In this episode, I speak with Alberta s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Melissa Smith, about the federal gun grab and her opposition to it. We discuss the federal government's proposed ban on assault style weapons, as well as what the province should do in response.
00:00:00.000So, just to start, in Premier Smith's speech, she said that you guys would be introducing a law to stop provincial and municipal police officers from going after Albertans on the federal gun grab.
00:00:14.680How exactly would that be instituted, and are there any firearms that still would be confiscated, or just generally a no to the federal project?
00:00:23.440So, we'll have to wait and see exactly how that is structured when they introduce that legislation, but it's a, and I have to be very careful here, because it's a sort of a delicate balance, because as I understand it, and I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, provincial authorities can establish priorities for law enforcement, but they could never give direction on, particularly on individual cases, okay?
00:00:52.780So, there's a fine line that lawyers will have to walk, and they're probably better at it than I.
00:00:59.180So, but the second part of your question was, oh, are there any specific kinds of guns that are still going to be got through the federal gun grab, or?
00:01:08.620Well, we don't believe that there's anything on that list that is a firearm, that they've got things on the list that aren't actually firearms.
00:01:16.560But any of the firearms that are on that list do have legitimate purposes, primarily in sport shootings.
00:01:25.440Some of them are also used for predator control, for hunting, and I'm talking about things that have, not something new.
00:01:32.760Some of these are, they're talking about banning firearms that are 100 years old, and while they're not talking about it, they have done it.
00:01:40.060So, these, some of these things are historic museum pieces, there's certainly nothing that any stretch of the imagination could be classified as assault style, whatever that is supposed to mean.
00:01:54.900So, in essence, we don't believe that anything that's on that list, that is a firearm, should really be prohibited.
00:02:06.920So, the only thing, of course, that should be confiscated is guns that are freed in the hands of criminals.
00:02:13.720And when they get caught, their firearms should absolutely be confiscated, and that's part of our general belief that the purpose of the law should be to leave law-abiding people alone and focus on punishing and removing from society those who are not law-abiding.
00:02:37.480And you mentioned leaving law-abiding people on their own.
00:02:40.440In the second part of that speech, Premier Smith mentioned advising, in the same motion, advising police officers not to arrest people for defending themselves.
00:02:51.020Well, that's a little bit outside of my purview, because I deal with firearms licensing primarily, not issues of self-defense.
00:02:59.780But I think the key there is just, again, to provide some clarity around what priorities are.
00:03:06.420And any situation where somebody has to use a firearm or any other weapon to defend themselves is obviously a very highly stressful situation, and it will be important to make sure that people aren't held to an unrealistic expectation of what kind of deliberations they should undertake when split-second decisions have to be made to preserve life.
00:03:33.760Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate that.