It’s only been a day since Ottawa introduced new legislation on gun control, but has resulted in no shortage of venom from a pair of Prince George residents.
On Monday, the federal government announced the sale, purchase, transfer, and importation of handguns will be frozen, as part of its new gun control legislation.
In addition, there are currently 1.1-million registered handguns in Canada, a sharp increase over the past decade, and have become the weapon of choice in many gun-related crimes.
The legislation would also make it mandatory for owners of more than 15-hundred models of firearms, banned in 2020, to sell them back to the government.
Furthermore, the penalties for smuggling guns into Canada would also be increased, and it would become a criminal offense to increase the number of bullets a firearm can hold.
Cassy Premack is the co-owner of K.K.S Tactical Supplies told MyPGNow.com that Bill C21 is a continuation of the May 1st, 2020 military assault-style and semi-automatic weapons ban.
“I feel like I have been hit by a bus at this point. I can’t tell you the number of emotions that myself and my husband are feeling. People in our community that we have spoken to already are seeing tens of thousands of dollars worth of inventory that we are going to have to recoup.”
Premack believes the new rules unfairly punish businesses and families who make they’re living off of the sale of firearms and ammunition.
She added law-abiding gun owners will also feel the crunch.
“For our family, this is detrimental, this is how we support our family. We have five children, three of which have special needs. There is a reason why we put our time and effort and resources into building this business.”
“For the federal government, they are missing the piece as to who these business owners are. They are forgetting that these are communities and people – when you effectively stomp out small businesses in Canada, not only do you affect the economy but you impact families.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hinted last week changes would be coming following the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 21 people including 19 elementary school-aged children.
However, Premack disagrees with the rationale shown by Ottawa basing our firearm laws around yet another deadly firearms incident south of the border.
“I don’t see that serving us well in Canada, I don’t see that as an effective way to end crime in Toronto or Surrey. I see that as a Liberal government who is attempting to gain favour with people in urban communities who are scared.”
“We’ve had a handful of incredibly tragic events in Canada but it’s nowhere near compared to our southern counterparts. To impose laws on Canadians based on other people’s actions, that is not how our judicial system works.”
“I can’t even begin to empathize enough with the families that have lost loved ones to these deadly shootings over the past few weeks. But, that is the United States, they are a separate country with separate firearms laws and gun culture. We are basing our laws on how we run our country off of an entirely different culture,” added Premack.
Sheldon Clare is the past president of the Canadian National Firearms Association who stated Ottawa has taken the hot topic of firearms and made it into a political football.
“What they have really done is declare war on Canadian firearms owners. Innocent people who own millions or billions of dollars worth of property and basically made an attack on a very lucrative industry.”
“They (Ottawa) is going to be putting businesses out of work, they are going to be stopping sports competitions and the ending of transferring handguns means inheritance and expensive collections will be worthless. They are making a lot of these decisions by order and council.”
Clare also sides with Premack that the decision to introduce tougher legislation after a deadly shooting in Texas was the wrong move.
“They have just been waiting for someone to do something bad so that they could take advantage of that and engage in another wedge issue to further divide Canadians, which is all this Prime Minister seems to be good at. I have stronger words to describe him but authoritarian scumbag will do for now.”
“The compliance rates for the new legislation will be very low and all they have done is go after a culture and a way of life and ordinary good people who do not deserve to be targetted for this.”
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