I’m not the least bit surprised that Stephane Dion recently announced an ‘Assault Weapon Ban’ as part of the Liberal’s election strategy. After all, in the dying days of the last election former PM Paul Martin came out and said the Liberals would ban handguns. Without getting into a drawn out debate into whether or not gun ‘bans’ work (which they don’t) I must say that at least Paul Martin’s proposed ban was at least moderately enforceable. “Assault Weapon Bans” are always problematic.
After all, what is an Assault Weapon? Is it a fully-automatic firearm used by a national military? In that case those are already banned. Is it any firearm used by any military ever? In that case someone better come get the 1950 bolt-action Enfield made in Longbranch, Ontario I have that is identical to the one issued to our troops in WW2.
More than likely an ‘Assault Weapon’ is any gun the naive group of people involved in setting up the ban finds scary. No doubt guns like the AR-15 and VZ would find themselves on the ban list. Regardless of the fact that the AR (currently restricted) is used in target practice, service rifle shooting competitions held by the DCRA (that’s Dominion of Canada Rifle Association… yes its that old), and used in 3-gun tactical matches and of the fact that the VZ (currently non-restricted with a longer barrel) is used for hunting. Remember, hunting and sporting use are the ‘exemptions’ Dion says will prevent guns from being banned…
One thing that does surprise me, however, is the fact that the media isn’t quite fawning all over Dion’s plan. In fact, the best comment I’ve seen comes from the National Post’s Editorial:
So if we are to begin prohibiting weapons willy-nilly according to the degree to which they look scary to Liberals, how long will it be before no long firearms are left at all? That is the question gun owners will be asking about their GoreTex-wearing, snowshoeing neighbour Mr. Dion.
But of course, they know the answer: The typical Liberal voter does not understand why it should be desirable to allow the existence of anything at all that goes “bang.”
In the class war over guns, Mr. Dion may parade around as often as he likes in his enemy’s Sorels and orange vests, but he will remain what he is: an insulated urbanite who knows nothing of the millions of law-abiding Canadians who use guns safely and legally.
Hopefully more people will start to realize that but for the aberration of a small handful of mentally unstable people (Fabricant, Lepine, Gill.) the 2+ million gun owners in Canada are not really the people we need to worry about.
- Rafael.
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