Juno News - Liberals extend gun ban amnesty for second time

00:00:00.000 I want to pivot to a breaking news story which literally just happened in the hour before this

00:00:13.940 show commenced. You may recall a couple of weeks back we spoke to Rod Giltaka of the Canadian

00:00:19.360 Coalition for Firearm Rights about how the CCFR was calling on the federal government

00:00:25.320 to extend the amnesty period for firearms that were banned by that May 2020 order in council. Now

00:00:33.280 just to bring you up on speed this was often called the AR-15 ban but there were about 1500 types of

00:00:39.260 firearms that the government banned overnight with the stroke of a pen and they said you'll have two

00:00:44.720 years of amnesty and then you'll be able to sell it back to the government in that time or sell it

00:00:50.700 back. Well that's a little bit of an odd term because the government never owned it in the first

00:00:54.040 place but because this was a plan that was written on the back of a napkin there has not been a single

00:01:00.220 gun purchased by the government. There is no buyback program and the amnesty period was extended and was

00:01:06.800 about to come to an expiration and that was going to come this month. Now the big news this morning is

00:01:12.320 that the government has quietly adopted a renewal of this amnesty period. It will now go to October

00:01:18.720 2025. So two years from now you see it buried on the government's website there which I learned

00:01:25.500 from our friends at the CCFR. Tracy Wilson joins me now. It is always good to talk to you Tracy. So

00:01:32.660 look obviously you're not at all happy about the ban in the first place but it's got to be a bit of a

00:01:39.320 win in the sense that this is not putting gun owners in jeopardy as imminently as it once looked

00:01:45.060 like it would. Yeah absolutely Andrew thanks for having me. We are fighting that ban in court still

00:01:51.240 and are expecting a decision from Justice Kane in the federal court by the end of the month as well.

00:01:56.700 So lots of stuff happening but this extension to me was almost cruel for the liberals to leave it this

00:02:03.380 late in the game. Last time I think it was months before it was coming to expire they recognized they

00:02:08.920 didn't have the ability or the you know the framework to follow through with the confiscation

00:02:15.260 program so they willingly extended it. This time here we are just weeks away from the original expiration

00:02:22.280 date of the last extension and gun owners are sitting here wondering if they were about to be

00:02:27.440 exposed to criminal charges. So we had filed an injunction application with the federal court

00:02:32.680 to force the liberals to go ahead and extend that amnesty. Of course we did get this news this

00:02:38.840 morning. The Crown Counsel for the government did send this information as well to to the the judge

00:02:46.980 in our case. You know I guess hoping that we would pull back on that that application motion before

00:02:55.000 the court. However this announcement so far is actually just an announcement. Normally this stuff

00:03:00.160 would appear in the Canada Gazette which it does not yet. So we're sort of waiting for that assuming that

00:03:07.400 this is they are going to go through with this extension until after the next election which we

00:03:13.020 can talk about then we will withdraw that that application for an injunction. So yeah we are going

00:03:20.060 to get to the election aspect of this. Do not worry about that Tracy. But you know one element of this

00:03:25.260 that I really and Rod and I were talking about this a couple of weeks back that I really am

00:03:29.620 disturbed by is that it really reminds gun owners the precarity of their rights. That you are entirely

00:03:37.720 at the whim of government here. Government can just keep it dangling this deadline until the last

00:03:42.580 possible minute before changing it. And this puts gun owners in a very difficult position. I mean

00:03:48.620 obviously on a rational level we know that if the government has banned a gun and they haven't put the

00:03:54.900 mechanism in place to buy it back they're probably not going to kick down my door without extending

00:03:59.180 that amnesty and giving me an opportunity to to turn it in. But for a lot of people that aren't as

00:04:04.340 tuned into this issue it's just like why bother with the hassle would be the response. Oh I've had I had

00:04:10.520 a 71 year old member call me last week and he left a message for me to call him back and I called him

00:04:16.240 and he broke down in tears on the phone. He said look I've I've owned these guns for decades safely and

00:04:22.300 without issue and I you know it was hard enough for me to hear the government say that they no longer

00:04:28.860 trust me to own this stuff that I've owned forever without problem. But to now say that that amnesty is

00:04:36.640 running out and he said I don't know what to do. Do I take my guns to the police station? Who do I call?

00:04:42.760 What do I do? And it is unfair to me to leave Canadians in this kind of position where they're dangling

00:04:50.260 you know by a thread until the very last moment and that's why we filed that emergency injunction

00:04:57.260 application was because we know better after eight years of treatment from this government

00:05:01.580 we won't leave the freedom and future of Canadian gun owners in the hands of the liberal government

00:05:07.260 because we know they don't care about us. And not that I am at all encouraging the government to

00:05:12.300 expedite anything. This is one of these examples where government incompetence has actually worked in

00:05:16.840 our favor as Canadians I think. But you know their argument when they issued this order in council

00:05:22.140 in May of 2020 was that and I remember that press conference very well Bill Blair saying these guns

00:05:27.160 serve one purpose alone and that's killing people. They believe that these guns were putting humans in

00:05:33.140 Canada at risk. If that were the case letting those people keep having those guns for five years would be

00:05:40.840 rather reckless. But we haven't seen mass killings take place in Canada in that time. So I mean this

00:05:46.680 extension and re-extension undermines the government's core argument in banning the guns in the first

00:05:51.720 place. Oh it absolutely does. I mean these are guns you know designed to kill the most amount of people

00:05:57.480 in the shortest amount of time. And all this crazy baloney that they said in that press conference. 0.95

00:06:03.020 Guns so dangerous we're not permitted to own them yet we're forced to keep them for five and a half

00:06:07.480 years minimum. Like to me it's it's it's insane and you're right it does speak to the fact that

00:06:14.660 everything they said in that press conference and from that day forward has been nothing but political

00:06:20.420 fodder. And of course we're the football in their game. And we know we can see there hasn't been a

00:06:27.680 problem with them. We've still got them. Every single person in Canada who legally owned an AR-15 before

00:06:34.040 that ban still has it. I've got two of them about 10 feet from me right now. You know we're all in

00:06:40.940 the same boat. And now here we are. We're going to have to keep them for another two years. And that's

00:06:46.160 the other weird thing is somebody who is a gun owner a sports shooter or maybe even an aging sports

00:06:51.580 shooter. And maybe they're not going to be involved in this sport anymore. And they decide they you know

00:06:56.580 look I'm getting out of it. I'm retiring or I've got an injury. I'm not interested. Whatever the reason

00:07:01.920 is it's not an option. You are forced to keep those guns. So guns so dangerous that the liberal

00:07:08.060 government is forcing you to keep them. I it's just it's a weird paradox that we're in. It is.

00:07:15.360 And you mentioned the election aspect. So this deadline now the end of October 2025. I mean there

00:07:20.760 could be an election at any moment in a minority government but there will be one by 2025 under the

00:07:26.540 fixed election law. So on one hand I think this gives gun owners a bit of hope that maybe some 0.92

00:07:31.340 party is going to run and win and part of their election promise will be that they're not going

00:07:37.520 to follow through with this. They're going to lift the ban and get rid of the amnesty and the buyback

00:07:42.020 and all of that. The flip side of that though is that it also means the liberals are planning an

00:07:47.240 election to be fought about firearms. And I'm wondering how you feel about that because we know that

00:07:51.820 as gun owners we are in a minority in Canada and we know that banning guns has historically played

00:07:58.280 pretty well for the liberals. Well we saw what happened when Justin Trudeau in the debates with

00:08:04.120 Aaron O'Toole former conservative leader got him twisted up and the headlines will be conservatives

00:08:10.280 will put AR-15s in the streets of Canada. Like it will be some absurd thing like that that they're

00:08:15.880 going to try and hang around the neck of Pierre Polyev who has committed to you know instead of

00:08:22.560 focusing on banning legal guns from licensed owners will instead focus on crime violence and gun smuggling.

00:08:28.620 I know crazy notion. But I would like to save them all that trouble and win in court and have this OIC

00:08:37.720 deemed improper and illegal and have it overturned because yeah that's exactly what it'll be. And at the

00:08:45.760 end of the day the the people who really lose here are the anti-gun groups because boy have they been

00:08:51.600 played. You know now you've got this once again going to be taken to as an election platform as an

00:08:59.100 election issue and they'll be used they'll reuse it over and over again. They're just recycling the same

00:09:05.120 thing. You know I understand the general public maybe doesn't understand why average Canadians like me

00:09:13.520 I'm a suburban grandma why I would own guns like that. But at the end of the day when you keep

00:09:20.860 using this over and over again for political fodder and we see the rising crime continue to escalate

00:09:27.320 I think that's going to get old really quickly. Yeah I am inclined to agree and I think also

00:09:33.880 the liberals have capitalized off of crisis and they've capitalized off of crime. I mean most of their

00:09:39.420 sweeping gun measures have come in the wake of some tragedy whether it was the Nova Scotia

00:09:44.540 killing spree which led to the OIC whether it was the I think it was Uvalde in Texas that kind of

00:09:50.580 precipitated the introduction of the handgun ban in Canada. The one thing that the liberals have done

00:09:55.960 is leverage that news. I think there are a lot of Canadians that would probably be looking around

00:10:00.340 and saying well I'm not actually seeing that my neighbor who likes to go to the range on weekends

00:10:05.020 is causing me any harm. I mean that's the hope and I think that's why the education key has always

00:10:09.620 been has the education component has always been so key. Yeah well and we've put a lot of effort into

00:10:15.560 that. I think you know what happens is you hear these horrific stories and these you know these crimes

00:10:21.600 they're horrendous and I think every Canadian agrees we don't want to see that we don't want that

00:10:26.440 but for the liberals to tie that directly to licensed legal gun owners is not only disingenuous

00:10:32.900 it's actually dangerous because what it does is it draws the focus and the resources away

00:10:38.720 from combating crime and from even implementing a lot of the measures that already exist in our toolbox.

00:10:46.480 I did an ATIP a few years back on the application for a firearms license you have to provide two

00:10:53.200 references and I think that's a really important part of the vetting process is who would know better

00:10:58.420 if somebody like me or somebody like you should own a gun than the people closest to us right people

00:11:04.200 have known us for years and years is this person trustworthy and I wondered because I know I've been

00:11:10.120 the reference for probably hundreds of gun owners and I've never once received a call from the RCMP

00:11:16.020 firearms program asking me to you know to vouch for these people so I filed an ATIP to find out how

00:11:23.920 often or do they even call the references or even the spouses you know if there's a concern about

00:11:29.780 domestic violence and it's less than 10 percent and the reason for that is with this government

00:11:36.260 they keep putting more and more burden more and more regulation and work on the shoulders of the

00:11:42.420 provincial CFOs without allocating any more funding to cover that so they are stretched so thin

00:11:48.160 that they're not they're not able to carry through the original vetting processes that are in place

00:11:54.960 to make sure that guns don't fall into the wrong hands and then use that when something does go wrong

00:12:00.500 then they use that for political fodder to further attack our community and to divide Canadians along

00:12:06.120 political lines so to me that's that's dangerous it's not good for any of us and you know I also

00:12:12.980 don't want bad people to have guns right so yeah I mean you're never gonna I think I may have joked

00:12:18.340 about it with you I can't remember if it was on air or off air I mean the the worst thing you could

00:12:22.280 ever do as a gun owner is like post a photo in which your finger is like even like the shadow hovering

00:12:29.180 over the trigger because the law-abiding responsible gun owners will pounce and it is vicious and it is

00:12:35.580 terrible because they are the most safety conscious people they are to a fault and that's I think the

00:12:42.120 thing that people don't realize is how like if you're one of these people that likes to live

00:12:46.420 dangerously the worst thing you can do is go out to the gun range with a bunch of gun owners because 0.57

00:12:51.220 you will be like just mortified by how safety conscious they all are well and that's part of

00:12:58.460 the whole process of developing national range day uh which is a couple years old now and it's it's just

00:13:04.560 you know look we can debate gun policy back and forth and fight on twitter and go through long

00:13:10.240 threads of information and fight all day long about it but the we you and I both know the very

00:13:16.320 best way to influence somebody's opinions about guns and gun ownership is just to take them to the range

00:13:20.960 and when people come to the range on national range day I mean these are you know families coming uh just

00:13:27.360 average people from the community most of them have never laid their hands on a firearm before and they

00:13:32.720 come and they get to experience it in a safe and welcoming atmosphere under proper supervision

00:13:38.400 and instruction and recognize all the safety protocols that are put in place it totally changes

00:13:44.480 their mind and that's why we're going to continue to do that and grow that across the country because

00:13:50.400 Canada has a very safe robust history and heritage in owning firearms ownership and I want that to

00:13:59.680 continue not just for my kids but for their kids too just a funny funny story on this I can't remember

00:14:05.600 what gun it was it was some handgun or something I I just purchased it and I was cleaning it so you

00:14:09.920 know you have it out on the table and you're you know taking it into a bunch of different pieces and I

00:14:13.680 I had the the gun pointing and I needed to get up from where I was sitting and I was about to step in

00:14:20.160 front of the barrel now this is a gun that has never been used that's dismantled that is not loaded

00:14:25.520 and I like stopped and walked around just in without even thinking of it instinctively because

00:14:30.240 that's one of the things that's just drilled into you is you never you know that was going I think

00:14:34.160 above and beyond but you know you never put a human in front of the barrel of a gun loaded unloaded it

00:14:38.080 doesn't matter so that's right this is something that gun owners know and and you're right that the

00:14:42.640 government knows it too and I think that's key here is that they cannot plead ignorance on this they know

00:14:47.360 the regulations they know restrictions they know the crime rates so when they talk about legal guns as

00:14:52.320 being some source of crime it is a blatant brazen lie mm-hmm yeah and that's what I mean at the at

00:14:59.840 the same time they're doing that they're ignoring the problem of increased smuggling and I mean look

00:15:05.360 you know with technology and 3d printing and all of these wild crazy things going on out there

00:15:11.360 you're never going to catch it all but we could do a better job at catching more of it and this you

00:15:17.120 know buyback confiscation program that they're you know talking about it eventually developing five

00:15:23.280 years down the road or or later um that's going to cost taxpayers upwards of six eight billion dollars

00:15:30.560 billions of dollars and I can't help but wonder just as an average person and a mom and a grandma

00:15:37.280 would those funds not better be spent focusing on intersecting you know uh illegal smuggled guns coming

00:15:45.200 across the border or programs for at-risk youth who might be you know entering gang life or a number

00:15:52.000 of other programs that would have a more positive public safety um impact than targeting the very

00:15:59.520 people who have dedicated their lives to following every rule and regulation regardless of how ridiculous

00:16:06.160 it is and you know that's the social contract that we made as gun owners as we would follow all this 0.80

00:16:12.400 stuff um with the with the uh expectation that the government would more or less leave us alone

00:16:19.280 and unfortunately this government has proved that they've broken that contract and so therefore

00:16:23.840 we have no alternative but to fight them in court to fight them in the court of public opinion

00:16:29.120 and of course to fight them at the election booth which cannot come quickly enough to a lot of

00:16:34.880 people tracy wilson vp of public affairs for the canadian coalition for firearm rights always a pleasure tracy

00:16:41.360 thanks a lot andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:16:45.120 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - October 12, 2023

Liberals extend gun ban amnesty for second time

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