After Trudeau’s Gun Ban: A Primer for Unwitting and Uninformed Advocates

A shocking number of Canadians believe guns should be banned from licensed owners. They mistakenly believe taking guns away from honest, RCMP-vetted citizens will magically stop criminals and the gang violence that the evil shower upon our communities.

 

Let’s assume, for the sake of this commentary, such an approach could actually work. What does the path to confiscating 250,000 “Restricted” and “Non-Restricted” firearms look like?

 

Step 1: Legislation

 

The government can ban most guns immediately through the undemocratic Order-In-Council process, but the Liberals have, so far at least, refused to go this route. Instead, they have opted for the legislative route to reclassify and ban firearms they don’t like.

 

As Bill C-71 has demonstrated, the process to draft, introduce and pass new legislation will take at least a year, and more likely two.

 

Step 2: Registration Certificate Revocation

 

While this new legislation winds its way through the House of Commons and the Senate, the government will revoke the registration certificates for all “Restricted” class firearms included in its proposed ban.

 

The RCMP’s Canadian Firearms Centre will then revoke all those registration certificates and notify federally-licensed, RCMP-vetted firearm owners that they are in illegal possession of a “Prohibited” firearm, just like the police did in New Zealand.

 

Owners of AR-15 target rifles should expect transport privileges also to be revoked for these guns while the confiscatory legislation is being pushed through Parliament.

 

What happens after the legislation is passed and given Royal Assent?

 

Step 3: Surrender Your “Prohibited” Firearms

 

Once the government’s legislation passes, they will order licensed firearm owners to surrender their guns. This brings up three serious issues to which the government does not appear to have given any thought.

 

How do you comply?

 

What is the process for you, the gun owner, to surrender your newly “Prohibited” firearm(s), since you can’t take them to the police station?

 

Because they are now classified as “Prohibited” firearms, owners of these newly-banned firearms cannot legally transport “Prohibited” guns. If you illegally transport a “Prohibited” rifle, you could open yourself up to criminal charges, despite government claims of an “amnesty.”

 

Do NOT take your gun to the police station.

 

Whether during one of their highly publicized “gun buy-back programs” or not, police forces across the nation routinely plead for people to NOT bring guns into a police station. Instead, they advise the following:

 

 

How does the government know who owns “Non-Restricted” firearms that are now reclassified as “Prohibited”?

 

They don’t.

 

Without a registry for “Non-Restricted” rifles, the government has no clue who owns these guns. This brings up a few interesting questions.

 

Will the government use the illegal copies of the supposedly-deleted Long Gun Registry to track down these newly-banned guns? The government admits the data was not deleted, despite lying to Parliament that it was, and Quebec (and everybody else) has a copy of the entire database.

 

Is this why the Liberal government insisted on the 20-year record-keeping requirement for all gun sales in Bill C-71?

 

Of course it is – what other purpose would it serve?

 

There are only two ways to track down “Non-Restricted” firearms.

 

Police must either use some combination of sales and registration data or they must go to the doors of every single Possession and Acquisition Licence holder and search their homes.

 

Police lack the resources to search 2.2 million homes, solely based on the fact that a resident has a firearms licence. And, these “fishing expeditions” would almost certainly be struck down as unconstitutional.

 

That leaves the C-71 sales records mandated by that legislation, and the use of the former Long Gun Registry data.

 

Any use of the old Long Gun Registry data will be struck down as unconstitutional, but that doesn’t mean the government won’t try using it anyway under the maxim: “better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”

 

Setting all these legal hurdles aside, who will the government send to collect your now-banned firearms?

 

Tactical Response Units Will Come For Your Guns

 

Liberals will say “a police officer,” but they don’t specify which type of police officer. This is by design.

 

Police Tactical Response Teams will likely be sent to pick up your guns.

 

“But isn’t this overkill?” you ask. “Isn’t this a massive waste of police resources?”

 

Of course it is, but there is no other alternative.

 

Police will not send a lone constable to pick up your “Prohibited” rifle simply because a gun is involved. For reasons we’ve never understood (and never will understand), police tend to view licensed, RCMP-vetted gun owners as more of a threat to their safety than drug-dealing gang members.

 

It’s nonsense, since we’re the most vetted civilians in our nation.

 

Whenever a firearm is involved, police instantly go into high alert.

 

For this reason, they will send a Tactical Response Unit to your door to collect your guns, and they will be armed with exactly the same guns the government says you are no longer permitted to own. (No, the irony of this is not lost on us.)

 

Nightmare Scenarios and Other Unintended Consequences

 

First of all, let us clearly state that our police officers are held in very high regard by the CSSA and the following is not intended to be an attack on them – in any way. But the Liberals will set the stage for accidents, mistakes and confrontations.

 

The list of nightmare scenarios is long, but we will only focus on three of them here today.

 

Nightmare Scenario 1

 

A man brings his “Prohibited” rifle to the front door, mistakenly thinking he is helping police do their job. When the Tactical Team arrives and knocks at his door, he opens the door, greets them, and then reaches for his rifle. The Tactical Team swarms him and, if he’s lucky, this licensed firearm owner will “only” sustain bruises and broken bones during the “high-risk takedown.” If he’s unlucky, he is shot and/or killed.

 

Nightmare Scenario 2

 

The Tactical Team arrives at the wrong address. The unwitting resident tells them he doesn’t own guns and explains they are at the wrong house.

 

The Tactical Team does not believe the hapless home owner and knocks him to the ground, handcuffs him and tosses him aside as they trash his home looking for non-existent firearms.

 

Or worse, this could get police officers killed.

 

Laval Police Sergeant Daniel Tessier died when the tactical team, relying on an illegal search warrant, botched the raid on the home of Basil Parasiris. Parasiris was acquitted because his belief that the lives of his family were threatened was deemed valid by the jury.

 

Nightmare Scenario 3

 

Trudeau said he will ban over 250,000 rifles if he is re-elected.

 

Even if we assume these are all owned by a small group of licensed firearm owners and each owns 25 soon-to-be-prohibited rifles (an absurd premise, to be sure), we’re talking about 10,000 tactical team deployments to seize these guns from law-abiding citizens.

 

That is a massive waste of scarce police resources focused on good guys, when it should be focused on violent criminals, drug dealers and gangs instead.

 

Worse, by sending tactical teams to over 10,000 homes, it’s a statistical certainty some unsuspecting and innocent people will be injured and/or killed by the very people who are supposed to protect them.

 

It’s also likely more police officers like Constable Daniel Tessier will be hurt by fear-filled gun owners who mistakenly believe the lives of their families are being threatened by criminal home invaders.

 

Tactical Teams assault the wrong address far too often (any time more than once.)

 

This is well-documented, but here are a few recent cases to remind us all that police officers are just as fallible and error-prone as any other Canadian citizen.

 

Tasha McCrae and her three children were the victims of “SWATting” – a term used for calling police and making false claims about a high-risk situation. Leduc RCMP Constable Bridget Morla said officers were called at about 2:39 p.m. to respond to a “high priority 911 call” in the city’s Telford subdivision. The only “situation” was Tasha stepping out of the shower to find police threatening her life.

 

Dion Waniandy was tasered by Saskatoon Police. They later admitted they went to the wrong apartment.

 

Toronto City Police officers entered the apartment of 68-year-old Sharon McCrudden as part of a nationwide sweep of suspected drug dealers and gang members. They also went to the wrong address.

 

Vancouver Police brutally beat Yao Wei Wu after responding to a domestic abuse call. They went to the wrong address and beat up an innocent man.

 

In Arnprior, police lobbed a stun grenade into the wrong apartment, barged in and pointed their guns at Steven Carrigan, the wrong man. The stun grenade exploded on Carrigan’s son’s bed. His son was not in bed at the time, which is the only reason he’s still alive. Police had the audacity to claim “operational success.”

 

Abbotsford Police raided a 7-year-old child’s birthday party and shot the family dog in front of the children. They immediately claimed they didn’t know there were children present, a statement later proved false by testimony from their own officers.

 

In all these cases, thankfully, nobody was killed – but only by chance.

 

The odds of gun owners or police officers being killed or injured through one or more of these three scenarios are unacceptably high, not because police are thugs out to hurt people, but because everyone is so afraid when a firearm is involved that their fear and tension causes those on both sides to make fatal mistakes.

 

A tough question: What Is An “Acceptable” Death Toll for Trudeau’s Liberal Government?

 

“Prime Minister, how many police officers’ lives are you willing to risk in order to collect these guns?”

 

“Minister Blair, how many Canadians are you willing to kill and injure in order to collect these guns?”

 

These are the questions Justin Trudeau, Bill Blair and Ralph Goodale all refuse to answer.

 

A few things to consider before you cast your ballot on October 21st.