Enough is enough, it’s time for gun control
For days last week, I was swamped with vicious emails and personal attacks on social media after writing a column about long lineups at gun stores in Canada and the U.S. formed by people stocking up on bullets and suggesting we need stricter gun controls.
Each day, I received hundreds of emails and social media attacks from pro-gun supporters. I was called an idiot, a Liberal “apparatchik” and “utterly uniformed.” Many of the attacks were obscenity-laced rants.
But the attacks stopped abruptly early Sunday when news emerged of the mass shooting in Nova Scotia. Since then, I haven’t received a single hateful email or social media reference from gun enthusiasts.
It seems the worst mass shooting in Canadian history has finally prompted even some diehard pro-gun advocates to pause and take stock of what Canada should do to control the spread of these dangerous weapons. Sadly, if history is any measure, nothing will change.
The official response so far to the shooting spree last weekend in Nova Scotia — in which Gabriel Wortman, a 51-year-old denturist, killed 22 people, including an RCMP officer — has been about thoughts and prayers, the same as in previous mass shootings in Canada.
This tragedy, however, should be proof enough for politicians — and all Canadians — that it’s time to get serious about bringing in stricter gun controls across the country.
While we don’t know the full circumstances of this particular horror, we do know with stricter gun laws we reduce the risk that tragedies like this will happen.
For too long, the pro-gun crowd has claimed nothing can be done to stem gun violence.
While it’s true no single law would end gun violence, there are reasonable, obvious steps that would help.
For example, Ottawa can immediately implement all the regulations in the last, albeit weak, gun control legislation. The law gives expansive powers to remove guns from people who are a potential public risk. But the public seems to have been lulled into complacency and the authorities don’t have the resources needed to enforce the law.
Indeed, you are more likely to get a call as a passport reference than as a reference on a gun license.
Also, Ottawa should ban the sale of military-like assault weapons. No civilian needs one of these killing weapons. Banning them would save lives.
Countries around the world have moved quickly in the wake of mass shootings to enact tough gun laws.
Take a look at New Zealand, which last spring moved within days to ban semiautomatic assault weapons after a gunman shot and killed 51 people and wounded 49 others at two mosques in Christchurch.
Take a look at Great Britain, where the government acted quickly to introduce sweeping gun control when a man shot and killed 17 people, most of them young children, at an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996.
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government was “on the verge of introducing legislation to ban assault-style weapons across this country” when the COVID-19 pandemic caused Parliament to be suspended. He vowed to act on the legislation soon.
Trudeau is right to act now. That’s because Canada’s record on gun-related violence isn’t great. In fact, we rank fifth in rates of firearm deaths among the 23 largest industrialized countries. Also, we rank fifth highest in the world in civilian gun ownership.
And the public would support him. Polls indicate some 83 per cent of Canadians support a ban on possession of military-style assault weapons by civilians and 67 per cent favour a ban on handguns.
It will take some guts on the part of our federal leaders to take on the loud — and often abusive — gun lobby. Do they have it in them?
Regrettably, Canadians likely can’t count on either Tory Leader Andrew Scheer or his presumed successor Peter MacKay. Both are solidly linked with the pro-gun crowd.
But NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who seems terrified by threats of losing some western MPs if he backs stronger gun controls, needs to step up. If he does, it will be sign of strength, not cowardice.
Together, federal politicians need to act swiftly because if they don’t move now — with the worst mass shooting in Canadian history fresh in our minds — then they likely never will.