Gun Threats

1. This Order-in-Council (OIC) process scrupulously followed the law and process democratically established by elected parliaments;  Democratic.
2. We actually ran on this as one of our platform commitments in the last election;  Democratic.
3. There was an extensive consultation process spanning several years in which stakeholders both for and against were able freely to participate;  Democratic;  and
4. When Mr. Harper used the same OIC process (to increase access) prior to the 2015 election — gun owners did NOT decry this use of OICs as somehow undemocratic.  It seems to be seen as “undemocratic” only when they disagree with it.

This claim typically focusses on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,  (though there is no enumerated right to bear, keep, use, or own firearms).  It should in any case be emphasized that the rights that are enumerated there are not independent of each other, and in some degree may need to be circumscribed to give proper effect to others.

Section 1 is of particular significance here, noting that these rights are “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” — That’s the constitutional argument:  to whatever extent these prohibitions might conflict with any other section of the Charter, whether such conflict can be justified as reasonable and in the legitimate public interest.  Yes.

Wrong country.  In Canada no right to keep and bear arms is recognized in law, and certainly none such is enumerated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As noted, we most certainly are.  And it’s not  “instead of”  but “as well as.”

This tends to be a circular argument.  But, let’s take a look at it.  This means that one in every five incidents involves legal guns.  Wouldn’t that be better as, say, one in ten, or one in a hundred, or maybe even zero?  But in any case this percentage alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

Thought experiment:  Let’s imagine there were on average, in some given period, 100 criminal incidents involving guns before the prohibition, and use the 80% number.  That means that 80 of these incidents involved illegal guns, and 20 involved legal guns.

Now let’s bring in the prohibition, and let’s say it eliminates 80% of incidents involving legal guns, and let’s say 10% of the others.  This scenario brings us down to 76 incidents, only 4 of which involve legal guns.

But now we see the rate has soared to 95% of gun-related crimes involving illegal guns, and only 5%, one in twenty, involving legal guns, “proving,” some would say, that gun control doesn’t work.  Lawful gun-owners are outraged:

“See?  All those restrictions and red-tape, all those hoops through which we law-abiding owners must jump, all that wasted money, and we’re not the problem!  We’re only 5%!  Why don’t you go after the criminals instead of unfairly targeting us!”

But we’ve reduced gun-involved crime by 24%.  We’ll get the rest in other ways.

It’s a strange argument.  In the face of it one wonders why we have laws against, say, bank-robbing? — since criminals won’t obey them, anyway, and therefore such laws only prevent law-abiding citizens from robbing banks?  How dare we target law-abiding citizens in this way!

It’s true, of course, that this law will not stop criminals from breaking it.  That’s not the point.  That’s never the point.

Laws draw a line between what is acceptable in our society, and what is not.  Once that line is drawn we can then hold people accountable for crossing it.

People who cross to the wrong side of that line, are, by definition, criminals.  That’s the point, and we will hold those people to account.