Juno News - Trudeau is still blaming law-abiding gun owners for crimes they had nothing to do with

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 the government did something i don't want to exactly want to give them credit for doing it

00:00:13.180 because they didn't do it for the right reasons but at this point i'll take the right policy for

00:00:17.260 the wrong reasons because the government has extended the amnesty that it set for guns that

00:00:24.520 it banned uh summarily in may of 2020 notably the ar-15 but a lot of other firearms as well about

00:00:30.100 1500 and then a couple of weeks later they added more to the list and all that jazz

00:00:34.420 and what the government has done because that amnesty was put in place for two years

00:00:38.560 so originally in may of 2022 so six weeks from now those guns were going to be prohibited outright and

00:00:46.840 if you were holding one you would have been a criminal and the little token the little bread

00:00:51.240 crumb that the government gave you when they announced that ban was well we'll buy them back

00:00:55.420 from you and you may remember i did a documentary about this that was released in the summer called

00:01:01.120 assaulted justin trudeau's war on gun owners let's play the trailer of that if you don't mind

00:01:06.300 we are closing the market for military-grade assault weapons in canada

00:01:18.900 it really is my identity it really is my culture and it's every bit as legitimate as anyone else's

00:01:29.920 culture

00:01:30.280 we're just regular people that go out and and have this as part of our being

00:01:38.840 we are not the problem the guns are not the problem right it's the public's perception that

00:01:47.620 has become the problem

00:01:49.620 on one hand i'm literally i'm going to the olympics i get to represent canada is one of the greatest

00:01:58.640 privileges that i ever get to do that i get to wear the maple leaf and represent canada it is

00:02:03.320 such a privilege and on the other hand i'm so devastated that i have no idea if at some

00:02:08.860 point i'm going to get thrown in jail because i've missed i've missed something

00:02:12.620 uh they actually pulled up they got out they had their guns drawn and it was pretty much i opened

00:02:23.480 the front door and they're like you're under arrest and you need to come with us

00:02:27.620 now it's no longer coming soon you can watch the whole thing over at assaulted.ca and even though

00:02:54.040 it came out in the summer it's still very much a real problem and the reason i'm playing that and

00:02:59.640 talking about that now is because part of the government's prohibition has been that a lot of

00:03:04.740 gun owners and also gun business owners have been saddled with inventory they purchased in good faith

00:03:10.000 lawfully inventory which is now in limbo they can't sell it they can't use it many of them can't return

00:03:15.820 it to the distributors or the point of sale and this kicking the can down the road to october 2023

00:03:21.820 solves one problem but it prolongs another so let's talk about this with rod yiltaka who you saw

00:03:27.360 in that trailer there the executive director of the canadian coalition for firearm rights rod good

00:03:33.240 to talk to you sir thanks very much for coming on today thanks for having me andrew

00:03:37.160 so obviously you have been pushing the ccfr has been pushing in a very costly lawsuit

00:03:44.700 for an injunction that would basically stop this uh in its tracks now this is not exactly what you

00:03:51.880 want because the policy is still in place but what's your immediate reaction to the delay of it to

00:03:56.480 the delay of that amnesty expiring well it's it it's what a responsible government would do

00:04:02.740 and and when i say a responsible government you know in in relation to the liberal current liberal

00:04:07.980 government it's you know i use that term loosely um but this is what you'd expect right they this

00:04:13.300 amnesty was to protect law-abiding gun owners that purchased their firearms legally and and and by

00:04:18.700 virtue of that is a is a community that is in full compliance with the law at all times

00:04:22.740 um and that continuing to hold these firearms you'd expect that they would extend that to not

00:04:27.860 make us criminals while they get their act together with their buyback yeah and there was a story i was

00:04:33.660 working on as recently as last week that this kind of sucked the wind out of here but i'll share it on

00:04:39.100 the show because i learned that a lot of businesses that have been saddled with inventory that's now

00:04:44.320 prohibited so a lot of the businesses that we talked about in assaulted which the ccfr was a very

00:04:49.320 generous supporter of the production of that for two years now almost have had in some cases hundreds

00:04:55.520 of thousands of dollars of firearms they cannot do anything with and what was interesting is that

00:05:01.060 i got a hold of messages that the government sent out to some of these businesses within the last

00:05:06.160 month inviting them to participate in a consultation process now this is again coming about 22 months

00:05:13.680 after the amnesty was put in place and they're only just now getting around to the idea of asking the

00:05:18.880 people affected by this what it's going to mean for them and what a buyback should look like so

00:05:23.700 it says to me that this whole thing which the government said was deliberate evidence-based policy

00:05:29.700 was drawn up on the back of a napkin when they had some political capital in the wake of the

00:05:34.440 horrific port-a-peak shootings well yeah it was right it was never let a good you know a good

00:05:41.460 crisis go to waste and they weren't ready and a gun buyback is not an easy thing to construct and

00:05:47.340 it's not a it's not a moral thing to do so in the interim if you if you have been paying attention out

00:05:53.280 there is they've been trying to wag the dog with all of these television commercials like you know

00:05:58.420 fire related violence equal you know is is a result of civilians owning firearms right licensed

00:06:04.720 individuals owning firearms so definitely our our gun ban is you know it's good policy so make sure 1.00

00:06:10.660 you vote for us next time there's a there's an election so you know it's it's it's a big mess it's

00:06:16.000 really just a political effort and i think this is uh the the the trouble implementing a buyback the

00:06:22.920 trying to wag the dog with all of this uh all of this uh um tens of millions of dollars worth of

00:06:28.140 advertising the focus groups right it's a political exercise and uh and they're trying to uh they're

00:06:34.340 trying to save that effort i think yeah and and they've spent millions and millions of dollars without

00:06:39.080 buying back i mean i i have issues with the word buying back because it was never the governments in

00:06:43.400 the first place but semantics aside they've spent millions and millions of dollars on this without

00:06:47.580 so far buying back a single one of these firearms yeah well they're still doing focus groups right we

00:06:52.760 had a member that is on the board of a gun club uh in eastern canada and and he sent you know he sent

00:06:59.040 us the the the the questionnaire right the survey you know would you be interested in mailing through

00:07:04.760 canada post mailing your your ar-15 in and us sending you a check i'm like what mailing mailing so-called

00:07:13.860 assault style you know uh firearms uh in the mail system i you know i've got i've got mail that's

00:07:20.620 gotten lost i haven't gotten t4s before you know much less my ar-15 so yeah your ar-15 in the mail

00:07:27.200 will become the new slogan well yeah right you can see them running around in a panic trying to

00:07:32.720 trying to get this done but the delay does not does not bother me at all the longer it's delayed the

00:07:39.240 better our our property is still in our possession it gives time for the ccfr's lawsuit against the

00:07:45.080 government that all of this is against the against the charter of rights and freedoms and also against

00:07:50.020 the law administratively that gives us time to to get that done you know i don't mind the delay at all

00:07:54.740 yeah and also i mean we're talking about about a minority parliament here october 2023 could bring

00:08:00.580 us into election territory as well uh and that i think is as an important part of this timing

00:08:05.520 i don't i'm leery to you advance this argument because i i don't want to make it seem like i at

00:08:10.960 all agree with this but just to use the government's messaging for a moment they believe as bill blair

00:08:15.560 has said and as justin trudeau has said and as bill blair's replacement marco mendicino has said that

00:08:20.560 these guns are killing machines that's all they are they're weapons used for murder they're meant to

00:08:25.260 kill all these people and they need to be taken off the streets and taken out of law-abiding gun owners 1.00

00:08:30.120 hands because there's no lawful reason to have one of these if that is what you think letting someone 0.99

00:08:36.360 keep it for an extra 18 months longer would suggest that maybe there isn't this firearms emergency that

00:08:41.480 involves guns owned by the law abiding well well of course right i mean we've canadians have had these

00:08:47.240 guns for up to 60 years right we've had these guns for a long time they're legitimate you legitimately

00:08:53.560 used for hunting and sports shooting contrary to what the government says and they have been for decades

00:08:58.680 and decades yeah i mean this was completely unnecessary and you know like i said you know

00:09:04.280 the big thing to look for from the government in their behavior right now is them running around

00:09:09.160 trying to legitimize what they did because there's there's really not a lot there

00:09:14.280 so let's talk a little bit about the lawsuit here now you were not successful in getting the

00:09:18.680 immediate injunction at that very early stage but as you noted then and i think we talked about it on

00:09:23.560 the show the case is still ongoing so where is it now and what's the main argument because you said

00:09:29.000 there's a charter argument there and also an administrative law argument so when when when we're

00:09:35.080 talking about the charter argument itself it's it it gets really gets really detailed so i'll just use

00:09:40.600 plain language we're asking the court to consider the canadian charter of rights and freedoms

00:09:46.360 um and an answer can the government take whatever it wants from anybody anytime for any reason um without

00:09:55.880 explanation or justification and if and if just if justification is there like what does that really

00:10:00.760 mean like it doesn't have to be based on facts or based on statistics or what that is so because right

00:10:06.520 now the government in our opinion illegally banned those guns so the administrative side is that in the

00:10:13.560 criminal code in section 117 it says you cannot ban a gun that is reasonably used for hunting or

00:10:19.640 supporting sport shooting right and of course these guns not only are reasonable for that they've been

00:10:24.120 used that way for 60 years right like it's not even that we're making that claim it's like it's it's like

00:10:29.480 history right there so that's the administrative part and the charter challenge really is about property

00:10:35.080 rights can you own anything and if you remember elizabeth may proudly stood up in the in the in the house of 0.99

00:10:41.720 comments and crowed to everybody how mistaken we are with our name you know firearm rights having

00:10:48.120 firearm rights in in uh in our name that you don't have firearm rights in canada in fact you have no

00:10:54.440 rights to own anything at all no rights to property she she she wears that like a badge of honor so

00:11:00.200 we're trying to say at least you know federal court give us an answer do you have the right to own

00:11:07.240 anything at all yes or no because if the answer is no we just want to know that once and for all if

00:11:13.320 that if that answer is no and we at least we know what kind of country we live in and we know what

00:11:18.360 needs to be fixed yeah i think that's an important point and i've always appreciated how you do approach

00:11:24.120 it from the property rights point of view because there are a lot of people that don't get guns and

00:11:29.400 they may never get guns they may never be interested in them but they understand owning something they

00:11:33.400 understand having something and then the government saying this is no longer yours this is no longer

00:11:38.760 something you get to enjoy and it it bothers me immensely that more people don't see that the

00:11:46.040 more people don't understand the precedent here of what's happening if you do license government to do

00:11:50.840 one thing i mean not to compare things that are not related but the emergencies act is a great example

00:11:55.640 of this you can hate the convoy you can hate what they stand for but that doesn't mean you have to

00:12:01.480 set aside your discomfort about the longer term implications of this and the same is true of

00:12:06.520 government confiscation of your property i mean compensation or not if they are forcing you to

00:12:12.920 sell it to them it's confiscation well it is right and this should be you know it's very hard because it

00:12:18.840 has to do with guns and and you're right not the majority of canadians don't understand guns because

00:12:23.560 they don't own them right um but this this has everything to do with just fundamental like very

00:12:30.120 fundamental level freedoms like can you own anything yes or no and and you know it's it's

00:12:36.520 issues like this don't come to the forefront until the government does something you know so kind of

00:12:42.440 egregious that at least a large group of people stand up and be like well that's not consistent with

00:12:47.400 your promise that i can own things and that i can live my life as long as i'm not bothering anybody

00:12:52.360 i have liberty right um i can associate with people that i want to it's not up to you who i'm friends

00:12:58.280 with like these are fundamental things and people don't really think about those things until those

00:13:03.000 things are being infringed upon so in this case property rights have been infringed upon we have

00:13:07.880 a very clear-cut case and i'm curious you know i don't i don't blow smoke in any direction um so i'm 0.99

00:13:14.120 not telling people you know we're going to take the government to court we're going to kick their butt

00:13:17.000 or whatever because it's in the charter i want to know how fair and how honest you know the canadian 0.76

00:13:23.800 system is both the judicial system and whether the charter actually means anything like that's

00:13:28.760 what this is really about because like i say win or lose i just want the answer because that's really

00:13:33.720 important to know yeah and the problem is you're not dealing with a government that is conveying this

00:13:39.240 issue honestly at all and it's not just about the odd person you encounter that has never handled a gun

00:13:44.920 so they don't know them it's not a world they know it's about people that are being willfully

00:13:48.760 obtuse i want to play a clip here and get your response to it of marco mendicino so he's the

00:13:54.200 public safety minister now he's replaced bill blair who i think was your your prime nemesis in

00:13:59.720 government for quite some time but but i want you and and the folks listening in to hear how he describes

00:14:04.760 this we've also introduced stronger and responsible gun controls including a ban on assault style weapons like

00:14:15.000 ar-15s which guns have no other purpose than to kill now this order in council which was issued in

00:14:25.560 may of 2020 has already seen more than 1500 different firearms from being prohibited from being sold in

00:14:35.400 canada and in the near future we will be launching a mandatory buyback program to now get these guns out of

00:14:43.880 our communities and off our streets today we're here to talk about how we're going to build safer

00:14:52.440 communities again that link between guns that are lawfully owned and the gun crime that is plaguing

00:15:01.240 the streets of toronto and surrey and other communities in canada how do you go up against

00:15:07.160 that when this is just said so easily so readily despite how devoid of a fact basis it is well it's

00:15:14.680 incredibly difficult right and especially when it comes from legacy mainstream media and it comes from

00:15:20.360 the government those two entities are very well the most powerful forces in the country so it's very

00:15:25.160 difficult i mean the key for us as far as our organization is we just we have to we have to

00:15:30.280 communicate directly with everyday canadians and somehow somehow we have to educate them that

00:15:37.640 marco mendicino was talking about firearms that were prohibited back in 1977 right there are no

00:15:43.480 assault weapons in civilian hands other than a handful of people like movie armors and manufacturers

00:15:49.640 that make guns for the military or whatever right normal people do not have assault weapons and they

00:15:55.240 will use those terms interchangeably um but yeah i mean to answer your question it's it's incredibly

00:16:01.160 difficult right because we're just everyday gun owners saying like well we responsibly own these

00:16:05.320 guns we haven't done anything wrong we've done nothing but comply to every ridiculous rule because a lot

00:16:10.440 of the rules are ridiculous and we've complied without you know without exception now you know and our effort

00:16:18.200 really is just to be left alone so it it is a really difficult thing but we do a lot of work in public

00:16:23.560 relations we do you know television shows and explainer videos and we take out ads and billboards

00:16:29.080 and and marches and you know tours and all kinds of different things but it's it's a real challenge

00:16:35.800 yeah and one of the things that i i found very striking when assaulted came out because i was worried

00:16:40.760 is this just going to go into that echo chamber that a lot of pro firearms content does and certainly

00:16:45.880 the firearms community was a big booster of it and i'm grateful for that but i i was very touched

00:16:50.600 by the number of emails i got specifically on the episodes focusing on business owners because

00:16:56.760 people understood in the midst of the pandemic the idea of businesses that were facing these just very

00:17:02.840 unfair hurdles from the government things that made no sense beyond uh beyond bureaucracy beyond fair

00:17:08.520 dealing but but actually things that just came across as punitive and i i felt that people were receptive

00:17:14.440 to that when they heard the stories but again you still have to you can only have so many of those

00:17:18.600 conversations you can only have so many one-on-one discussions with people to get those stories in

00:17:23.400 front of them and then all it takes is one shooting the government gets up there and just starts uh

00:17:28.520 spouting off blatant misinformation and which they've still never accounted for i mean i go back to the

00:17:34.440 government linking canada's gun laws to the guns used in in portapic even though we learned after they

00:17:40.760 issued this prohibition that none of them were legally owned none of them were legally acquired

00:17:45.720 well yeah they were all illegally acquired i'm i'm i'm a participant with standing in the public

00:17:52.680 inquiry the the mass casualty uh commission right so i know exactly what went on there i have access

00:17:58.440 to all of the evidence and none of the guns were legally acquired um all but one were obtained through

00:18:04.600 smuggling through the you know from the united states this guy was a very well-known criminal and

00:18:09.800 smuggler and abuser and known as a nut in the community and i should just say that that's where

00:18:15.880 all gun owners are completely happy to devote resources and money which is to stop smuggling

00:18:22.520 well well yeah it's just called basic problem solving right but this is it's not problem solving

00:18:27.640 it's it's a it's a political operation and you know the police let this guy circulate i mean they may

00:18:33.160 not they made they may have been helpless to stop him maybe there wasn't the right laws or whatever to

00:18:37.480 charge him with offenses um and then on top of that he disguised himself as an rcmp officer so

00:18:43.240 everyone had their guard down and the police left him alone as he went through his rampage because

00:18:47.640 they thought he was one it's so point being is this to to to lay gun you know further gun regulation or

00:18:55.480 gun bans on this particular situation is it's absurd it's lunacy and and unfortunately i can't blame

00:19:04.600 everyday canadians for not understanding that because they're busy and they don't want to deal

00:19:09.080 with and it's very negative too but it's just the injustice is is is terrible and we're doing

00:19:14.840 everything that we can to stop it very well said just before i let you go rod i know it's early days

00:19:19.960 but curious if you have any early thoughts from a firearms advocate's perspective on the conservative

00:19:24.840 leadership race um i don't uh we try to we try to stay out of the process of the leadership um election

00:19:34.200 as best we can um but i haven't uh i don't i don't know all the candidates good enough to to provide an

00:19:40.040 opinion but we're just hoping that that somebody like the candidate doesn't have to give us everything

00:19:45.320 we ever wanted the candidate has to actually walk us a line between you know leaving people like us alone

00:19:53.320 and being able to win the general election and i think a lot of gun owners they get so angry at

00:19:57.880 their own situation they forget that we need someone that has a chance to win in order to get

00:20:01.960 anything so to where to find that middle line is is difficult but uh but we'll see in the days to

00:20:07.240 come as we get to know those candidates better rod giltaka canadian coalition for firearm rights

00:20:12.600 thank you so much as always rod thank you andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:20:17.800 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - March 18, 2022

Trudeau is still blaming law-abiding gun owners for crimes they had nothing to do with

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