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Canada to ban handgun imports

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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The Canadian government will ban the import of handguns into the country, officials said Friday, the latest in a series of gun-control measures under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Because the great majority of handguns in Canada are imported, the ban effectively caps the number of such weapons already in the country at the current level without banning them outright.

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The move, announced by Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, follows a bill introduced by the government in May to implement a “national freeze” on buying, importing, selling and transferring handguns.
The regulatory measure announced Friday allows the government to impose that freeze without waiting for Parliament, which is on a summer break until September, to pass that legislation. It’s expected to come into effect in two weeks, reducing the window for gun stores to amass merchandise.


Local media have reported that handgun sales have skyrocketed since Trudeau’s government announced the freeze, prompting some lawmakers to express concern about a run on handguns from legal gun owners looking to stock up before the legislation passed.

Canada vows to freeze handgun sales
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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new gun-control legislation May 30 that would put a “national freeze” on importing, buying or selling handguns. (Video: Reuters)
Gun control enjoys broad support here. But critics say the focus on limiting handgun ownership unfairly targets law-abiding owners while doing little to stamp out the root problem: Guns smuggled illegally across the border.
Toronto’s police chief said in November that roughly 80 percent of the firearms involved in gun violence in Canada’s most populous city come from the United States, which he noted has a significant gun culture, making it a “very difficult” issue to address.
Canada vows to ‘freeze’ handgun sales, buy back assault-style weapons
“The biggest problem we have in the city is the volume of guns coming across border,” Chief James Ramer said.







The legislation introduced in May, known as C-21, also includes “red flag” laws that would allow judges to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, the removal of gun licenses from people who have committed domestic violence and stiffer penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking.
The legislation and the ban both include exemptions for those, such as armed security guards, who hold an Authorization to Carry as part of their work, those who have an Authorization to Carry for protection, and authorized high-performance sport shooting athletes and coaches.
Canada imported more than $28.2 million in revolvers and pistols in 2021, according to government data, with nearly two-thirds of that volume coming from the United States. Total imports were up 7.7 percent from the previous year, but down from a recent peak of $34.7 million in 2018.
Canadian trauma surgeons called for gun control. Gun groups had an NRA-style response.
Mass shootings are relatively rare here compared to in the United States, but the rate of firearm-related homicides has increased since 2013, according to data from Statistics Canada.







The government statistics agency reported that more than 60 percent of gun-related violent crime in urban centers in 2020 involved handguns. But it also said there were “many gaps” and limitations in the data, including on the “source of firearms used in crime” and “whether a gun used in crime was stolen, illegally purchased or smuggled into the country.” No province requires investigators to send guns used in crimes for tracing.
The Canada Border Services Agency said it seized 1,203 firearms from 2021 to 2022. In May, a Yorkshire terrier named Pepper thwarted an attempt to smuggle 11 handguns across the border from Michigan to Ontario using a six-rotor drone.
Some 2.2 million people in Canada are licensed firearms owners, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported in 2020, and more than 1.1 million firearms are registered.
Canada announces immediate ban on ‘military-grade’ assault weapons
Trudeau’s government pledged stiffer gun-control measures during the federal election campaign last year.



In 2020, Trudeau announced a ban on 1,500 makes and models of “military-style assault weapons,” after a gunman posing as a police officer rampaged across Nova Scotia over two weekend days, setting structures ablaze and killing 22 people including a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in Canada’s deadliest mass shooting.
Last week, the government outlined how much it is proposing to compensate gun owners who turn in those weapons under a mandatory buyback program.

 
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Because the great majority of handguns in Canada are imported, the ban effectively caps the number of such weapons already in the country at the current level without banning them outright.

Effectively?

 
Canada can do what they want with these laws, but good luck enforcing it. It's not like the US and Canada don't share thousands of miles of border in some of the most remote country in the world.
 
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