Trudeau announces Canada handgun freeze with new law
TORONTO: The Canadian government has introduced a legislation that will bring in a freeze on handguns in the country, as part of a gun control package that would also limit magazine capacities and ban some toys that look like guns.
The announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came days after 19 children and two teachers were gunned down by a gunman with an Ar-15-style rifle at a school in Uvalde, Texas.
Such incidents of gun-related violence in the United States were referred to by Trudeau at a press conference in Ottawa on Monday, as he said, “We need only look south of the border to know that if we do not take action, firmly and rapidly, it gets worse and worse and more difficult to counter.”
This is not a blanket ban on handguns but if passed, the new law will “prevent individuals from bringing newly acquired handguns into Canada and from buying, selling, and transferring handguns within the country,” according to a statement.
In effect, Trudeau said Canada was “capping the market for handguns”.
The proposed bill also includes several others measures like taking away firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking, countering gun smuggling and trafficking. It will also create a new “red flag” law that will enable courts to require that individuals considered a danger to themselves or others surrender their firearms, while protecting the safety of the individual applying to the red flag process.
“One Canadian killed by gun violence is one too many. I’ve seen all too well the tragic cost that gun violence has in our communities... Today, we’re proposing some of the strongest measures in Canadian history to keep guns out of our communities and build a safer future for everyone,” Trudeau said.
After Canada’s worst mass shooting left 23 dead in Nova Scotia in April 2020, the government banned 1,500 types of militarygrade or assault-style firearms. However, gun violence in Canada, though low compared to the US, has increased in recent years. As per data from Statistics Canada, after a gradual decrease between 2009 and 2013, the rate of firearmrelated homicides has increased since 2013, with a single decline in 2018. As a result, the proportion of homicides that involved a firearm rose from 26% of all homicides in 2013 to 37% in 2020.
Many in the Conservative Party criticised the proposal as unhelpful, with the party’s parliamentary critic for public safety, Conservative MP Raquel Dancho tweeting, “Today’s announcement fails to focus on the root cause of gun violence in our cities: illegal guns smuggled into Canada by criminal gangs.”