National Range Day has a different meaning for gun owners and enthusiasts this year.
With the introduction of Bill C-21, some gun owners are feeling like they are being unjustifiably targeted for issues they do not contribute to.
When you enter 519 Range and Select Shooting Supplies in Cambridge, you can hear the sound of muffled pops in the firing range down the hall. Guns, targets and ammunition neatly line shelves and fill display cases.
Ryan Simper, is a gun owner and business developer for Select Shooting Supplies. He thinks the new legislation and banning the sale of handguns to licensed individuals is targeting the wrong people.
“A lot of my customers this week who are coming in feel very down and dejected, because the government seems to be blaming them for societal issues instead of tackling the real problems,” said Simper.
Earlier this week Prime Minister Trudeau put forth legislation that would put a national freeze on the sale and transfer of handguns in an attempt to combat gun violence.
“What this means, is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” Trudeau said at a press conference Monday.
As of Saturday, all of the handgun cabinets at Select Shooting were completely empty.
According to owner Dean Carr, customers have been buying the soon-to-be-banned guns at an unprecedented rate.
“All of our customers are coming out and really speaking with their wallets against what the government's trying to do to their sport, their hobby and their personal property,” said Simper.
Simper said he is in favor of common-sense gun laws that help keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them.
He points to the fact that Canada already has strict gun laws like extensive lifetime background checks that monitor police interactions of gun owners every 24 hours. There are also complaint lines for police to monitor potentially dangerous individuals who own firearms.
"They will come and take your guns from you if you come up on this list," he said.
He thinks these are good for the gun community because they help keep people safe, but wants to make sure that if these measures are in place they are actually being utilized by law enforcement.
“When they talk about these new red flag laws, the one thing people need to know is these red flag laws have already existed,” said Simper. “That being said, that system has been used. It was used back years ago on the Nova Scotia shooter and the RCMP never followed up on it. 22 people are dead because of it, so if we're going to have these systems in place, we need to actually use them.”
The recent and continued gun violence in the United States has put gun ownership and gun reform in the spotlight all across Canada. When asked why he thinks mass shootings don't happen as often in Canada, Simper said it’s a cultural difference.
“I was raised that firearms are for the purpose of competition, recreation, sport and putting food on the table,” he said. “ The cultural difference in the United States is that you are raised to believe you need a gun to protect yourself. We don't have that in Canada, it's a different society. We don't have that, 'I need a gun because somebody is out to get me.'”
The Canadian government is fighting to keep illegal guns from crossing the border from the United States. They have provided more than $312 million in new funding to increase firearms tracing capacity and implement stronger border control measures to fight gun smuggling and trafficking.
The Canadian government claims that in 2021, law enforcement agencies seized more than double the number of firearms at the border than they did in 2020, making it one of the top years in decades for firearms seizures.
Simper wants to see more border security to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
“We're next to the biggest gun stores in the world,” said Simper. “Canadian Border Services said they cannot possibly inspect every train car that crosses the border and this is unacceptable.”
Gun control advocates from across the country are applauding the government for taking a stand against gun violence and making it harder for criminals to get guns.
The Coalition for Gun Control was founded in 1989 after the massacre at École Polytechnique in Montreal killed 14 women.
President of the coalition Wendy Culkier said, in a media release, the proposed law will strengthen the screening processes for gun licenses with a particular focus on risk factors associated with domestic violence, suicide and hate crimes.
“The game changer is the proposed national ban on the sale and importation of handguns which will stem the flow of these guns,” said Cukier. “Legal handguns are a significant source of handguns used in crime and are the guns most often used in mass shootings. Canadians want them banned!”
Ken Price, father of Samantha Price, a survivor from the 2018 Danforth Avenue Shooting, is relieved the government is listening to the voices of victims.
“For too long, and particularly since 2015, the number of handguns in private hands has grown, and too many of these have been stolen or diverted or used by license holders causing death and injury,” said Price. “This legislation will stop growing that part of the problem, and taken with other measures announced, make the Danforth Families feel that public safety is being addressed."
The new bill C-21 that was recently introduced is an updated version of a similar bill tabled in 2021 with the same name.
New amendments include:
- implementing a national freeze on handguns to prevent individuals from bringing newly acquired handguns into Canada and from buying, selling, and transferring handguns within the country.
- Taking away the firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking.
- Fighting gun smuggling and trafficking by increasing criminal penalties, providing more tools for law enforcement to investigate firearms crimes, and strengthening border security measures.
- Addressing intimate partner violence, gender-based violence, and self-harm involving firearms by creating a new “red flag” law that would enable courts to require that individuals considered a danger to themselves or others surrender their firearms to law enforcement, while protecting the safety of the individual applying to the red flag process, including by protecting their identity. In addition, the government will invest $6.6 million to help raise awareness of the new law and provide support to vulnerable and marginalized groups to navigate the provisions.
- In addition to this new legislation, the Government of Canada will require long-gun magazines to be permanently altered so they can never hold more than five rounds and will ban the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines under the Criminal Code.
The bill has passed first reading and is currently in the second reading in the House of Commons.