Following Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent exit on the heels of the tabling of new restricted firearms control legislation, […] some facts about gun laws in canada […] do not seem to be taken into account in the traditional media. Very few people seem informed about the laws concerning restricted firearms, such as handguns, directly targeted by the Justin Trudeau government’s bill.
First of all, getting a handgun in Canada is a very long process. We are not the United States. As for me, I got my gun license as a teenager so I could go hunting with my father in Abitibi. A gun port [donne] the right to acquire and use a hunting weapon. In my late thirties, I went to get my restricted gun carry because I really like shooting and wanted to try something new. The lesson [donné pour obtenir ce port d’arme] lasts a weekend and teaches the various laws and safety in the handling of weapons. […]
Next is the “Law 9 Aptitude Test”, which lasts one day and will allow the holder of a restricted firearms license to transport their firearm from their home to the range, and vice versa. . It is also necessary to register each weapon with the club official, and this, during each visit. Forget [le projet] to bring your gun into the woods to shoot cans with your friends. This is prohibited and you will be prosecuted [si vous le faites].
No question either of departing from his route, under penalty of receiving a hefty fine and perhaps having a criminal record, which therefore deprives you of the right to acquire or have in your possession a handgun. Law 9 also gives the right to go to a gun club run by the government. You then have to be registered with a club, which costs a few hundred dollars a year. To keep the right granted by law 9, you must be a member of a shooting club and go there to shoot at least once a year, otherwise you lose the right to use your weapon at your shooting club. and can no longer carry it. You must then retake the Law 9 aptitude test.
All these courses cost a few hundred dollars, in addition to the acquisition of said weapon which costs around $1000.
When all this is in order, […] we can fill out an application with the government for our restricted firearms card, which includes questions about mental health, asking for references, etc. In my case, my spouse was contacted to find out if she was worried that I had firearms at home.
When the time comes to get a handgun, it is almost impossible to leave with the weapon the same day. The store must contact the Government of Canada to register the gun in the purchaser’s name and ensure that everything is in order.
It took me 30 days to get my first gun and a week for the second. Getting a gun in Canada is very difficult. Canada is not the United States, where you can walk away with a gun within an hour of buying it. The various killings in the United States are due to the great culture of weapons there and the ease of obtaining them for people struggling with mental health problems or in psychological distress.
This gun culture does not exist in Canada. We have a hunting culture, but not a handgun culture. It all goes back to the gold rush, when American prospectors had to give up their guns (in theory) to gain access to the Klondike, now the Yukon.
What history has taught us is that if you make something illegal, you create contraband in return. Consider the prohibition of alcohol or cannabis, which the Canadian government has legalized and supervised to combat smuggling. The various handgun killings in Canada are rarely carried out with legally registered and purchased guns, but rather with illegally imported guns.
We must remember the young William Rainville of Sherbrooke, aged 24, who imported 249 illegal pistols in March 2020 and [écopé de] five years in prison. These weapons were most likely intended for the street, because if one of these weapons arrived at a shooting club on a Sunday afternoon, it’s a safe bet that the Sûreté du Québec would arrive in a few minutes.
Personally, I prefer the strict laws we currently have in place to a complete ban or, even worse, virtually no bans, as with our neighbors to the south. The Trudeau government seems to want to be opportunistic [en surfant] on the current situation in the United States and in certain major cities of the country to please some by demonstrating that he is taking action on the issue of gun violence. But [par ce moyen]it does not address the real problem of illegal weapons entering the country and circulating freely and violating the rights of those like me who follow the law.