Juno News - May 04, 2023


Liberals reload on ‘assault-style’ firearm ban (ft. Rod Giltaca)


Episode Stats

Length

14 minutes

Words per Minute

181.57735

Word Count

2,696

Sentence Count

142


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I've always said if you're not a gun owner or you don't particularly like guns,
00:00:11.960 you should still pay attention to this issue because it is a property rights issue. If the
00:00:17.560 government has the right to take away your property, to reclassify things, to say you're
00:00:22.080 no longer allowed to own this, if they can do it with guns, they could do it with cars,
00:00:26.340 they could do it with anything else you own conceivably, or like what we were seeing in
00:00:30.520 the UK a couple of years ago, going after pointy knives because some celebrity chef decided that
00:00:35.720 he should play by different rules than others. Well, yesterday, Marco Mendicino came out and
00:00:41.580 discussed what the Liberals are doing on their firearms control bill C-21. This is a bit of
00:00:47.540 a primer that Marco Mendicino gave. I'm proud to announce a package of reforms that will strengthen
00:00:53.420 both Bill C-21 and Canada's ban on AR-15 assault-style firearms. Significantly, the amendments will
00:01:02.120 include a standard technical definition which contain the physical characteristics of an
00:01:08.080 assault-style firearm. This definition, which would apply going forward, would be inserted into
00:01:14.680 the criminal code. I want to remind you of something. In the last election, the Conservative
00:01:21.560 Party pledged to get rid of our ban on assault-style firearms. These amendments will ensure that any
00:01:31.460 future government will have a very, very difficult time making assault-style firearms legal again.
00:01:39.340 Now, Marco Mendicino, I should say, is a guy where, you know, we in the firearms community refer to 22
00:01:46.480 as a caliber. Marco Mendicino refers to 22 as IQ. He is not the brightest guy. He doesn't understand
00:01:54.200 the file. And he thinks that if he keeps saying assault-style firearms, assault-style weapons, that it'll
00:02:00.280 make it more true. But it's playing off of ignorance in Canadians who don't understand guns and in many cases
00:02:07.220 just haven't been exposed to them. And this little amendment is trying to deal with some of the bad press and
00:02:13.480 pushback they got from their previous proclamations that they would be banning by their own admission
00:02:19.220 hunting rifles and hunting shotguns. But it's hardly a reprieve. Joining me is Rod Giltaka from the
00:02:25.740 Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights. Rod, explain to me, first off, what's different? What's actually
00:02:31.840 changed here from the previous iterations of C-21? Thanks for having me on, Andrew. The approach has
00:02:39.500 changed, but the results are the same as the withdrawn amendments and could possibly be worse.
00:02:45.820 So the approach, well, the announcement that Marco made was a couple of new amendments to Bill C-21,
00:02:55.340 and also he's talking about some regulations and some other things that feed into it.
00:02:59.400 So I guess the most efficient and quick way to explain this is if we're talking about the actual gun
00:03:05.360 bans that they have in store for Canadians, instead of having a list and having a definition,
00:03:10.620 as they did in the amendments G-4 and G-46 that were withdrawn, they now have no list,
00:03:16.440 they have a definition, and they're telling Canadians, well, don't worry. Everything that
00:03:20.620 you own today is fine. It's safe. It's only this definition of a prohibited firearm being
00:03:25.400 semi-automatics with detachable magazines, basically, will only go forward when Bill C-21 receives
00:03:31.720 Royal Assent. So it's just for the future. But also, we're reforming CFAC, which is the Canadian
00:03:37.860 Firearms Advisory Committee, and they will determine what firearms that should be prohibited in the
00:03:44.780 interim, and then we will prohibit those firearms using orders in council. And there's no criteria
00:03:51.240 mentioned by the minister. So basically, it's a committee made up by the people that he wants on
00:03:56.360 there. They could just take the list that was G-46 and just go down the list and say, this is what
00:04:02.140 we recommend. But they could continue past and say, well, rapid fire firearms like lever actions or pump
00:04:07.220 action should be on the list, too. There's no telling where this will go eventually.
00:04:12.000 And they're certainly not in this, I don't even want to call it a walkback because it really isn't,
00:04:16.080 but they're not unbanning any firearms. I mean, the things that they banned by order and council in May
00:04:21.960 2020, the 1500 variants, including AR-15 style firearms and so on, like those are going to remain
00:04:29.120 banned. So which I think proves the point here that they're just going to find a way to apply this new
00:04:34.440 definition to whatever they don't want people to have. Well, they're basically calling everyone
00:04:38.620 stupid. They're saying, you're all so dumb that we'll say, oh, we're going to walk back all these
00:04:43.140 things. We're not first. It was we're not banning hunting rifles until it's like, well, here's the
00:04:47.440 hunting rifles they're banning. And then they're like, well, and then Justin Trudeau came out,
00:04:51.360 if you remember and said, well, yes, maybe some of these guns, you know, and all while screaming
00:04:57.440 about misinformation and disinformation and how terrible people like us are, the gun lobby.
00:05:02.920 Well, they got caught with all that. They walked it all back because it was a public relations
00:05:06.500 disaster for them because it's really all about politics. It's all about votes and splitting
00:05:10.420 Canadians. Right. Well, now they're saying, oh, don't worry, we're not taking anything, but we can't
00:05:16.620 control the committee that we set up. You know, it's their fault. It's now it's just basically a
00:05:21.240 strategy so that they can sidestep accountability for doing exactly the same thing that they were
00:05:25.720 going to do in the first place. I want to play a clip for you, Rod. This is from the gun control
00:05:31.780 activist group called Polly, colloquially, and their criticisms of this. And I want to get your
00:05:38.660 take on this afterwards. This is it for you. We cannot understand how we can have a real strong,
00:05:47.900 permanent ban on assault style weapon. How? With which government? Mr. Mendicino today says that
00:05:56.880 to complete the list, it will ask a committee. I've been on that committee and we never decided
00:06:04.080 anything. And they, and they were a majority government, they never consulted us on anything
00:06:10.820 strong. And they table, table and get adopted bill, uh, C71. So they cannot tell me that's a strong
00:06:19.560 measure. First, their definition is not strong, but why would the liberal government propose a new bill
00:06:27.800 on gun control? They say that it's very great and the strongest thing in the new, in this generation.
00:06:34.180 If that's it, we're lost. Now, I don't want to take away from, you know, the horrific event that
00:06:43.920 the members who formed this group initially went through back in 1989. Canadians are, are very well
00:06:49.420 aware of it. And I think it's often been used quite wrongfully to push an agenda that has nothing to do
00:06:55.080 with that horrific tragedy. And as we see now that this group is basically wanting, uh, wanting gun control
00:07:02.140 to the point where guns are just completely prohibited in Canada and anything short of that
00:07:06.200 they don't like, but the problem when you have a, an initiative like this, that's derided by gun
00:07:11.400 control advocates and gun advocates, does it not give the government a bit of cover to say, see, it's
00:07:16.400 moderate? Well, um, as I said before, their, their plan now is to sidestep all accountability and, and
00:07:24.000 yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I think they were successful in, in dividing Canadians in the last couple of
00:07:29.780 elections based on the silhouette of an AR 15 and, you know, conservatives want to weaken gun control
00:07:36.560 and liberals want to strengthen it and all the rest of this rhetoric. Um, but you know, gun control
00:07:43.020 is a, is a, is a, is a, it's a sword that cuts both ways, right? So if you think that your votes are in
00:07:48.300 urban centers and the voting profile, the people that are going to support you are pro gun control
00:07:53.620 because they don't know any better, let's say, just for sake of argument, then you're going to try to,
00:07:58.100 try to, you know, get those votes and consider the law abiding gun owners to be, um, a, a smaller pool
00:08:06.260 of votes for you. And somehow you'll win an election. I think it's, it's worked reasonably well
00:08:10.580 for them, but I think, and this is just, this is my, uh, this is my, my fantasy that you'll just
00:08:16.580 indulge me in for a minute. I think that Canadians are starting to wake up a little bit. They're
00:08:21.180 realizing that our violence problem is not licensed gun owners shooting at shooting clubs. Like we have
00:08:26.460 for 150 years in Canada, by the way, since before Canada was a country, our issues are the opioid
00:08:33.420 epidemic, which is just being made worse by liberal policies, disasters, prolific offender issues as
00:08:39.480 made worse by the liberal bill C-75 that law enforcement across the country have said,
00:08:44.060 you need to repeal bill C-75. It's making our streets unsafe to even walk on. Uh, so bail reform
00:08:50.220 issues and a raging gang problem. Like Canadians, I think are starting to figure it out that they've
00:08:55.600 been gaslit for seven and a half years and it's just not working for them. So now they're putting
00:08:59.760 a little bit more effort into kind of walking things back and repackaging the same product
00:09:04.420 and whatnot. Uh, I think they're, they're dancing a little bit now. They haven't made anybody happy.
00:09:09.500 No. And I'm looking at what Marco Mendocino has said here. And I, again, as we've discussed,
00:09:15.920 it's not really going to make a material difference. If you are a gun owner, they can tweak the process
00:09:21.180 or say they're tweaking the process, but, but we know the outcome they want. And, and basically
00:09:25.740 we're seeing a government and correct me if I'm wrong, that will not stop until every semi-automatic
00:09:31.020 firearm has been prohibited. Well, and, but it won't stop there. And this, we've been telling the,
00:09:36.360 uh, the hunting community for a long time, you know, how, how confident are you that the liberals
00:09:41.200 are just going to stop just short of the firearms that you own? Like they're going to be like, okay,
00:09:46.200 well, we got the, we got the AR-15s and even wooden, you know, stocked firearms that could be
00:09:51.980 like the SKS that we still think are assault weapons. We've got those. Well, you know what?
00:09:56.380 We're on a roll. Why would they stop there? So at the end of the day, they want you to have a break
00:10:01.120 action if at all, uh, or a bolt action. And maybe that'll be what's left. It's, uh, it's yeah. I mean,
00:10:08.960 I think, I think they've demonstrated as a political party after running Canada for seven and a half
00:10:14.800 years, they can't be trusted. They'll never say what they actually want. It's a, it's, it's a real
00:10:20.100 mess. And I think it has backfired on them. I'd like to think so. The one thing that Marco
00:10:24.200 Menichino mentioned there that I found very, well, I found a lot of it concerning. I found all of it
00:10:28.760 concerning actually, but, but one in particular is when he talked about effectively trying to bind
00:10:33.060 future governments, he said the conservatives have already said they want to roll this back and have
00:10:38.120 more gun rights. What is he referring to there? And is he correct that a Pierre Polyev government
00:10:43.400 theoretically who has been on the record as, as opposing this gun control that he would actually
00:10:48.620 have difficult untangle a difficulty untangling this? Is that the case? Well, um, when, so the
00:10:55.000 original way that they were going to do it with, um, amendments, well, both amendments, G4 and 46,
00:10:59.360 where they were going to legislate these firearms as prohibited. So right now they're legislate,
00:11:04.920 they, well, they want to legislate a, um, uh, a definition of what an assault style, uh, firearm is,
00:11:12.700 but which will be different from any real definition as we've known. I mean, the PR definition for that,
00:11:18.800 that the government uses is, is not anything that exists in Canada. Well, if you look at
00:11:23.340 Pauly says, if he has, um, uh, press release, they called everything assault weapons. They said
00:11:27.620 assault weapon. I count it. Cause I have the video counted like eight times. They called them
00:11:31.340 assault weapons, but nonetheless, it's a propaganda war most, uh, first and foremost, but the firearms
00:11:37.400 that they, um, that they ban using an order in council can be repealed by a minority government
00:11:43.640 in the future. The firearms that they ban either by a definition or by name that are in legislation,
00:11:49.200 they would need a majority government or a coalition government to repeal that. So that's,
00:11:53.860 that's the difference. So, I mean, if, if I'm really searching around for something positive,
00:11:58.260 it's like, it's, it would be the, you know, Marco saying, well, we're going to, we're going to ban
00:12:03.220 these things by OIC because that can be reversed, but it's one thing legally. And it's another thing
00:12:08.200 politically because no government, including the conservatives want to be a one-term government.
00:12:12.680 So it'll be just as much work for organizations like ours to get these firearms and rights back
00:12:18.600 as it will fighting the liberals for that last seven and a half years. The one thing that strikes
00:12:23.920 me here is that the liberals don't even believe their own fear mongering. And one example, you were
00:12:28.860 featured and the CCFR was a very generous supporter of the documentary we reproduced a couple of years
00:12:35.240 ago called Assaulted. And at the time we did that in around this time in April of 2021. And it had
00:12:42.680 been about a year since this order and council came in. And we talked to a lot of gun owners and gun
00:12:47.800 business owners who had said, yeah, my AR-15 inventory and all this other inventory was prohibited.
00:12:53.380 The government put a freeze on it immediately. We're still saddled with it. The government said it's
00:12:58.140 dangerous to have these things out in the country. Well, two years have passed since then,
00:13:02.660 three years since the ban and this buyback that they've promised still hasn't materialized.
00:13:08.120 And we still haven't seen this rash of so-called assault weapon crime in Canada to back up what
00:13:14.060 the liberals said was the necessary and inevitable outcome of these guns existing. So, I mean,
00:13:19.560 their own fear, like if it was that urgent, they would have figured this out and collected all these
00:13:24.020 things by now. Well, you would have thought they would have figured it out before they made the
00:13:27.620 announcement that they were going to do this in short order. But another thing I would point out
00:13:32.780 to your viewers is that all this talk about gun control. So right from the liberals' first majority
00:13:39.240 government where they brought out Bill C-71, you had the May 2020 gun ban, that OIC, you had that
00:13:45.580 handgun freeze, you've got C-21 coming down the pike at us. And it's like, well, Canada is more
00:13:51.600 dangerous than it's ever been right now. And yet back in the Harper era in 2013, it was that year
00:13:58.520 had the lowest level of firearm-related violence since StatsCan started collecting data on firearm-related
00:14:04.720 violence. And we had far less gun control. We didn't have all this gun control. So it's funny,
00:14:09.560 you know, you got these advocates that are like, well, less guns in a society, more firearm regulation,
00:14:14.120 less violence. And it's like, well, clearly, those two things don't correlate at all. So it's just
00:14:21.960 kind of an interesting phenomenon in real life. Yeah, I think we need more bail control right now,
00:14:26.780 not more gun control to deal with crime. Rod Giltaka from the CCFR. I will see you in a few
00:14:32.980 weeks. For CCFR members out there, I'll be at the annual general meeting in June. So I thank you for
00:14:39.220 the invitation. And thanks for coming on today, Rod. Thank you. And we'll see you then.
00:14:43.060 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North
00:14:47.440 at www.tnc.news.