Episode 1： Controlling the Law Abiding ｜ Assaulted
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Summary
On May 1st, 2020, the Trudeau government banned more than 1,500 types of firearms across Canada. Gun owners are among the most rigorously vetted and statistically the safest community in Canada, yet bear the brunt of these restrictions that are ostensibly targeting criminals.
Transcript
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With the stroke of a pen on May 1st, 2020, the Trudeau government unilaterally banned more than
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1,500 types of firearms. Justin Trudeau and his public safety minister Bill Blair pulled out all
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of the cliches. It's about safety, we're going after the criminals, we're not going after law
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abiding gun owners. But it was law abiding gun owners who were most affected by this sweeping
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measure. There are 2.2 million lawful firearms owners in Canada, hunters, sport shooters, collectors,
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entrepreneurs in the firearms industry. These people aren't criminals, but they felt increasingly
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branded as such by the federal government. Take Bill Blair, for example, who linked firearms advocacy
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with political extremism. You know, we're seeing ideologically motivated violent extremists who are
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using online platforms to propagate and advocate for hatred and violence against women, against
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religious minorities, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic and hateful speech and advocating violence. I will
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tell you many of those extremists, they're not every person who's in the gun lobby is an extremist,
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but everybody in the extremist is in the gun lobby. Gun owners are not extremists. They're ordinary
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Canadians with a hobby and a passion and a lifestyle that's increasingly being vilified by the liberal
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government. I set out to travel the country and tell their stories, the real victims of Justin Trudeau's
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war on gun owners. This is Assaulted. We're just regular people that go out and have this as part
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of our being. We are not the problem. The guns are not the problem, right? It's the public's perception
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that has become the problem. On one hand, I'm literally, I'm going to the Olympics, I get to
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represent Canada. It's one of the greatest privileges that I ever get to do, that I get to wear the maple leaf and
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represent Canada. It is such a privilege. And on the other hand, I'm so devastated that I have no idea
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if at some point I'm going to get thrown in jail because I've missed, I've missed something.
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They feel absolutely violated. And why wouldn't they? They haven't done anything but comply with
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the law every single day to the letter. They are heavily regulated. And, you know, there's a changing
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government and that's it. Their lives are over. You know, they're sitting on, you know, tens of
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thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in some cases, millions of dollars of inventory
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that they completely bought legally again, complying completely with the law. And now they're like,
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I have a serious business problem that I can't solve at all because that business problem originates
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from the government and all of the force that comes with government, all the force that government
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is capable of. And so they can never overcome it. So, you know, we're reduced to throwing pots and
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pans and making videos and trying to educate the public. And, you know, it's a terrible situation
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to be in. And honestly, I don't think that anybody really believes that anyone in government cares.
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That was Rod Giltaka, CEO of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, which is actually suing
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the Justin Trudeau government in federal court over its sweeping gun control measures.
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For Canadians who aren't gun owners, it's important to know how firearms ownership works in Canada
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to understand why the Liberal government's measures to tackle gun violence are not actually
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going to do anything. To buy and possess firearms in Canada, you need to go through a safety course
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and certification process that includes a rigorous background check, even more so if you want to own
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restricted firearms like handguns. Every gun owner has been vetted by the RCMP and is screened on
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a daily basis. Ownership of firearms requires compliance with strict rules about storage,
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transport, and where you can use them. This is for guns that you are legally authorized to own.
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The May 1st Order and Council prohibited a number of non-restricted guns used for hunting, among other
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applications, and also restricted firearms. Famously, the AR-15, a popular choice for sport shooters
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because of its lightweight body and customizability. Gun owners are among the most rigorously vetted and
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statistically the safest community in Canada, yet they bear the brunt of all of these restrictions
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that are ostensibly targeting criminals. Earlier this year they introduced Bill C-21, a bill that would
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even restrict some replica firearms and also allow municipal governments the right to ban lawfully owned
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handguns by licensed vetted handgun owners. The Liberals' goal was clear. They didn't want to go after the
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people who use these guns or any guns in crime, but the guns themselves.
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We have since last spring banned assault style weapons in this country. 1500 different models that can now no longer
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be used, shot in one's backyard, transported, sold, bequeathed, transferred. Since last spring,
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these assault style weapons cannot be used in Canada. There is a buyback program so that Canadians who lawfully
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purchase these weapons are treated fairly and respectfully. And now that they are next to useless
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as weapons are able to obtain fair compensation for that. While Trudeau says these guns are now next
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to useless, the experts say it's actually the Liberals' gun control plan that is useless. Jack Hundile is a
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city councillor in Surrey and a retired RCMP officer. He's also a licensed gun owner and sports shooter
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himself. Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, has been confronted by a significant organized crime problem in
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recent years. Which is perhaps why Surrey's mayor welcomed the ability to impose a handgun ban
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municipally. But Councillor Hundile sees through it. Yeah, looking back at my own policing experience,
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I can't recall one case where there was a legal handgun used in a gang type of violence. But the
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practicality is that your law-abiding gun owners really have a hard time getting their head wrapped
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up around this for an obvious reason. They've done all the good work. They've jumped through all the
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hoops. You know, they understand the legislation. They're compliant. They've gone through this really
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extra cost for this hobby. And now you're coming out and just saying we're banning it altogether with
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really without doing the research in it. Hundile is not alone. Police chiefs have spoken out against
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bans on legally owned guns for years, often noting that most guns used in violent crimes were always
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illegal, with many smuggled into Canada from the United States. Last year, Canadian Association of
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Chiefs of Police President Adam Palmer said you'd have to be naive to the reality of organized crime
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to believe that gun bans are effective. So if it's not going to do anything about crime, what's the point?
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Well, politics. Because gun owners are still a minority in Canada, most Canadians don't understand the
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rigorous nature of Canada's firearms licensing and the intricate details of individual firearms.
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What's more, the Liberals announced their sweeping ban last spring in the wake of a horrific massacre
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in Portapique, Nova Scotia, using it as justification to ban firearms that had never and would never be
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used in a crime. The Liberals omitted an inconvenient detail though, which is that none of the firearms used
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in that massacre were legally owned or legally acquired. They were the byproduct of the same illegal
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acquisition channels that organized crime uses, which relies heavily on smuggling across the Canada-US
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border. This is a reality in all cities in Canada that grapple with firearms crime, but it's one that's
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absent from the discourse from the gun control advocates. Brian Lilly is a columnist in Toronto,
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which has seen a steady rise in gang violence over the last decade, prompting its mayor, John Tory,
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to call for a handgun ban. Nothing in the bill will actually reduce the gun crime that we're seeing
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in Toronto. Toronto Police Service has a Twitter account where every week they post, here are the
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guns we seized off the streets. Go through it. Look, how many are actually guns that would be legal
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right now for a licensed firearm owner, someone with an RPAL, to go out and buy? Very, very few.
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They're often prohibited. Guns that were never legal in Canada, smuggled in from the states.
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Those are the types of guns that are being used to shoot up the streets. And to turn around and say,
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well, taking away my friend Glock is going to make the streets safer because he can no longer go to the
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range, makes no sense. But it does if you look at it from pure politics, and that's what it is.
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The sad reality for a lot of Canadian gun owners is that those politics actually work. Despite the
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stats about where crime guns originate and what the experts in law enforcement are saying, a lot of
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Canadians seem to believe that a line can be drawn between the measures Justin Trudeau's government
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has implemented and tackling real gun crime in Canadian cities. This divide between gun owners and
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non-gun owners in Canada has become a significant issue, according to Scott Carpenter, the owner of
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International Shooting Supplies in Surrey, British Columbia. These are not complicated machines.
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Owning and operating a firearm is far less complicated than driving a car.
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Okay. And we train everybody to drive cars. So a little bit of education and a little bit of myth
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busting goes a long ways to making sure that whoever's using these is using them safely. And so the reality
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is that as long as they're in the hands of people who've been trained a little bit and they're law
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abiding citizens in our system, make sure it checks us every day. We get checked as PAL holders to make
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sure that we're not engaged in unlawful activity, right? So the RCMP running checks on us constantly.
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So can you imagine another segment of society that has that done to it? That's us. So we are not the
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problem. The guns are not the problem, right? It's the public's perception that has become the problem.
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So we are actually the safest demographic in terms of criminal activity in the entire country.
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And that's that's reality. Turning a group of law abiding and statistically safe individuals into
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a political punching bag has not happened without a cause. There's been a financial toll,
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as we'll explore in a future episode, but also a profound demoralizing effect,
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Rod Giltaka says on Canadian gun owners. I think you have this group of people that are sitting there
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saying, so my life isn't even worth considering. And I have to watch the Minister of Public Safety say,
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nothing we've done negatively affects the lives of sport shooters and hunters, when in fact it's
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decimating people's lives and their identity and their culture. And that in itself, it's not only that
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they've done that, but they're slapping you in the face telling you, you don't even count. Whoever votes
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for us are the people that count. You people, you wouldn't vote for us anyway, so who cares?
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Because these measures do nothing to deal with gun crime and the thugs and criminals and gang members
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who get their hands on illegal firearms, they target the law abiding. People that have a willingness to
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obey the law and a respect for the law. Gun ownership is not a homogenous group. Within it,
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you have people who hunt, you have sport shooters, you have competitive shooters, people who represent
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Canada abroad in shooting competitions, people who use the firearms business to feed their families
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and stimulate their local economies. All of these people's stories have been absent from the Liberal
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government's narrative and discussion about firearms. We're telling their stories. This is