A move by the federal government to outlaw more than 1,500 models of rifles deemed assault-style weapons is being met with backlash by sport-shooters, hunters and Conservatives.
The list of banned rifles the federal government said was designed for the battlefield and not civilian use includes the AR-15, which Foothills military veteran and business owner Chris Reader said is already the most difficult weapon for anyone in Canada to get their hands on.
“It’s been banned since 1959 when it first was introduced, because the AR-15 is a fully-automatic firearm,” said Reader. “The States use AR-15s in their military – we do not."
He said the Canadian version of the AR-15 looks the same but fires differently – only a single-round burst when the trigger is pulled on a civilian weapon or a five-round burst on the military grade.
Because it is magazine-fed, the rifle has been put on the chopping block, he said.
“It’s not an assault rifle, because that’s an action,” said Reader. “It’s just a rifle. You can assault anybody with anything – anybody over the age of 40 was probably spanked with a wooden spoon, technically that’s assault.”
Reader said he owns several firearms for hunting and for sport-shooting, all of which now fall under the list of banned weapons. He purchased them all legally and has a licence – as well as 10 years military experience including two combat tours in Afghanistan.
He’s signed several petitions against the change to Canada’s firearms laws.
“I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong,” said Reader. “I’ve followed your rules, I’ve led by your example, I have done what you told me I needed to do to get these firearms. And now you’re telling me I'm a criminal?”
Shooting goes beyond the hunt for him. Reader suffers from PTSD after serving overseas and the practice of target shooting is a tranquil activity for him. He compares it to yoga, because the steady, deep breathing centres him in the same way.
“It helps me cope, it helps me relax,” said Reader. “It’s like I’m spending time with old friends, is the best way to put it, because some of the best times I’ve had in my life were in the military, that I spent with guys that are no longer here.”
He said gun violence comes down to individual users and not Canadians as a whole, given the country’s already-strict firearms laws. More importantly than outlawing rifles used often for hunting and other sport, the government should be focusing on education, he said.
Everyone who wants to fire any weapon should have to learn the intricacies of it inside and out first, he said.
“If I sit there and I’m shooting a .45-calibre at a piece of plywood, I now understand the horses that are in behind it by 300 or 400 yards could get hit by a stray bullet – that piece of plywood isn’t going to stop it,” said Reader. “You have to educate everybody.”
Foothills MP John Barlow said he sees three issues with the Liberal government’s firearms ban: the way it was done, how it’s being portrayed and amount of money being misdirected.
Pushing through a change of this magnitude during the pandemic was wrong, he said.
“This was going around democracy, going around Parliament, to bring a very substantial change to the criminal code through an order in council,” said Barlow. “And they did this when the House of Commons isn’t sitting, so there’s no public scrutiny, no accountability, no debate.
“They’re taking advantage of a pandemic to make a pretty significant change to the criminal code.”
Stating the change will have a significant impact on violent crime and gun crime is misleading, he said.
While the emotion and impact of the tragedy in Nova Scotia is real, he said the gunman had smuggled his illegal firearms from the United States with a revoked firearms licence and does not represent the rest of Canadians.
Barlow said the funding for the buy-back program, some $1 billion, should have been put towards Canada Border Services instead.
“Give them the funds and the tools they need to address the real problem, which is the smuggling of illegal firearms in from the United States, gang crime, the opioid crisis…those are the things that are actually the root cause of this issues,” said Barlow. “It is not another attack on law-abiding firearms owners.”
When the two-year amnesty period ends, he said it’s not going to be criminals turning over their weapons when they’ve already circumvented the system to attain them.
“The focus should not be on Canadians, who have followed all the rules, have not broken any laws, but with the stroke of a pen the Liberal government has made tens of thousands of Canadians now criminals,” said Barlow.
Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca
