Juno News - May 05, 2020


Gun lobby responds to ＂duplicitous＂ Liberal gun ban


Episode Stats

Length

15 minutes

Words per Minute

179.98434

Word Count

2,760

Sentence Count

182

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 One of the things that has come out of this just ridiculous announcement from Friday
00:00:10.120 has been a bit of unity from the gun rights community.
00:00:13.220 And one particular push is to get Bill Blair out of his job.
00:00:17.780 I want to talk about this and some other aspects of this
00:00:19.920 with Rod Giltaka, CEO and Executive Director of the CCFR.
00:00:24.600 Rod, thanks for joining me today.
00:00:26.420 Thanks for having me, Andrew.
00:00:27.140 So let's talk first off about Bill Blair here,
00:00:30.380 because every time Bill Blair has said something about guns as the Liberals have been planning this,
00:00:35.360 it's typically been wrong from, you know, talking about the assault rifle issue,
00:00:39.300 talking about how police are apparently pushing for this,
00:00:42.220 even though most of the comments I've seen have been against this type of gun control.
00:00:47.220 Why is Bill Blair, in your view, the problem here?
00:00:51.020 Well, Bill Blair has conducted himself.
00:00:54.840 He's been very disingenuous.
00:00:57.940 He's pushed just clear.
00:01:01.640 I'm trying to watch my language.
00:01:03.140 He's lied to Canadians time and time again.
00:01:05.220 Forget about watching the language when it comes to Bill Blair.
00:01:07.360 And he's lied to me in person when we had the infamous Bill Blair video.
00:01:14.460 And he's just, yeah, he's just acted in such a way that it's beneath the office of a government minister.
00:01:21.640 And Canadians, whether they know it or not, are, they're the victims of it.
00:01:26.580 A point I raised earlier in the show is that the Liberals made a big stink back in,
00:01:31.620 I think it was 2014, about how it should be police and not politicians that are making these decisions.
00:01:37.100 And it's interesting that now it seems like all politicians should be the ones having the power in their eyes.
00:01:43.140 Well, of course, right?
00:01:44.120 So it's, again, they say one thing and they do another.
00:01:46.880 The duplicity of the Trudeau government is actually worse than I've ever seen in my life.
00:01:53.140 And I've been around a little while.
00:01:55.280 But, again, everything's for a political purpose.
00:01:58.560 Leveraging Nova Scotia, what happened there, that story was not a gun control story.
00:02:03.760 But nothing is out of bounds for this government.
00:02:07.580 So let's talk about the response.
00:02:09.480 Because I've spent a bunch of the show already complaining.
00:02:12.920 And I think there's reason to do that and talking about why things are wrong.
00:02:16.220 But I also don't want this to become a point of defeat for gun owners in Canada who number in the millions here.
00:02:22.760 And I know that a lot of people have focused on the fact that it was an order in council and not going through parliament.
00:02:28.820 I get concerned with that approach to it.
00:02:32.080 Because I know that if they do go through parliament, they're going to get the votes.
00:02:35.780 It's that simple right now.
00:02:37.180 So I don't want to make that the linchpin of this.
00:02:39.900 But is there a response here that doesn't involve a change of government?
00:02:43.840 Well, they are more than legally entitled to file OICs.
00:02:51.520 They can do that.
00:02:52.260 The CCFR spent all weekend talking with the legal counsel and outside counsel as well to see what can be done.
00:03:02.420 We're working on that.
00:03:03.820 We should have an answer shortly on whether there's anything.
00:03:06.780 But the government's legally allowed to do that.
00:03:09.340 And when it comes to legislation, they have a majority government.
00:03:12.820 The bloc will vote any way that the liberals ask them to vote if there's something in it for Quebec.
00:03:16.620 They are a provincial-centric federal party.
00:03:20.360 So, you know, honestly, the only way to get our rights back or even just to get these rifles back from this most recent ban is just a complete change of government.
00:03:32.100 And not only that, but to hold the government that we elect accountable.
00:03:36.600 No easy answers, Andrew.
00:03:40.480 What do you make of the double standard ingrained in this between Indigenous Canadians and non-Indigenous Canadians?
00:03:46.080 Because this is a point that I feel kind of undercuts what the liberals are saying, which is that the guns themselves rather than the owners are the problem.
00:03:54.240 Well, the duplicity of the Trudeau government, right, in action again.
00:04:00.020 But, you know, when it comes to that, I've had a few people ask about that, how I feel about Aboriginals being able to hold on to their guns.
00:04:07.940 I think they're talking specifically about the firearms that were previously non-restricted.
00:04:12.840 They're not talking about ARs.
00:04:14.440 Aboriginals were never allowed to hunt with ARs, regardless, you know, as far as I'm aware.
00:04:18.960 And, you know, we sat down to a technical briefing right after this happened with public safety.
00:04:26.380 And basically the situation there is that the Aboriginals who are hunting with any of these guns, let's say it's a Stag 10 or something,
00:04:34.460 so they find a suitable replacement.
00:04:38.500 So I don't think specifically it's like, OK, all you guys are exempt.
00:04:42.080 I don't think it's really like that.
00:04:43.180 It's not that I want to defend them, but I don't think that's the way it was framed.
00:04:47.400 And one of the other reasons why you saw this and you also saw a two-year amnesty and was overtly communicated to us during that briefing was the government has no plan.
00:04:59.440 They have no buyback plan.
00:05:00.600 They have no nothing.
00:05:01.920 And they had nothing to offer us.
00:05:04.380 So what they did was, you know, it's funny because I was doing interviews all morning since 3 in the morning this morning.
00:05:10.060 And, you know, I was asked repeatedly, you know, what do you think of the timing of this?
00:05:15.620 And I said the timing was purely political.
00:05:17.820 The liberals are leveraging the suffering and the pain of Canadians to limit opposition to something that they shouldn't have done in the first place.
00:05:24.680 And then the answer is, well, they promised to do this.
00:05:27.380 I'm like, yeah, five years ago they've been promising, but they waited till now.
00:05:31.100 And then you look at the regulation and it's extremely rushed.
00:05:33.580 So, you know, this is the state of the Liberal government of Canada right now.
00:05:38.140 That's actually a great point you raise about the lack of a plan.
00:05:41.320 Because when Justin Trudeau was answering some of the questions or doing his version of that on Friday,
00:05:47.480 one of the things that he had pointed out was that we were going to be doing this anyway.
00:05:51.400 And we were just getting ready to put it out before the pandemic happened.
00:05:55.960 And you're right that if that were true, there would be a comprehensive plan, not just a list of 1,500 guns or, you know, variants of guns just thrust out the door.
00:06:07.220 So if it were the case that this was farther along, then why isn't there more to show for it?
00:06:13.420 Yeah, there's nothing to show for it.
00:06:14.840 It's a plan that's cobbled together.
00:06:17.280 People in our community are very detail-oriented.
00:06:19.940 I'm sure you're aware of that.
00:06:21.700 So I've seen posts on Facebook about, like, well, what's AR15.com.com?
00:06:27.380 How is that an AR model of AR?
00:06:30.380 So there's all kinds of mistakes and there's things that are left off the list.
00:06:36.120 And it's just, yeah, it's a mess.
00:06:38.320 Very similar to a lot of things that this crew does.
00:06:43.280 But I don't know.
00:06:44.720 Again, it's all about politics.
00:06:46.400 And, unfortunately, gun owners are sitting there no matter how much they comply, no matter how rules they follow, how many rules they follow, no matter how ridiculous.
00:06:56.060 We're the whipping boy for liberals in Canada, unfortunately.
00:06:59.980 We're in a time right now of unparalleled and unrivaled economic challenge.
00:07:04.760 You've got businesses that are shutting their doors, many of which won't be able to reopen.
00:07:08.700 And gun stores have, by and large, been, I think, deemed non-essential across Canada.
00:07:13.500 You know, when a lot of them reopen, what will the economic impact be?
00:07:17.460 Or will there be an economic impact of this ban?
00:07:20.220 I don't know how much as a percentage of gun sales AR-15s and mini-14s are.
00:07:25.440 But are you hearing from your members, because I know you've got members who are vendors here, that this will strain them?
00:07:32.760 Well, anything right now is a strain.
00:07:34.680 Like, literally anything.
00:07:36.000 And these are unprecedented economic times.
00:07:38.780 And I think the worst is yet to come, personally.
00:07:43.260 But I don't know.
00:07:45.460 You know, things like this.
00:07:47.280 And some people call this a knee-jerk reaction.
00:07:49.340 It's not a knee-jerk reaction.
00:07:51.200 This has been aimed at us for a long time.
00:07:53.600 They just weren't prepared to do it.
00:07:54.980 They saw their opportunity, so they took it.
00:07:57.520 I think anything that affects business volume, anything that affects consumer spending,
00:08:03.400 is going to have a terrible effect.
00:08:05.500 Like, everything's magnified, everything's compounded because of what's gone on with the COVID-19 crisis.
00:08:11.020 So it's a lose-lose for everybody.
00:08:15.020 What do you think the biggest thing missing from the discussion is?
00:08:17.820 Because I've tried to explain over the course of different times this has come up,
00:08:22.440 the problem with terms like assault rifle, assault weapon.
00:08:25.300 I know that this last week we've heard military grade more than we've heard recently.
00:08:30.380 But what do you think is really missing from this discussion that would help a lot of people
00:08:33.880 that aren't necessarily part of your world and, to a lesser extent, my world,
00:08:38.260 would help them understand what's at stake here?
00:08:41.400 So that's an excellent question.
00:08:43.560 And it's a critically important question to answer.
00:08:46.660 So there's some, in our community, there's some very hard questions to answer.
00:08:49.980 And what I find is after the few questions are asked and satisfactory responses are given,
00:08:56.540 it always ends up right down at the big question.
00:08:59.280 Why do you need an AR-15?
00:09:01.080 It's the hardest question to answer.
00:09:03.480 I've been trying to explain to audiences, and just recently the CBC, 12 interviews in a row,
00:09:09.500 is that what non-gun owners have to understand is that people that own guns,
00:09:17.480 and specifically expensive, very specialized niche firearms like an AR-15
00:09:23.960 or some of the other guns on the banned list,
00:09:26.280 people that own those are very detail-oriented, law-abiding, careful, vetted individuals.
00:09:32.560 So the people that own those guns, their lives, these firearms are centric in their lives.
00:09:37.680 They're central in who they are.
00:09:39.700 So the people that they associate with, their social connections, are all gun people.
00:09:44.100 They volunteer, at their own expense, build 2,000 clubs across the country.
00:09:49.400 They volunteer, they hold charity events there, they hold social events, they do sports,
00:09:53.320 they create new sports.
00:09:55.080 Everything that they do in their lives have to do with their pursuit,
00:09:58.300 whether it's you're into show dogs or you're into something else or skydiving or whatever it is.
00:10:03.820 It's central to who these people are.
00:10:06.080 So when Trudeau says something like, there's no place in Canada for guns like this,
00:10:12.220 what we hear is there's no place in Canada for people.
00:10:16.300 That's what people have to understand.
00:10:20.100 Because they don't have a factual basis to attack us,
00:10:24.360 because licensed gun owners do not represent a disproportionate risk to public safety.
00:10:29.080 That's proven.
00:10:29.980 In fact, I don't know if you ever saw that conversation I had with Bill Blair.
00:10:33.040 I got him to admit that.
00:10:35.380 So anyway, that's really important.
00:10:37.660 It's not just a hobby.
00:10:38.960 Go find a new hobby.
00:10:39.860 Go find a new toy.
00:10:40.900 It's not like that.
00:10:42.060 And dismissing gun owners, millions of them, by the way, dismissing them like that,
00:10:47.060 it's just not good behavior, whether it's about guns or anything else.
00:10:51.000 Yeah.
00:10:51.260 You know, what the liberals have tried to do here is draw a line in the sand and say that,
00:10:55.180 you know, grandpa's lever action is not in the same class as your Mini-14 or your AR-15.
00:11:02.200 And sure, the guns are different, as many guns and variations are different.
00:11:06.000 But the line that I found the most egregious is that these serve one purpose alone and one
00:11:12.020 purpose alone only, and that's killing people.
00:11:15.000 And to me, as someone who owns one of those guns, I'm like, wait, like, what is being
00:11:19.200 said about gun owners here when the liberals say that the only purpose for these guns is
00:11:23.920 killing people?
00:11:24.480 No.
00:11:24.960 I mean, that's just not true.
00:11:26.260 But you're right.
00:11:26.860 There is something egregiously offensive in that.
00:11:30.000 Well, there is.
00:11:30.860 So the full line is, they're firearms designed, these are guns designed to kill the most amount
00:11:38.820 of people in the shortest amount of time.
00:11:40.320 And like 90% of what the Trudeau government says, people like Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair,
00:11:46.020 it's an out and out lie.
00:11:48.980 And that's a real problem.
00:11:50.120 That's a problem for so many other reasons that we can get into later or some other time,
00:11:54.680 right?
00:11:54.980 But it's a lie.
00:11:56.200 The AR-15, and I was actually wrong about this myself, was actually designed as a sporting
00:12:00.420 or a hunting rifle first.
00:12:02.020 And then it was adopted in the late 50s as a military rifle for the US military, because
00:12:06.300 what manufacturer doesn't want to sell their product to the military, right?
00:12:09.900 It's big dollars.
00:12:11.380 So, and, but at the same time, I want to be fair to both sides of this argument.
00:12:15.120 It doesn't matter what the origin of the firearm is.
00:12:17.500 You know, the Remington 700 is a military sniper rifle, but it's the most bolt-action
00:12:22.720 rifle and hunting in the world.
00:12:24.840 So that's beside the point.
00:12:27.640 Now, if the only use for this gun was to kill as many people as fast as possible, then
00:12:33.180 why is it being issued to the RCMP?
00:12:34.920 Is that their mandate?
00:12:35.800 If you want to look for guns that are designed for that purpose, you'll look at light machine
00:12:39.800 guns, heavy machine guns, mortars.
00:12:42.780 And what I've been telling people that I've been interviewing with time and time again,
00:12:47.540 this is not, an AR-15 is not a military-grade assault rifle.
00:12:51.800 Those have been banned since 1977.
00:12:53.680 This is a semi-automatic rifle only that was certified by the RCMP for safe use in Canada.
00:13:00.120 Yeah, I think that's a hugely important point, and I think it's really necessary to get through
00:13:05.420 the whole why-do-you-need-it problem.
00:13:08.080 And I mean, I've sometimes gone the philosophical route on that, which is that we aren't a needs-based
00:13:12.100 society, but you're right.
00:13:13.260 I mean, a lot of the lines that have been drawn here are very arbitrary, very disingenuous.
00:13:18.120 The one thing I would ask you in closing here, Rod, have you found, because I know you've
00:13:22.020 got a lobbyist who is a fantastic advocate, Tracy Wilson, have you found there is any willingness
00:13:27.720 from anyone in the Liberals to hear you out, to sit down and take your meeting in a way
00:13:32.400 that suggests they are open-minded?
00:13:34.080 So I don't include that video you did with Bill Blair here, because that was more him
00:13:37.860 selling rather than him buying.
00:13:39.940 But have you found anyone that you would say was approaching this in earnest that potentially
00:13:44.440 could be an advocate within the caucus?
00:13:47.420 So I'm going to say no.
00:13:48.740 No, the Liberals are in line, because I think the Liberals, the Liberal whip does a good job
00:13:58.340 in keeping everybody in line.
00:13:59.660 Even back in the C-71 days, T.J.
00:14:02.160 Harvey from Eastern Canada was whipped into voting for Bill C-71, and I know that he opposed
00:14:07.900 it personally.
00:14:09.200 I'm not making broad assumptions, but he did meet with us, and he knew that this was a
00:14:13.420 political solution.
00:14:14.600 Again, I'm not speaking directly for him.
00:14:16.220 I want to be careful about that.
00:14:17.680 And then he chose not to do the election, so maybe that says something.
00:14:22.920 This is entirely ideological.
00:14:25.220 And I don't want to put too fine of a point on it, but doing things the way that the Liberals
00:14:30.520 are doing is incredibly divisive.
00:14:33.920 It is incredibly corrosive to national unity.
00:14:37.380 There was around 200,000 people affected by this ban, and this is not it.
00:14:41.420 This is only the beginning.
00:14:42.820 There will be no firearms by the time that they're done.
00:14:46.360 If they've got another majority government, I assure you.
00:14:49.580 And yeah, I don't think there's...
00:14:51.880 We just have...
00:14:52.620 They have to be thrown from government and a replacement put in that's going to just
00:14:55.600 be fair to Canadians, not specifically just to gun owners.
00:14:59.060 Rod Giltaka, CEO and Executive Director of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.
00:15:03.580 Thanks for your work, and thanks for coming on today, Rod.
00:15:06.100 Thanks, Andrew.
00:15:06.640 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:15:09.120 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.
00:15:14.260 Thank you.