Western Standard - June 01, 2022


CORY'S RANT： Handgun law is a vanity project for Trudeau


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

201.71454

Word Count

1,051

Sentence Count

64

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

In light of the recent school shooting in Texas, Canada's Liberal government has proposed a ban on all handguns in the country. What does this mean for gun owners? Is this a solution to a problem that needs to be solved?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Trudeau's big firearms control announcement.
00:00:03.360 So, I mean, never ones to let a good tragedy go to waste,
00:00:06.300 the Trudeau liberals have chosen this week to drop legislation
00:00:09.180 cracking down on law-abiding firearm owners.
00:00:12.220 It's no coincidence that this legislation happens to be presented
00:00:14.840 just after the horrific school massacre in Texas last week.
00:00:18.940 I mean, legislation like this takes time to draft and prepare.
00:00:21.560 The liberal firearm bill, it clearly has just been sitting ready
00:00:24.260 and waiting for a terrible firearm incident to happen
00:00:27.620 so they could take advantage of the public sentiment of the time.
00:00:31.100 Now, if crime due to legally-owned handguns in Canada
00:00:33.760 really was an immediate and pressing problem,
00:00:36.660 shouldn't the liberals put this forward long ago?
00:00:39.540 I mean, they had this legislation in the can,
00:00:41.460 but they waited until it was politically expedient before going after handguns.
00:00:45.200 The political future of the Trudeau government is a higher priority than public safety,
00:00:48.980 and this proves it.
00:00:50.540 Now, this proposed legislation is a solution seeking a problem.
00:00:54.420 Shootings are indeed rising in urban areas across Canada,
00:00:56.840 and citizens are rightly concerned about it.
00:00:58.940 I mean, when we're looking at over 90% of the cases of handgun crimes in Canada, though,
00:01:02.880 it involves an illegal handgun that's been smuggled in from the United States.
00:01:06.700 In many other cases, the guns were stolen from somebody.
00:01:09.620 Crimes committed by law-abiding licensed and registered handgun owners in Canada
00:01:13.380 are statistically insignificant.
00:01:16.140 Yet this is who the Trudeau government is targeting with this legislation.
00:01:20.080 It's political virtue signaling on a grand scale,
00:01:22.300 and it's not making anybody any safer.
00:01:25.100 With legal registered handguns,
00:01:27.580 the majority of fatalities they have caused,
00:01:29.620 because there's some numbers in there, they like pointing to them,
00:01:31.520 but those were suicides.
00:01:32.960 If we want to try and reduce suicides, I'm all for it.
00:01:35.280 Let's spend more money on mental health supports and treatment.
00:01:38.040 Banning handguns won't do any better than banning ropes, though.
00:01:40.880 If somebody really wants to do themselves in,
00:01:42.480 unfortunately, they will find a way.
00:01:44.600 Canada is drafting legislation in response to American culture wars
00:01:48.260 that we aren't experiencing up here.
00:01:50.320 We don't have a rash of mass or school shootings
00:01:53.180 based on the easy acquisition of legal firearms.
00:01:55.940 Most of our shootings are gang-related,
00:01:57.700 and they almost never use legal firearms.
00:02:01.460 And looking at the American efforts to quell gun violence
00:02:03.680 through firearm restrictions,
00:02:04.760 we can see a prime example of its failure in Chicago.
00:02:08.100 Chicago implemented a gun ban
00:02:09.620 and had some of the most restrictive firearm policies
00:02:12.260 in the whole United States.
00:02:13.860 The shootings in Chicago have only risen,
00:02:15.340 with a shocking 3,561 of them in 2021.
00:02:19.400 Unimaginable.
00:02:20.000 You know, more than, they were getting around 10 a day,
00:02:22.540 and it contributed to 797 homicides.
00:02:25.160 And this is where they've got the strongest
00:02:26.660 firearm control legislation in the United States.
00:02:29.500 Now, some apologists for Chicago's gun control failure
00:02:31.760 lay the blame on the guns coming from neighboring states.
00:02:34.520 Well, that demonstrates the futility of local controls.
00:02:37.140 Most of Canada's illegal guns are coming from the USA,
00:02:39.340 and our border is 8,900 kilometers long.
00:02:42.400 Smugglers have been using drones
00:02:43.720 to fly handguns over that border.
00:02:45.640 How is banning legal handgun ownership going to stop this?
00:02:49.580 Canada has nearly 1 million legally owned handguns,
00:02:52.280 at least for now.
00:02:53.520 We're actually one of the most highly armed
00:02:55.020 civilian populations on Earth.
00:02:56.840 Our handguns are highly regulated,
00:02:58.640 and our culture is much different
00:02:59.820 than our southern cousins when it comes to them.
00:03:02.420 They just don't present a problem up here.
00:03:04.840 During the announcement of the new regulations,
00:03:07.000 Trudeau's lineup made the claim
00:03:08.620 that this ban would make women safer.
00:03:10.040 Again, legally owned handguns have not traditionally
00:03:13.080 been a weapon of choice in the harm or murder of women.
00:03:15.660 Indeed, a woman who owns a legal handgun
00:03:17.420 is likely safer than many others.
00:03:19.580 If we want to make women safer,
00:03:20.680 we should be locking up our violent criminals.
00:03:23.160 As I wrote recently,
00:03:24.000 in less than a year in Alberta alone,
00:03:25.780 three young women were murdered
00:03:27.180 by repeat violent offenders.
00:03:29.140 One of the offenders shot a 23-year-old Calgarian mother.
00:03:32.320 He had a long criminal history,
00:03:33.600 and hey, guess what?
00:03:34.280 He was banned from possessing guns.
00:03:36.300 It didn't stop him.
00:03:37.700 Another mother of five was killed
00:03:39.320 in a car accident as a gangster
00:03:40.680 with no less than six attempted murders
00:03:42.440 under his belt in Canada
00:03:43.340 was chasing down a car and shooting at it.
00:03:46.140 He had been banned from owning guns as well.
00:03:47.980 It's almost as if the criminals don't care.
00:03:50.620 The third one didn't use a gun
00:03:51.720 to commit the horrific crime he did
00:03:53.280 against a mother and child in Alberta,
00:03:55.000 but he also had a long history of violent offenses.
00:03:58.060 No gun laws would have prevented these murders.
00:04:00.880 Keeping these known violent criminals in jail
00:04:02.820 would have, though.
00:04:04.000 And we had them, and we let them out,
00:04:05.720 and they killed people.
00:04:06.980 That's where we have a problem.
00:04:08.560 Let's not pretend for a second
00:04:09.620 that Trudeau is intent on stopping
00:04:11.580 with just banning the legal sale of handguns.
00:04:13.360 He's ideologically driven
00:04:14.500 and desperate for a legacy he can claim
00:04:16.620 after his lackluster term as a prime minister.
00:04:19.340 Trudeau will move on to full-out handgun bans soon,
00:04:22.100 and likely will turn his eyes
00:04:23.300 towards long guns as well.
00:04:25.180 The outcome isn't important to him,
00:04:26.920 only the impression he hopes to make.
00:04:28.740 If we want to fight violent crimes,
00:04:30.080 it's going to take a complicated,
00:04:31.160 difficult, and multifaceted approach.
00:04:33.620 Unfortunately, we have a simplistic,
00:04:36.380 one-dimensional prime minister
00:04:37.560 who prefers surfing over heavy lifting.
00:04:40.280 He would rather appear to be doing something
00:04:41.860 than have to do all the work
00:04:43.080 to actually accomplish something.
00:04:44.900 If we want to save lives in Canada,
00:04:46.300 we should be tackling
00:04:46.900 the growing opioid addiction crisis.
00:04:48.980 It's killing thousands of Canadians every year,
00:04:51.180 far more than firearms are,
00:04:52.760 and the illicit trade of the drugs
00:04:54.380 is what's fueling the violent gang wars.
00:04:56.420 Again, though, that's too tough a nut
00:04:58.940 for our current prime minister to try and crack.
00:05:01.520 Gun smugglers and gangsters are smiling today
00:05:03.520 as the Canadian government sets its sights
00:05:05.420 on law-abiding citizens
00:05:06.540 while barely touching the illegal gun trade.
00:05:09.260 All this is going to do is make Canada
00:05:10.580 a little less free and no safer.