“The calculation is very simplelaunched Justin Trudeau, Monday evening, May 30, during a press conference, the fewer firearms there are in our communities, the safer everyone will feel (…) It is our duty to act”. This statement is already, in itself, at odds with the positions of the NRA lobby and the Republican Party in the United States, for which, conversely, mass killings – such as that of the Uvalde elementary school in Texas – make carrying weapons even more necessary for security reasons.
But above all, beyond words, the Canadian Prime Minister is therefore taking action. He introduces a bill, code name C21, which aims to freeze all purchases of handguns in Canada. Handguns are basically pistols and revolvers, short-barreled weapons that you can hold with one hand. The government wants it to no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import it. The text also plans to prohibit rifle magazines with more than five bullets, to make it illegal to modify the magazine to increase its capacity, to abolish the licenses to carry weapons for people involved in criminal acts or domestic violence and finally to increase the maximum penalties for smuggling firearms to 14 years in prison.
The firearms phenomenon is not quite on the same scale in Canada as in the United States. Even if the country was also bereaved by a recent massacre. It was two years ago, in April 2020, 23 deaths in the province of Nova Scotia, on the Atlantic coast. At the time, a first law had already banned 1,500 models of firearms, in particular semi-automatic weapons, like the one used by the killer of Uvalde.
Authorities in Ottawa now estimate the number of handguns in Canadian possession at one million. In a country of 38 million people, that’s a lot, but it’s much less than in the United States, where 40% of households admit to owning a weapon. According to official statistics, firearms are involved in 3% of violent crime in Canada and Justin Trudeau says the proportion is increasing. However, the bill does not provide for a total ban on handguns since it will not apply to people who already own them: they will be authorized to keep them and continue to use them.
After this announcement, militants in favor of gun control are satisfied even if they judge that it would be necessary to go further by also targeting those who are already in possession of this type of weapon. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plantevery involved in this fight, welcomed the text but she also wishes that this first step announces others.
Conversely, the conservative opposition is skeptical. She wants to defend gun owners, and she sees Canada’s real problem as the trafficking of illegal guns from the United States, especially military-style guns. Their number is estimated at 100,000. This new Bill C21 must obviously still be examined by Parliament, where Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party alone does not have an absolute majority. So the debates may be lively.