out of compensation in Bill C-21.
The invoice has additionally been challenged by historic and reenactment teams, who say their vintage cannons and artillery items pose no menace to public security.
“Many of our veterans actively participate in period outfits as re-enactors to demonstrate the workings of the ordnance at formal salutes, displays, reenactments and the like,” the Royal Canadian Artillery Association wrote to the committee finding out C-21, saying the invoice will make their actions a criminal offense.
A brand new authorities proposal will make extra firearms unlawful in Canada, including many shotguns and semi-automatic rifles to the banned listing.
A listing of additional weapons to ban
Perhaps probably the most controversial a part of the modification is that it proposes banning lots of of weapons that do not match the federal government’s new “assault-style firearm” definition.
One such is the Benelli auto-loading shotgun, which does not have a removable journal, and has by no means been utilized by any navy. Auto-loading shotguns are closely utilized in such conventional hunts because the Cree goose hunt in James Bay, and the Newfoundland turr hunt. They are generally most well-liked by feminine hunters and people with smaller frames as a result of they’ve softer recoil than different shotguns, Mendicino mentioned.
Another is the SKS semi-automatic rifle, which Rathjen says was not within the authentic “assault rifle ban” in 2020 as a result of “if a weapon was not a modern design, it was exempt.” The SKS, designed in 1945, lacks options frequent to trendy navy rifles such because the AR-15. But the federal government has now determined it desires it banned.
Advocates are calling for the SKS — a Soviet-era, semi-automatic rifle that was used within the 2022 Innisfil, Ont., taking pictures, the 2019 northern B.C. murders, and the 2018 mass taking pictures in Frederiction — to be added to Ottawa’s military-style assault weapons ban.
There is a protracted custom of Canadian hunters utilizing what have been as soon as navy rifles to hunt. The .303 Lee-Enfield, utilized in each the First and Second World Wars, was as soon as the usual Canadian searching rifle, and stays frequent, significantly within the North.
And at present, says Bernardo, the SKS is “ubiquitous.”
“There are, by our best estimates, somewhat over a half a million SKS rifles in circulation in Canada,” he instructed 24CA News.
Because the SKS is presently within the non-restricted (and subsequently unregistered) class of firearms, the federal government doesn’t know who owns them. Consequently, it has no means of informing them individually that they are going to be in violation of a regulation that carries penalties of as much as 10 years in jail.
Bernardo says the SKS is especially frequent amongst Indigenous and sustenance hunters in distant areas who might solely notice they’ve fallen afoul of latest legal guidelines when they’re arrested.
“The consequences of this are absolutely huge and, quite frankly, totally uncalled for.”
