“It’s a political tool that the governing party is trying to use to pull out all the stops to get the last few votes heading into the next election cycle.”
That’s from Prince George Rod and Gun Club President Andrew Tomlinson after Federal Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc added several hundred models to its list of banned weapons, which was first introduced in May of 2020.
Thursday’s measures mean the firearms can no longer be legally used, sold or imported in Canada.
The list of banned weapons in our country is now over two-thousand.
However, Tomlinson finds the move comical as very few of the firearms that have been locked away have been linked to the rising crime rate in our country.
“Very few (crimes) have anything to do with legal firearms owners in the first place. Banning these doesn’t mean anything. We’ve had our AR-15’s and other 1500 models banned since 2020 and they have been locked in our safes with no crimes committed with them, in the meantime, crime has been able to expand and grow since those have been banned.”
Tomlinson added the move will greatly impact his club and many others as well as sport shooting, which is growing in popularity.
“Those sports will die, the clubs will suffer and in my case for the Prince George Rod and Gub Club, we are now affected as far as part of our provincial match next Labour Day long weekend.”
“This isn’t like the handgun freeze where we can still use them on the range. We can’t buy or sell them but we can still use them – this means they have to be locked in your safe, you can’t buy or sell or do anything with them now.”
Sport groups such as the International Practical Shooting Confederation will also be impacted by the new gun control measures.
Significant losses under the expanded ban now include pistol-caliber carbines, which are semi-autos using 9-millimetre hand-gun rounds, which are popular for sport shooting.
“It’s been something that has been growing over the last few years in that division of the sport because a lot of people have not been able to buy hand-guns the last couple of years either. So, the ban on those semi-auto carbines means that it is now limiting those sports and the bans on the other types of rifles that are included are primarily used in multi-gun or three-gun matches as well,” added Tomlinson.
He added it will likely mean a change in government at the federal level to get most if not all of these measures repealed, something the opposition Conservatives have hinted at in Parliament.
In May of 2022, the Liberal government instituted a freeze on handgun sales making it illegal to buy, sell, transfer, import, or export handguns anywhere in the country.
Furthermore, Bill C-21 was passed during a Senate vote in December of 2023 where the federal gun control law is expected to tighten the rules for gun owners that pose a risk to themselves or others and freeze the sale, purchase, or transfer of handguns in Canada.
A list of firearms added to the ban can be found here.
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