Stop the Gun-banning Madness!

Vincent J. Curtis

9 May 2018

RE: Under Pressure: Trudeau defers to police on gun restrictions

The totalitarian impulse and the splendid ignorance of the gun-banners are wonders to behold.  The gun banners want Canada's parliament to (a) ban guns, and (b) remove political decision making and transfer it to the police.  Under Trudeau’s gun ban bill, cabinet authority to overrule Mountie determinations will be removed.

There is a civics lesson here.  In what other field is the authority of the cabinet said to be “repealed?”  Foreign policy?  Justice?  National Defence?  The environment?  In fact it lies nowhere else, and it can’t even in the gun banning case.  Responsibility may be delegated, but authority cannot be.  The Mounties may be given the task, but the authority they exercise is parliament’s, and the cabinet is parliament’s steering committee.  It may appear that the Mounties are free of political decision making, but the minister responsible for the RCMP has powers that can make the Mounties change their minds.

So why pretend, except as a political fig-leaf?  There are probably several hundred thousand restricted rifles in Canada.  Is the government going to stand idle if some pompous police officer decides that these rifles should be banned, confiscated and their owners deemed felons if they fail to comply?

To illustrate how political and how stupid the gun laws presently are, the rifle that Marc Lepine used remains unrestricted, but the AR-15 is restricted.  The reason for that anomaly is that the aboriginals up north use the Lepine rifle (i.e. a Ruger Mini-14) for hunting seals.  Aboriginals are not going to pay any attention to federal gun laws.  Another example of absurdity: the M1A is unrestricted, but the FN C1 is prohibited.

Gun banning does not reduce violent crime.  Gun banning creates more crime than it prevents.  Mr. Trudeau would be much better off shelving his gun ban as unwise, just as he has discovered the unwisdom in so many other things he promised.

-30-

Oddly, the Spectator saw fit to publish an abbreviated version of this article.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/guns-rcmp-licence-prohibited-1.4664030

The attached link will add further confirmation to my argument concerning pompous police and the fact that gun laws create more crime than they prevent.