SHEILA GUNN REID | Toronto Sportsmen show hints at hope for the firearms community
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Summary
Tracy Wilson of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights (CCFR) joins me to talk about the Toronto Sportsman Show and what's coming down the pipe at Canadian gun owners. She also talks about the overwhelming support for the CCFR booth at the show and why she thinks there's light at the end of the tunnel for all of us.
Transcript
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Are Canadians losing faith in our national sport? By that I mean sports shooting.
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I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
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I'm going to dump a little factoid on you right now that if you get all your news from the
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mainstream media or from the government well you probably wouldn't know and if you're watching
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The Gunn Show I'm guessing that you're not one of those people but did you know that more Canadians
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are involved in the shooting sports so target shooting hunting then are involved in organized
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hockey. Doesn't that make the shooting sports by the numbers Canada's national sport I would say so
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and yet it is the sport that is under attack by the federal government. Sports shooters are being
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scapegoated by Justin Trudeau for his own failures and for the failures of progressive mayors
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in Canada's big cities. Sports shooters like me are always under attack by the federal government well
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almost always we get a little bit of reprieve when there's a conservative government in town but for
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the last eight plus years it has been a non-stop onslaught a complete and total attack on gun rights
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which are really just good old-fashioned property rights but are sports shooters like me losing faith
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losing hope in our sport well based on the turnout at one of Canada's largest outdoor shows the Toronto
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sportsman show I don't think so I think sports shooters are optimistic and they're hopeful looking
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at Justin Trudeau's results in the latest opinion polls so joining me today to talk about well the
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Toronto sportsman show and what's coming down the pipe at Canadian gun owners is my friend Tracy Wilson
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from the ccfr so joining me now is my friend Tracy Wilson from the Canadian coalition for firearms rights
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Tracy you are fresh off the Toronto sportsman show literally just home you know hours ago
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what was it like I know you guys are always the busiest booth at any sportsman show I think it's probably
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exactly true for Toronto let us know how it went I have to say I'm a little hoarse okay I've been talking and
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talking and talking for days but I have to say that for me personally it sort of speaks to the
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perseverance of the outdoor community whether it's hunters fisher people especially gun owners who have
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been under attack from this liberal government for almost nine years now it speaks to their
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perseverance because the show has never been busier it was bigger than ever it was five halls long it was
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just I spoke to other retailers and distributors and companies that were there at the at the show
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and they were in the same boat they were just absolutely swamped it was a sea of shoulders for hours on end
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it was absolutely beautiful so really good to get out and speak to people in person so what why do you think
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that is I know nothing sends me skipping off to the gun store like the threat of a gun ban
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that's just me um but it is it you know that there's people are attending the shows and buying
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guns in an act of defiance or are they hopeful because they're seeing Trudeau plummeting in the
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polls and you know they they know that there's going to be a change in government and Pierre
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Polyev has said that he will roll back all these uh Trudeau gun grabs and you know that his latest gun
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control measures so is it one the other probably a mixture of both well probably a little bit of
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both for sure but I think column b the uh the the feeling of hope um was the message of the weekend
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by far people coming by the booth were saying you know I think there's light at the end of the tunnel
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you know changes on the way um even law enforcement we had a lot of law enforcement come by the booth
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um the police are big supporters of the CCFR and of course they for obvious reasons also want a safer
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country and you know I think um you know just seeing that there is an opportunity for a government with
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a proper focus on reducing crime violence and gun smuggling rather than reducing hunting and sports
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shooting um I think in general everybody just had this you know resounding feeling of hope and
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uh light at the end of the tunnel for all of us really yeah you know you make a really good point
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we all have police officers that we know some of us like me even have police officers that they know
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and love that are in their family and they are sports shooters just like us they've got better things
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to do than at the behest of Trudeau kicking the doors of their neighbors um they want to be arresting
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the bad guys and keeping the bad guys in jail and it's never been easier to be a bad guy in this
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country it's never been easier to get bail in this country unless you've done some inconvenient
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horn honking um you know they they don't want to waste their time hassling you know gun toting dog
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loving grandmas like you yeah well that's it there's a reason why you know with all these liberal gun
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bans and everything else and talking threats of kicking in our doors with some sort of confiscation
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program there's a reason it hasn't happened yet and that's because nobody will do it it's impossible to
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do nobody wants to do it it would be ridiculous and offensive and a big waste of time and resources
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so nobody's going to do it it's not going to happen and uh yeah this guy's on his way out so
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yeah it was just a really uplifting feeling of hope through all five halls um and the you know tens of
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thousands of people who attended yeah and as you say the police want a safer country you and i want
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a safer country but that's not what lies before us i mean we we're seeing gang violence break out in
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the big cities all across the country and then we have the toronto police telling us you know just put
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your keys by the door maybe take your tv off the wall put it outside attacked in your home leave your
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fobs at your front door because they're breaking into your home to steal your car they don't want
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anything else a lot of them that they're arresting have guns on them and they're not toy guns they're real
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guns they're loaded put on the snow tires for the car for the uh criminals so that they don't spin out
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and have an accident while they steal your car um it's just this bizarre focus on the wrong people
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while the society around us disintegrates yeah well here's the thing if you've got gun toting repeat
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violent offenders coming to kick your door in to steal your car if the car was all they wanted
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wanted they wouldn't have guns they've got guns because they're there to hurt you if you try and
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stop them so for the police it almost um feels like they've given up you know and uh that in itself
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is pretty frustrating i know tps did put out some sort of clarifying statement on that but it doesn't
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erase what you said like leave your consider leaving your fob by the front door so they can just very easily
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um steal your car without disturbing you or putting yourself at risk and i thought
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what what a clown show like what an absolute upside down world this country has become
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yeah i saw that the tps put out a statement saying like well that's not necessarily the advice that we
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would give you but that is the advice that you gave and that's the guy you send to the community town
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halls that's the guy so he this is this is what he does for a living this is the advice that he's
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giving for a living on behalf of the toronto police service i think the toronto police service
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were kind of caught flat-footed because everybody started making fun of them not just here in canada
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but the international media sort of lit up the toronto police service and yes i i think the
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the toronto police service they've got a tough job because they are trying to catch these repeat
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offenders who go before a judge or justice of the peace which is not necessarily even a lawyer
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and they're often out on the very same day for violent offenses yeah yeah well they do have an
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incredibly tough job because i've seen many uh accounts of that from law enforcement where they
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say you know they're doing the hard work they're catching the bad guys and they're back out on the same
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day re-offending over and over and over again and i get it you know um you know if you had to
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choose between having your car stolen or having your car stolen and getting shot yeah i but those
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shouldn't be the two choices right so yeah it's right it is a tough spot for law enforcement and i think
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of course you get a completely different conversation out of brass than you do out of the front line
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officers but yeah we have overwhelming support at these shows from law enforcement they come and take
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selfies and yeah there it's yeah it's a tough spot i think for all canadians to be in with this
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government yeah the cops in my life are big ccfr fans big tracy wilson fans for sure um and you know
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it even varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction for now like for example i look at things through an
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alberta world view and last week instead of saying put your keys by the door so the bad guys don't
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disturb your good night's sleep in alberta we said actually if the judges are letting you out on bail
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we're going to put an ankle monitor on you and we're going to expand our sheriff's duties to make
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sure that they're chasing the bad guys so that the other cops can keep you safe and so it's just
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strange the cultural differences between like toronto versus calgary in some instances yeah alberta's
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done a great job actually they're intervening on our appeal um in the federal court against the gun
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ban i actually had a great meeting with the minister of justice here in ottawa at their
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ottawa accountability office i like to call it the alberta embassy um but they said that's not what
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it's called but that's what i'm calling it going forward but yeah i think um yeah alberta has a
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completely different understanding of freedom than the rest of the country so yeah god bless alberta no i
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want yes exactly uh may we spread our uh sense of freedom to the rest of this country and i think
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we kind of are you know we're emboldening uh some of the other premiers to stand up and and get
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involved now i want to ask you speaking of standing up and getting involved what's next for the ccfr what
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are you guys working on right now well as you know c21 received royal assent and of course that
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enshrined the handgun freeze which is just a prolonged ban in legislation making it not not
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impossible but complex to overturn um so you know our focus has been on some messaging around that
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and of course the most important thing we need right now is a new government um so there will be
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an election at some point you know we're 19 years at the max or 19 months at the maximum 19 years oh my
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lord it feels like that it does feel like that sometimes yeah but it could happen anything anytime
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between now and october of 25 um so there's a lot of work that's got to go into getting election ready
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and ensuring that we get a government in there who will hurt us less and instead focus on public safety
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so we are hyper focused on that at the same time really working on growing and organizing our volunteer
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program we've got hundreds of volunteers all across the country working gun shows and all kinds
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of other events and we really want to mobilize them to help with election prep and election readiness
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so we're working on that we've got a secret project that i literally can't even tell you about
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but we will come back after the next federal election and talk about it and then say oh i see all
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that stuff that happened that was us and you'll be totally shocked it's got nothing to do with guns but
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it's got everything to do with influencing an election um and yeah national range day is on
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the horizon the first saturday in june every year is national range day so that's june 1st this year
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that's a day where ranges and gun clubs across the country open their doors to the public and invite
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people who maybe otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to try the shooting sports to come on in
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learn a little bit grow a little bit of acceptance a lot of people's opinions about gun and gun ownership
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come from media liberals hollywood you know it's not realistic to the canadian gun gun culture so yeah
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it's a great opportunity i'm hosting a massive event here in ottawa we see about six to eight
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hundred people come through the gates of the range which is really exciting and tons of activities for
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the kids and cotton candy and bouncy castles and all the things that ottawa hates um so yeah that's a
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really big priority and of course the ccfr agm is coming up in may and we're coming alberta so i will
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see you then oh you better believe you'll see me then uh yeah now i want to ask you uh how did people
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specifically get involved with the ccfr because i see online and i don't mean this to disparage the
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people who are saying this but they're complaining that hey i was at my local gun show and i expected
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to see the ccfr booth but they didn't have one there first of all tell us why they don't have
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one there and how we can fix that yeah so when you see a ccfr ccfr booth at a gun show or a sportsman
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show um you know even a small show in the basement of a church it's literally run by volunteers so like
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i said we've got about 300 volunteers across the country but there are shows every single weekend in
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every single town and city across the country it is virtually impossible to be at every single one
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but we could be at more if we had more help so um the volunteer group the field officers of the ccfr are
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a great group they become lifelong friends they do all kinds of stuff together and you can be a part of
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that team by sending an email to volunteer at ccfr.ca there's some a vetting process obviously and then
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we'll set you up with all the resources you need to go out and get tables at gun shows you get
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business cards you get banners tablecloths all the stuff you need so yeah and of course it's just
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great to take that extra step over over and above just getting a membership and truly getting involved
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and then of course rod and i do our best to get around and come to some of these shows i will be
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at the calgary easter gun show at the end of the month so i hope to see you there so make sure you
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come out to that and uh yeah so volunteering is the very best way um to get involved we've recently
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hired a new staff member who's going to be working at better helping organize the volunteers so that's
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not a big workload on them and they could get to just show up and have fun at the gun shows
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and make no mistake it is a lot of fun and uh yeah it's just a great time to get out in the community
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and recruit more members yeah like unlike the other side of the gun rights debate you don't
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get any funding from the government to do the work that you do and i don't think you would take it
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anyway i would but you know the other the other side of this is very well funded they've got all
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kinds of well they're not volunteers they're paid staff you don't have a lot of that you rely on people
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who care deeply about this to give their time so friends out there if you're like why isn't the
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ccr at my gun show you could be the ccfr at the gun show if you just stepped up and and filled the
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void and solve the problem yourself as conservatives tend to do now i want to talk about something that's
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in the news right now um and it didn't get a lot of play in the canadian media and i think i know why
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new zealand it could potentially be rolling back a lot of their comprehensive gun control legislation
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because they have a new right of center government and the three parties that form this coalition
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government one of them very specifically campaign on uh easing some of their gun control legislation
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that was drafted in 2019 over the course of six days uh tell us a little bit about that yeah so you'll
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remember excuse me i am so hoarse uh former prime minister um of new zealand jacinda ardern she just
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you know she's held up as sort of the gold standard of gun control of course um they had a tragic mass
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shooting in her country and she took that opportunity to ban basically all semi-autos there's some
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argument about how successful the gun grab was of course i think there was 50 000 rifles that were
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turned in 56 000 yeah 56 000 however there's you know some quotes that there are hundreds of thousands
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that were not so you know these things are never as successful as they like to promote them as being
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but the more important factor here is you've had five years since that happened to look at the stats on
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what's happening is it making new zealand a safer place is crime and violence and in particular gun violence
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is it going down and unfortunately it's not it's going up so you know it's not like any experts or
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or anybody could have uh could have forewarned about this result but the results are in and
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they speak for themselves and it's been a massive failure so you know instead of punishing your law
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abiding citizens again in that country they are now looking at going after repeat violent defenders
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and leaving hunters and sport shooters alone so yeah i think you know i remember back when that
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happened justin trudeau just looked at her with stars in his eyes about all the wild things she was
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doing to the firearms community in new zealand and i think he's taken some lessons but um i i would
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expect his career will go right in the same place hers is which is the dumpster from your lips to god's ears
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tracy i remember at the time people were saying um look how quickly they were able to do this in new
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zealand and i'm hearing look how quickly they were able to scapegoat the innocent and stomp all over
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the law abiding look how quickly they were able to do it they they wrote their legislation in six days
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and then quickly started enacting it and the op-eds in canada in the toronto star and other cbc was like
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if they can do it in new zealand why can't we do it here well they didn't do it in new zealand and
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thank goodness we didn't do it here although we did i'm going to say about 50 percent of it here
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as much as justin trudeau thought he could get away with yeah i mean you know um the the gun grab here
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in canada from may of 2020 the one that we're currently fighting in court you know that banned
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somewhere around half a million rifles um from canadians who've legally and lawfully owned them
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safely and without issue for decades if not generations and there's no solid evidence that
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this would have any positive impact on public safety and now um you know we've got um almost
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nine years of the trudeau regime and all their attacks on gun owners and look at the rates of
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violent crime in this country the same stories being told in new zealand um with pretty much the
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same results so yeah i think the tides are definitely shifting and that adds to that
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positive atmosphere of hope that we saw all weekend at the toronto sportsman show
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well and it just honestly it the actions of the liberals actually say something else you know like
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they were saying at the time these guns are so dangerous we have to get them out of the hands of
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canadians yeah law-abiding canadians at that and then they left them with us for five years yeah so
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they really can't be all that dangerous yeah gotten so dangerous that you're forced to keep them for
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five and a half years you know you've got people who maybe um you know would choose to get out of the
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sport or maybe they've had an injury and can't shoot anymore they don't even have an option to get
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rid of them like you're forced to keep them so yeah it's just just total crazy town i mean if um if uh legal
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gun owners in canada were a problem you'd know it but all of those ar-15s and all the other guns
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that were banned are still exactly where they were before locked safely away in the gun rooms and safes
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of law-abiding canadians who care about their communities and and work hard to to own these things
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yeah and work hard to follow the rules because there are a lot of rules a lot of rules we have to
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follow people have no idea uh tracy how do people support the work that you do at the ccfr because
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as i pointed out earlier you'd never take a penny from justin trudeau and how could you hold it to
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account if you ever did so you rely on donations and membership so and merch sales because you guys
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have a great merch store so tell us all about yeah yeah so you can find us at ccfr.ca um on there
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there's a couple of ways you can help you can donate uh you can donate money of course that's
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always helpful um you can also donate straight to our legal fund which helps us fight the liberals
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in court um you can pick up a membership that's really important because the power of having those
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numbers behind us really makes a difference when we're trying to influence policy and then of course
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yes go to the merch shop there's a ton of cool stuff there we've got all kinds of new products
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and people just love our gear i see it everywhere now me too um yeah sales are great and then of
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course again if you're looking to maybe help out a little bit there's no specific time commitment
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that you have to put in but if you can help out a bit that would be great send an email email to
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volunteer at ccfr.ca you can find our videos on youtube and all the other podcast platforms and of
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course watch us every two weeks on wild tv on a national canadian network we've got a tv show on
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there awesome tracy i will let you go because i know your horse you're very tired from a very busy
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last week in toronto thanks so much for coming on the show and thank you so much for all the work that
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you do for law-abiding gun owners just like me we're going to keep at it thanks for the opportunity
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and i hope to see you at the calgary easter gun show
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well friends we've come to the portion of the show
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where in i invite your viewer feedback i know i say this every single week but you know what we
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get new people here all the time we got to tell them the rules otherwise they're not going to know how
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to play and i just think that i better start that again because i had a pause there it looks like
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the video just went so let's try that again well friends we've come to the portion of the show wherein
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i invite your viewer feedback and i know this is very redundant to the regular viewers of the show
00:23:27.480
however we are getting new people here all the time so we have to tell them the rules so they know
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how to play the game i give you my email address right now it's sheila at rebel news dot com put gun
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show letters in the subject line and that's how i'll know that that's why you're talking to me
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because i get a ton of emails every single day but specifically every single week and it is
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difficult to weed through them so if you put gun show letters in the subject line i know why you're
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trying to reach out to me and let me know do you want me to say your name on air do you not want me to
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say your name on air just note that so i don't out you to your progressive friends or your
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progressive employers but don't let that be the only reason that you interact with me if you are
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watching the free version of the show either on rumble or on youtube go and leave a comment there i
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go looking for your comments and story ideas over there i want to know what you think about the work
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that we do here at rebel news and today's comment comes to us by way of rumble and it is on last
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week's show where i was talking to peter mccaffrey from the alberta institute about largely mayor naheed
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nenshi former mayor naheed nenshi's recent run for the leadership of the ndp i wanted to know what
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peter thought about his candidacy if he thought that nenshi could win and if nenshi won would he
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have a good shot at becoming premier the idea sends a chill up my spine um but peter is a careful
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political watcher for a very long time and he's very analytical and i felt a lot better after
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talking to him anyway the letter comes from the rumble comment section and it's from alberta rocks
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and alberta rocks he or she writes i first moved to calgary in 1971 and i
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lived there until 2017 46 years i watched that city grow from 400 000 to 1.4 million people the
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construction that was going on in the early 1970s was absolutely astounding with as many as 75
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tall construction cranes visible at any given time calgary was an amazingly positive city to live in
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back then today i thank god i moved out of that concrete jungle because ever since the disastrous
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ndp notley years calgary has never fully recovered and this bothers me to no end because alberta is
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absolutely the greatest province or state in the entire western hemisphere i agree let's keep going
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and calgary along with all the rural towns is perhaps the very bastion of sanity in all of the western
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hemisphere also agree if calgary falls alberta falls also agree with good government back in place with
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daniel smith and considering the western cowboy common sense that most native albertans have i do
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not think calgary will fall also agree nenshi contributed mightily to the downhill slide of calgary
00:26:29.460
tax and spend tax and spend that's all that effing idiot understands he has less chance of succeeding
00:26:37.240
as leader of the ndp in alberta as a common toad would have so i pray he wins
00:26:42.600
i have nothing to add thank you alberta rocks it is very sad you know you talk to people who spent a lot
00:26:50.620
of time in calgary in the years before the national energy program and then through the disaster of the
00:26:56.260
national energy program and then as calgary recovered and sort of became this gem of the oil
00:27:02.300
patch to now with 30 vacancy in the downtown commercial real estate core it's sad it's sad and
00:27:11.940
it's sad to see a city struggle but it's worse to see it unnecessarily struggle because of its own bad
00:27:19.680
leadership well friends that's the show for tonight thank you so much for tuning in i'll see
00:27:26.080
everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week and as always don't let the
00:27:30.340
government tell you that you've had too much to think