U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- In early 2020, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his so-called “assault weapon” ban along with a temporary amnesty period that allows the owners of newly-banned firearms to possess their property without incurring criminal liability.
Canadians affected by these Orders-in-Council were advised they would have the option of “complying through grandfathering” or surrendering the gun for compensation (“buyback”) before the expiry of the amnesty, with the specific information to be “announced later, once details have been decided.”
Canada’s gun owners are still waiting for answers.
The latest development is Prime Minister Trudeau’s replacing of Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief and the Minister of Public Safety, with a new Public Safety Minister. Significantly, Blair had served as the Liberal government’s “point man on gun control before he was promoted to oversee Public Safety Canada;” as minister, he had been primarily responsible for the implementation of the gun ban law from the onset. His successor is Marco Mendicino, whose last portfolio as minister was immigration and refugees.
Now, a scant six months away from the amnesty deadline of April 30, 2022 – a blink of an eye given the speed of government operations – gun owners and firearm businesses are left to speculate about the operation of the confiscation and grandfathering options, compensation, and pretty much anything else related to the implementation of this gun ban.
Taxpayers, too, remain as much in the dark on how much this will cost as they were when Trudeau’s gun grab was announced, although a government report released in June offered a very broad estimated cost of anywhere between CAD$47 million to $756 million. Even so, the report’s authors were careful to add a “floor not ceiling” caveat that there are “too many outstanding questions on how this program will be implemented to currently develop a complete picture of the true potential cost of the program.”
In 2019, New Zealand implemented a similar ban on “military-style semi-automatic firearms,” magazines and parts, enforced through a mandatory mass confiscation and temporary amnesty. An auditor-general’s report on the overall implementation of the program reveals that “[a]dministering the scheme cost considerably more than estimated” – as in almost twice the estimated amount, although implementation was not yet completed at the time the report was written. By then, the cost had jumped from an estimated NZD$18 million to $35 million, with “no evidence of wasteful spending.” Moreover, the “Police used a lot of their wider resources to support the scheme’s administration,” which meant the real cost was likely higher as “routinely rostered staff working less than full time on the scheme” did not record their time.
Government cost overruns of this magnitude shouldn’t come as a shock to informed Canadians. As early as January 2020, a Fraser Institute article by Gary Mauser, using New Zealand’s surrender and confiscation program as a model, concluded that just collecting the guns to be surrendered (approx. 250,000 firearms) “would cost the Canadian taxpayer between $1.6 billion to almost $5 billion in the first year. This estimate excludes travel costs and any ministerial administrators.” The figure also doesn’t include big-ticket items like the “fair market compensation” that the government promises to pay affected gun owners and businesses, the cost of transporting and destroying the guns once collected, and data processing equipment and software, all of which will inevitably drive the total price tag further into the billions.
The upward creep in costs has already been flagged by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), which has consistently opposed the federal gun grab as a pointless, ineffective, and expensive waste of public money. The organization reiterated its opposition again this month, highlighting rising costs despite the fact that “the government hasn’t bought back a single gun.” Records obtained by the CTF purport to show that the initial government contract for program design – a total estimated cost of over CAD$1.1 million – expanded in just five months to over $1.5 million. Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director with the CTF, explains that the “expected cost just to buy the guns back has already ballooned, so taxpayers have every right to be skeptical. The government still hasn’t told taxpayers how much the gun buyback will cost.”
Timing is another huge, looming issue. New Zealand’s gun grab was implemented over the course of six months (June 20 to December 20, 2019). The Fraser Institute’s article notes that “Canada is much larger than New Zealand—in population, geography and in the number of ‘buy back’ firearms.” In a country “geographically 37 times larger than New Zealand,” the odds are that, even if the implementation mechanism for Trudeau’s gun grab was available to start tomorrow, the time needed would extend well beyond the April 30th amnesty deadline.
It doesn’t seem that much of Trudeau’s misguided gun control scheme is going well.
Taking another quick look into the future, we predict that Trudeau’s gun grab will fail to deliver on the public safety promise, as well. The ostensible justification for the unprecedented assault on law-abiding gun owners in both New Zealand and Canada has been to reduce crime. Although the New Zealand auditor-general’s report declined to say “whether implementing the scheme has delivered value for money” or analyze “the extent to which it has made New Zealanders safer,” early indicators are that the measure has accomplished nothing. Radio New Zealand reported in March that “gun crime hit a new peak” in 2020; another report in September showed that in major cities, gun crimes and injuries due to gun crimes escalated drastically over the last 18 months; and the president of the New Zealand Police Association went on record earlier this year to say that gun violence is “out of control.”
While all these (and many other) questions remain outstanding, what we do know at this point is that throwing billions of good taxpayer dollars away on another pointless Liberal gun control chimera isn’t the answer.
Pretending that taking guns away from responsible gun owners will solve the problems caused by violent criminals and gangs isn’t the answer. And turning Canada’s honest gun owners into criminals sure as heck isn’t the answer.
About NRA-ILA:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess, and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
I hope that most Canadian gun owners, when it is time to surrender their guns, surrender the ammo first, bullets first. There has to be a line in the sand which shall not be crossed, or they will be abused exactly as Australia is abusing its citizens right now. Maybe worse.
Where do you see the line in the US?
The tens of thousands of gun control laws that have been enforced for decades by state, county, and city/town enforcers?
Registration of certain firearms in certain states (like CA where the LAPD assists other state enforcers in enforcing registration against people they don’t like)?
Registriation of semiautomatic rifles at the federal level?
Banning of semiautomatic rifles at the federal level?
For many of us, the line was always when anyone came door-to-door, demanding our guns be turned in. This was the scenario which we most often imagined. At this point, “Shall Not Comply” is the order of the day regarding registration, turn-ins, etc.
I’ve striken the phrase “law-abiding” from my vocabulary. I now use “Constitution-abiding.”
I have no ill-will towards someone who violates an unconstitutional law.
I like the way you handled that bit of word-smithing! I plan on adding it to my vocabulary.
I doubt it. If people have a fear about loosing their house to the IRS or ANY other fear of those administering “government”, they will give up and turn them in.
No doubt, some will. At my age, such just means I am backed into a corner with only one way out.
When they come after our guns. Make no mistake they will. We still have over three years to go under biden!
I think the government will use food as a weapon. The biden administration is restricting American energy production, which in tern reduces the LNP exported, which in turn, reduces fertilizer production (e.g. is closing fertilizer plants due to insufficient nat. gas available), which in turn will cause less food grown globally.
It is possible that the government would issue food rations nationally, and extra rations with a gun turn-in. It is the bureaucratic answer to the government’s problem of having an armed population.
“I think the government will use food as a weapon.”
I agree. There are already laws and regulations designed to discourage small abbatoirs. I expect those laws and regulations to increase.
Somebody has to enforce those laws for them to be effective.
My error. It should be:” … (e.g. Britain is closing fertilizer plants due to insufficient nat. gas available) …”
That will be the time to ATTACK. PHLUCK THEM!
Natural gas is also powers a large portion of electricity generation in this country. NG delivery issues were a major contributor to the blackout some experienced here in Texas early this year. I for one would not be surprised to see widespread power failures in coming years.
Apparently some folks don’t seem to UNDERSTAND. I do, and upvoted you out of -6. They need to learn to READ and COMPREHEND. Geezzzz…I live in a nation of IDIOTS.
I upvoted too. I’m sure we’re not the only ones. I figure there’s at least 10 Agents, ex-enforcers & LE toadies lurking to dv
The Redcoats are coming!
They have been here. ATF is on their shirts.
I sure hope the good people of Canada develop a plan to resist and defeat these Dudley Do-Right looking fools. Six months isn’t a lot of time and the clock is ticking.
Only takes a few days.
Canadians need to publicly hang Justin Trudeau and be done with this crap . This would send a strong message to the rest of the tyrants around the world . Pay attention idiot clownshow Biden you could be next Brandon !
Canadians are fools if they give up their guns. Trudeau is marching them down the socialist marxist road just as Biden is attempting to do here in the US. Australia went down that road and look what is happening there now. Citizens being mistreated on the streets. Manhandled in public to set an example for not doing what government says. It will get worse long before it gets better. It may cost billions for Canada to confiscate 250 thousand guns? The United States may very well have over a billion guns. No one even knows the number of gun owners for sure. That however is the way it… Read more »
“The United States of America has a second amendment for a reason. Our founders had just gone through a revolutionary was with the most powerful military in the world at the time. We defeated them only because citizens had guns and volunteered to assist the regular military.” The most powerful military in the world that they defeated was their own military (the military of Great Britain). They formed two groups to defeat them: An alternative, illegal army (the continental army) separate from their own government (Great Britain); and Groups of people (the militia) who fought their own military (the redcoats) without joining… Read more »
That’s easy to answer. THE LAW ENFORCEMENT GANG!
The “regular military.” What regular military, you boot-licker? The Founders were utterly against standing armies. The Constitution hadn’t been written yet, so there was no power to raise an army existent. The men who came to this land WERE the army.
All I hear from the LEFT is: GUN VIOLENCE — GUN VIOLENCE — GUN VIOLENCE!! What is NOT being stated is the fact that INANIMATE OBJECTS, such as guns — CANNOT do ANYTHING of or by itself. There MUST ALWAYS be a PERPETRATOR OPERATING the gun. Therefore, IT IS THE PERSON who COMMITS the VIOLENCE.
STOP HARASSING the LAW-ABIDING People and begin and continue ENFORCING the LAWS that go after the LAW-BREAKERS who COMMIT the ACT-OF-VIOLENCE!!
I think they need to USE them to rid their country of the low life scum psychopathic control freaks that seek to take away their only defense against these tyrants. IS LIFE SO DEAR AND PEACE SO SWEET????
Is that a picture of “Long&Loud” Biden…. crop dusting Camilla???
(why yes…… THAT would be impossible to ignore)
So where do I sign up to be able to purchase some of these “surrendered”, “military style” weapons? Or are they all going to be given to Dudley Do-Right so that he can further oppress innocent Canadians?
Here is a wonderful idea and one that no one has thought of before, especially the government. Prosecute the criminals, no the government has a better idea, prosecute the law-abiding citizen.
“The redcoats are coming, the redcoats are coming”
Sound familiar…???
Mandrake, get over here!
Who could have foreseen, way back when, that Dudley Do-Right would turn out to be such a SCUMBAG!
You are approaching the situation from the point of view of a freedom loving citizen.
From the point of view of a tyrant, the gun control scheme is working perfectly.
Cost, and effectiveness against crime are meaningless to them.
You have to disarm the citizens before you can truly oppress them.
The plan is working perfectly, and appeals to cost and effectiveness will go nowhere.