The gun control narrative for fifty years follows a familiar pattern. \u00a0Some violent crazy person takes out his or her frustrations on others in an act of mayhem. \u00a0People want to prevent such an incident from happening again, but instead of addressing the root cause of the incident, governments attempt to go after the tool \u2013 at least, when that tool is a firearm. \u00a0The pattern continues, firearms owners and leaders of gun groups are contacted by media for comments on an incident which they have no connection with, except that they are now being forced to justify their peaceful activities of sport shooting, collecting, hunting, and personal defence \u2013 all under threat of having property confiscated and these activities ended. \u00a0The reaction to feel-good legislation attacking firearm rights is predictable: firearm owners organize politically and fight back. \u00a0Since they are generally individuals with resources and time which gives them the freedom to pursue expensive activities like firearm ownership and the shooting sports, they put their time and resources to work.<\/p>\n
The next phase is the one in which leaders of gun groups are called racists, extremists, or connected with dark eminences referred to as the \u201cgun lobby\u201d, which is also wrongfully accused of being directed by uncaring interests in the US. \u00a0Liberal MP Pam Damoff, in one of her typically looney pronouncements, even claimed that \u201c\u2026gun owners are law-abiding until they aren\u2019t.\u201d \u00a0The uncomfortable truth for some is that ownership and use of firearms is a strong Canadian tradition with far more participants than hockey. \u00a0People who own firearms have many reasons for doing so, and very few will ever give them up for reasons which they know will never prevent the next spree-murderer.<\/p>\n
Gun control laws that force firearms owners to be licensed and checked daily, require registration of any firearms, and classify firearms, magazines and accessories into categories intended to prevent and limit lawful uses have nothing whatsoever to do with preventing criminal misuse of firearms, limiting the effect of firearms in criminal acts, or making Canada safer. \u00a0In fact, what these actions really do is to divide Canadians into irreconcilable political camps. \u00a0Both camps have at their essence some desire for security, but there are significant and stark differences about whether or not such a goal is achievable, and if it is, how it can be achieved. \u00a0Fifty years of gun control laws by successive governments has never affected criminal behaviour rates. \u00a0Nothing the Liberal government proposes now, or that any government has enacted in the past, to limit lawful access to firearms will do anything more than add a significant cost to the federal debt.<\/p>\n
The false claim of gun control efforts is that they will somehow prevent the next run-amok from using firearms to harm people. \u00a0Gun control has never been able to do that. \u00a0Firearms owners know that gun control takes away security, rather than providing it. \u00a0We are well aware that gun control has always been about civil disarmament, marketed as crime prevention, and sold as necessary for achieving a mythical public safety. \u00a0If the government really wants public security, then it\u2019s time to break the pattern and start rolling back fifty years of expensive and irresponsible gun control.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s National Firearms Association is this country\u2019s largest and most effective advocacy organization representing the interests of firearms owners and users. Canada’s National Firearms Association is the largest Canadian organization fighting for the rights of Canadian firearms users.\u00a0 NFA is a registered UN NGO with consultative status to ECOSOC.<\/p>\n
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