Juno News - September 12, 2020


Gun owners are marching on Parliament Hill


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

182.76958

Word Count

978

Sentence Count

68

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:01.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Long Show.
00:00:08.500 Speaking with Rod Giltaka, who is the CEO of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.
00:00:13.780 We're just about to begin the Integrity March on Parliament Hill.
00:00:17.560 Rod, you and I spoke when this idea first was announced and the pitch that you put was a really interesting one
00:00:23.440 and one that we don't hear a lot from gun owners, which is we want to be seen and we want to be heard.
00:00:27.860 So what's the goal for today?
00:00:30.000 Well, I think we've, over the last couple decades, we've taken the course of just keeping quiet,
00:00:35.140 minding our own business that hasn't worked.
00:00:36.800 Obviously, we're under assault again for the actions of criminals.
00:00:39.920 And I think our goal today is just for gun owners to just be proud of Canadian gun culture.
00:00:45.640 We have a very vibrant gun culture.
00:00:47.400 Guns are nothing new in Canada.
00:00:48.680 They've been around since before Confederation.
00:00:51.260 It's a very well-adopted culture and well-adjusted.
00:00:57.440 And we just want to be noticed by the government because what we've been doing so far in the last year or so just hasn't seemed to be, it hasn't worked.
00:01:05.300 So we just need to be present, I guess.
00:01:07.880 One of the big things I've seen in the gun debate is that you can put forward the best position, the best argument.
00:01:13.920 And in a lot of cases, I don't think that the liberals, well, we know the liberals haven't been listening to them.
00:01:18.480 But in a lot of ways, you have to prove the numbers, I think.
00:01:21.320 Because if the argument's not selling people alone, you have to show just how many people are affected by the gun grab that was put into effect a few months ago.
00:01:29.040 How many people are affected by a lot of these things that really don't do anything for crime but just target the people that are going to be out today.
00:01:36.460 That's absolutely true.
00:01:39.040 That's a totally accurate statement.
00:01:41.120 And gun owners are tired of it.
00:01:42.820 I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just a gun owner too.
00:01:45.640 Trying to get the government out of my life.
00:01:47.420 And no, the liberals aren't listening.
00:01:49.400 And they have all these numbers.
00:01:51.160 The liberals know exactly what they're doing, right?
00:01:53.100 It's probably a common misconception that they're not sure or they're trying a few things or really concerned about crime.
00:01:58.960 They are not concerned about crime whatsoever.
00:02:00.540 It's been record shootings in Toronto since the gun ban, you know, months and months ago.
00:02:06.020 And it's not going to stop until we make more noise and say we're Canadians too.
00:02:10.240 We deserve to be respected like everybody else.
00:02:12.560 And that's what we're hoping to accomplish.
00:02:14.460 We obviously know there could be an election at any point.
00:02:17.160 So you don't know who's going to be the prime minister in four, five, six months, let alone a year.
00:02:21.860 We know that there is this amnesty period that was put in with the gun grab, with the AR-15 and so-called assault weapons ban.
00:02:28.160 So things could change in the next little while.
00:02:31.160 Beyond the numbers, beyond these are how many gun owners there are in Canada,
00:02:34.860 what's really the core idea that you think politicians of all sides need to understand about gun owners?
00:02:42.320 Well, gun owners are almost all great people, right?
00:02:45.900 We're vetted daily.
00:02:47.240 There's a very strict licensing regime.
00:02:49.340 I think a lot of Canadians don't understand how difficult it is actually to legally acquire guns.
00:02:54.280 It's far easier to do it illegally.
00:02:55.780 And I think at the end of the day, the democratic principles that we all should share should hold true.
00:03:03.060 So if you want to take something away from hundreds of thousands, if not millions, there's millions of gun owners.
00:03:07.500 But in this case with the gun ban, there's hundreds of thousands of Canadians affected.
00:03:11.100 If you want to take something away from them, you have to prove that licensed gun owners represent a disproportionate risk to public safety.
00:03:17.880 And the government couldn't care less about proving that.
00:03:19.900 That's why it's a really big problem.
00:03:21.160 The message behind the march, the integrity march, what is it about integrity that you think is connected with gun ownership?
00:03:28.880 Well, there's a forced integrity because we all want to keep our licenses.
00:03:33.340 So there's a, and I think gun owners typically are more independent people.
00:03:37.460 They want to just be left alone to live their lives and enjoy their lives and have some basic human rights, like the right to own property, which just seems to be a problem in Canada.
00:03:47.740 And we're really more with, with this march, we're demanding integrity from government because what the liberals are doing right now has nothing to do with public safety.
00:03:55.300 It's entirely political.
00:03:56.360 And that lack of integrity, especially when you're holding levers of power, it's just unacceptable.
00:04:02.420 What constitutes in your mind a success at this march?
00:04:05.160 Keeping in mind it is the first time something like this has been done by you, by your organization.
00:04:09.280 And I think the first time any even similar event has happened in almost 30 years.
00:04:13.620 So I think if we're able to rally a thousand people, that would be just fantastic.
00:04:17.880 I mean, you got to keep in mind there's a pandemic going on.
00:04:20.000 There's restricted travel.
00:04:21.080 There's a lot of businesses are running at, you know, 50% capacity.
00:04:25.760 You know, the hotel can only rent every third room.
00:04:28.100 There's a lot of things going against us.
00:04:29.420 So if we were able to achieve a thousand people, I think that really speaks volumes to how important guns are and the ability to own and use them are to Canadians.
00:04:39.180 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:04:41.300 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.nz.
00:04:51.080 www.tnc.nz.at