A new low in the war against gun control
In the many years she has been volunteering with the Montreal-based firearms-control advocacy group Polysesouvient, Kathlene Dixon has become inured to middle-of-the-night text messages from gun lovers, ugly social media smears and even veiled threats.
Most of these screeds don’t dignify a response, said Dixon, whose daughter was injured in the shooting at Dawson College in 2006. “These people are frustrated and they lash out in the only way that they know, which is with misogyny and intimidation,” she said.
“They are the perfect examples of people who should not have weapons.”
But lately, she and other members of Polysesouvient, which was created after the massacre of 14 women at École Polytechnique 30 years ago to push for gun control, have noticed a worrying intensification in the crude online attacks.
It started building during the federal campaign last fall, when Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised tough new firearms legislation, like allowing cities to prohibit handguns. But it really escalated in May, when a re-elected Prime Minister Trudeau announced a sweeping ban on assault weapons.
Most alarming, however, is that for the first time in three decades of activism, Polysesouvient has been threatened with a defamation suit from a gun manufacturer and distributor. If there had been idle chatter about legal action before, it always turned out to be hot air.
Now a cease-and-desist request has been sent to Heidi Rathjen and Nathalie Provost specifically, both of whom survived the carnage at Polytechnique in 1989 and dedicated their lives to the fight for justice ever since.
“It’s completely frivolous,” Dixon said. “They cannot take away our right to advocate for public safety through calling for more gun-control measures.”
The cease-and-desist letter from Marstar, which is described as a “respected manufacturer and distributor of firearms and related products,” starts off politely enough.
“Though my client doesn’t share your organization’s positions or the factual contentions on which that position is based, it does acknowledge your organization’s right to take and advocate for those positions lawfully,” lawyer Judith Wilcox writes. “I am writing to bring your attention to instances where your organization’s advocacy has been unlawful and caused unwarranted injury to the reputation of my client and its products.”
The legal notice goes on to allege defamation, trademark infringement and copyright violations. Marstar contends these occurred when Polysesouvient sent a letter to federal Public
Security Minister Bill Blair. It juxtaposed a photo displaying the company logo with a paragraph calling for a ban on legal magazines with a five-bullet limit that can be easily modified to contain up to a 100 rounds, as was done by mass shooters at the Quebec City mosque in 2017, in Moncton in 2014 and outside Metropolis on Quebec election night 2012.
In an official legal response, Polysesouvient’s lawyer, Sylvain Beauchamp, called the allegations “absurd.”
“From a purely factual point of view, it is patent that absolutely nothing in the publication may ‘suggest the false conclusion that (Marstar)’s wares were modified as described and used by the perpetrators of the terrible shootings identified in the text.’ Quite the opposite, the publication states very factually that the magazines in question may be modified — of which your letter contains no dénégation — as advertised on Marstar’s own website.”
So far, no official defamation action has been filed. But this kind of move still has the hallmarks of a SLAPP suit.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, as they are known, are a phenomenon where deep-pocketed businesses go after small grassroots organizations through the courts in a bid to stifle opposition. It was a common tactic popular with land developers, among other big players with high-powered lawyers, during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Quebec passed legislation to limit SLAPP suits in 2009.
Nevertheless, the spectre of being tied up in court can have a deep chill effect on the work of groups like Polysesouvient that operate on shoestring budgets. Not only is it a distraction from the core mission of volunteer-run organizations, the expense of defending against a claim of injury, real or imagined, can be financially draining.
Polysesouvient greeted the assault weapon ban with mixed emotions. While it will outlaw a wide array of military-style weaponry, such as the Ruger Mini-14 that was used during the Polytechnique massacre, it is missing a promised buyback program for those already in circulation. And it doesn’t address concerns about the magazines that are legal but can be easily altered by removing a pin to accommodate many times more rounds of ammunition. In its members’ eyes, there is still work to do.
Besides advertising its wares and touting its new layaway program, Marstar’s website has a link in red at the very top about the assault weapon ban. Titled “How the firearms community is challenging bad policy,” it contains links to petitions, legal challenges, firearms associations and fundraising campaigns.
The pro-firearms lobby in Canada is in part underwritten by advertising from various gun manufacturers. Customers also form a fiercely loyal army to protect the right to unencumbered gun ownership.
But the sewer of social media has allowed certain aficionados to amplify a more extreme message — that they are themselves victims of persecution or that a lack of readily available weapons is responsible for the death tolls in mass shootings. Many, fuelled by false narratives that pro-gun control advocates want to take away all guns and curtail even legitimate hunting and sporting activities, have turned the debate personal and nasty.
“Just think if one of you dumb @$$ b!&(%s was armed during your ordeal. You’d probably be singing a different tune,” read one recent Tweet tagging @Polysesouvient.
“It is my opinion that Heidi and Nathalie are deceitful tyrants who spread lies to vilify good people who have done nothing wrong and make money doing it instead of dealing with their own crippling hoplophobia and ptsd,” read another.
“It’s tiring but we will never stop, we will never give up,” said Dixon of the constant barrage. “This is too important. Our children and our communities need protection from being mowed down.”
If resorting to silencing courageous survivors of gun violence through the courts is a new tactic, the war against gun control has reached a new low.
This is too important. Our children and our communities need protection from being mowed down.