Gun Owners Say Feds’ Proposed Firearms Bill Amounts to an ‘Attack’ on Their Property, Way of Life

Horses graze on the Eden Valley Reserve near Longview, Alta., on Aug. 25, 2011. The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino stood in the House of Commons on Nov. 29 and said of his party’s new gun-control legislation: “I want to be clear that we are absolutely not targeting law-abiding gun owners.”

But licensed firearms owners who spoke to The Epoch Times are not so sure, and express concerns that they will be turned into criminals overnight if last-minute amendments to Bill C-21 are passed.

The gun owners say they fear publicizing their possession of possibly future illegal weapons, and believe the feds are waging an “attack” on the property rights, heritage, and lifestyle of firearms owners, sport shooters, and hunters.

Bill C-21, if passed with sweeping amendments now being debated by a House committee, will ban all semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, many of which the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights vice-president Tracey Wilson called “average hunting guns” that were purchased legally, unregistered and unrestricted.

Conservative MP and public safety critic Raquel Dancho told a House committee that the amendments would ban hundreds of models of common hunting rifles, amounting to “an all-out war on hunters.” She suggested the Trudeau government ultimately wants the ability to “ban every single firearm model in this country.”

The proposed amendments would also ban any gun that can hold a detachable magazine.

Tracey Wilson, Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights vice-president and licensed firearms owner, with an SKS semi-automatic rifle. The SKS is popular with hunters and indigenous communities. Courtesy Tracey Wilson

‘We Might as Well Close’

One Alberta gun store owner, who spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity fearing his store would be targeted by the government, estimates that guns with a  detachable magazine make up anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of all guns he sells.

“We sell lots of semi-automatic sporting rifles including shotguns, and this is going to affect our sales,” said the store owner. At least 50 to 75 percent of the guns he sells have detachable magazines. As a hunter, that is his personal preference.

“So when I get in my truck, I can pop my magazine out. It’s safe and empty. I don’t have to eject my rounds one by one to be sure my gun is unloaded,” he says.

His store won’t survive if the amendments are passed, he says. “If we can’t sell rifles with detachable magazines, we might as well close the gun store. It’s the bulk of our yearly sales.”

He fears Canada “is going to be like Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, where you could have one gun per farmer and it had to be a shotgun.”

In 1918, the Soviet Union mandated the large-scale confiscation of civilian firearms. Failure to comply led to criminal prosecution. The only exception was for hunters, who could have a smoothbore shotgun. Soviet gun control laws remained strict in the following decades, although the government made a point of giving Communist Party associates privileged access to firearms.

The store owner says the hundreds of guns the Liberals now want to ban with sweeping amendments—on top of the more than 1,500 first put on the banned list in May 2020—are hunting guns, “not military guns like they claim.”

“This is an attack on gun owners,” he says. “This has nothing to do with making the world safe.” In his view, the government should instead “put back tough-on-crime policies that put criminals in jail.”

Mendicino commented on the bill’s amendments on Twitter on Nov. 30, reacting to allegations from Conservatives that the gun-control legislation amounts to the most significant hunting rifle ban in Canadian history.

“Don’t believe the hype. We are focussing [sic] on assault style firearms, not hunting rifles,” he wrote.

Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino speaks during question period in the House of Commons on Oct. 4, 2022. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Public Safety’s Acting Director General of Firearms Policy, Rachel Mainville-Dale, told a House committee last week that the amendments advance the government’s “policy objective of enhancing public safety,” by banning “assault-style” firearms, which “pose a significant risk to public safety.”

Liberal MP Pam Damoff, parliamentary secretary to Mendicino, also told the committee that there needs to be “a clear definition in the Criminal Code for weapons that have no place in our society” and no loopholes for gun manufacturers to work around the prohibited list.

‘Tools We Need’

Cory Morgan, a rural Alberta gun owner and columnist who writes for the Western Standard and The Epoch Times, agrees that the government is targeting law-abiding citizens.

“These are unrestricted guns that will become prohibited overnight, turning us all into criminals,” he says.

His acreage backs onto a few square miles of bush, with a creek running out of the mountains.

“We get lots of wildlife. We get a lot of black bears, the occasional grizzly, and our area has always been known for its large population of cougars,” says Morgan. He had taken up beekeeping, until a black bear came along, broke through an electric fence, and tore up his beehive.

Morgan says if he encounters an aggressive bear or a cougar, he wants a semi-automatic with a detachable magazine to protect his family, especially his grandchildren who play in the yard. He calls Bill C-21 “absurd and ridiculous.”

“[The government] is suddenly creating a whole bunch of criminals from people who never would have broken a law otherwise,” he says. “It is leaving ranchers, acreage owners, livestock owners, people like myself, without the actual tools we need for where we live.”

Morgan believes the Liberals’ gun policy is motivated by “pure ideology.”

“The illegalization and seizing of all firearms is the intent of the Liberal government and it has been so for a long time. They can’t take them if they don’t know who has them. I don’t think firearms owners are going to comply. They will just wait it out for a new government,” he said.

The Browning BAR 270 deer hunting rifle would be prohibited if the proposed amendments to the Liberals' gun-control legislation passes. Courtesy CCFR

Brendan, a firearms owner in Ontario who requested only his first name be used for fear of being targeted if the bill passes, is a sports shooter and collector. He doesn’t hunt, but he shoots and reloads ammunition, with a collection that is predominantly military surplus from World War II and prior. For over a decade, he’s been shooting, training, and travelling as part of his hobby. He gets up at 6 a.m. every Saturday and goes to the range.

“I find it relaxing and challenging, and it gets me out all year long,” he says. He understands “some people don’t like guns” but says the government is targeting law-abiding Canadians based on “ideology, or worse—politics.”

He also describe the Liberals’ move as an “attack” and says it “will not change the crime stats.”

”Law-abiding gun owners are simply not the problem,” he says.

He wants the government to invest in border security and law enforcement to go after gangs and criminals who are illegally importing guns from the United States. According to “Guns, Gangs, and Violence,” a new police report by York Regional Police in Ontario, 100 percent of seized guns whose origin could be traced were found to be illegally smuggled into Canada from south of the border.

Brendan says if the bill and amendments pass, gun owners are not just losing money on legally purchased private property.

“People will lose their hobby, their sport, their ability to put food on the table. Billions of dollars will be taken out of the economy. Stores and services will close, throwing people out of work on the eve of a recession,” he says.

Predators ‘No Joke’

Kristopher, a 40-something hunter and trapper from Alberta, also spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity for fear his guns would be confiscated if Bill C-21 passes.

Kristopher uses a semi-automatic .223/556 NATO for predator control through the winter months. He says he chose this particular gun because it’s accurate, causes minimal pelt damage, and has less recoil, and more importantly, uses ammunition that will enter the animal and not exit, making the kill safer and more humane.

For him, guns are tools, he says, “a safe and effective way to control predators that injure and kill livestock.”

He grew up with firearms, as his father sold guns for a living and taught firearms courses. He says Bill C-21 would ban and confiscate private property “used safely for many years by lawful, responsible, vetted, licensed firearms owners.”

“Meanwhile, the government has removed mandatory sentencing and lowered the penalties for gun crimes,” Kristopher says.

“The demonization of semi-autos is really unfounded,“ he adds, noting that with a semi-automatic, ”in a situation where there are three coyotes coming at me, I can get them all. If I had a bolt action, I might [only] get the first one.”

Every year in Canada, coyotes have attacked family pets and sometimes children, even in urban areas. A pack of five coyotes will kill a minimum of one deer a week, and on the Prairies, they have no natural predators.

“Coyotes are no joke,” says Kristopher.

He also prefers a semi-automatic when hunting geese. “You can get three shots in a flock of 50 flying by. It’s ethical to have a semi-auto, you have a chance at a quick follow-up shot if you only wound the animal, to make sure it doesn’t suffer.”

Jamie, a gun owner who lives with his family on an acreage in Alberta, raises beef and chickens and harvests a crop of hay each year. He was raised hunting deer and moose.

“We lost calves, chickens, cats, and even a dog to coyotes over the years,” he says. As a result, “we added predator hunting to our resume.”

“There’s a reason these are the most popular predator rifles. They are light, customizable, offer quick follow-up shots, and are very durable to abuse. I have had three different modern sporting rifles for predator control around the farm, the third of which was just specifically added to the Liberals’ list of prohibited weapons,” says Jamie.

His other two guns were added to previous lists.

“That’s a lot of money and hardware rendered illegal by the stroke of a pen. These types of rifles are no more dangerous than others,” he says. “I have never committed a crime.”

Jamie said the proposed new gun law would add him to “a very long list of brand-new criminals that our government just created, in possession of a prohibited device.”

“It’s quite tiresome that the response to increased gang violence is always to criminalize private gun ownership,” he said.