Sadly, this ridiculous Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program continues.

The goal is to take previously "legal" guns out of the hands of lawful owners – who are not the problem when it comes to gun violence. It will do nothing to help police and border security agents take illegal handguns out of the hands of criminals who really are a threat to public safety and the safety of police officers across the land. It is smuggled handguns in the hands of street gangs and other criminals that really are taking lives in our streets. Not the long guns that government is going after here – which may look like the long-banned assault rifles in colour and design but are not military rifles or “weapons of war.” They just look scary.

(See previous article: https://www.lighthouseleadershipservices.com/the-expansion-of-the-federal-firearms-ban )

The weapons they are after are often described by government as “AR-15 type rifles”. The Colt AR-15 looks very much like the U.S. Military M-16 of the Viet Nam War era. The M-16, also made by Colt, was an assault rifle. It was fashioned after the AR-15 but could be fired in fully-automatic or burst mode (3 rounds for each trigger pull), whereas the AR-15 was not designed for the military and is a semi-automatic rifle, meaning the trigger must be pulled once for each round fired.

In a 2017 NBC News article, the popularity of the AR-15 is described as follows:

…the AR-15 grew popular not only among people who enjoyed owning the latest tactical gear, but also among recreational and competitive target shooters, and hunters. Many saw it as a pinnacle of firearms engineering — ergonomic, accurate, reliable. “It’s kind of the standard, de-facto rifle now,” said Evan Daire, 23, a gun-range worker in New Jersey who aspires to become a professional target shooter. “No matter what role you’re looking at, it pretty much fills that role.”[i]

To many people, the military look, the construction of a black plastic and metal combination, the light weight and versatility, are appealing. It has that ‘tactical look’ that some people just think is ‘cool.’

The true “Assault Rifle” (fully automatic, etc.) has been prohibited (banned) in Canada for decades. Large capacity magazines are banned in Canada. So, the semi-automatic AR-15, with a legal 5 round magazine, is no more deadly than any semi-automatic hunting rifle with a typical brown wooden stock. It just looks more ominous because to the untrained eye it appears to be an assault rifle.

The AR-15 was not restricted or prohibited in Canada at one time but was eventually designated as a “Restricted” weapon by the Liberal government of the day, meaning that ownership of same required a higher threshold to be met than most hunting rifles or shotguns. That designation was removed by a subsequent Conservative government then put back into place by another Liberal government. The Trudeau Liberal government designated it as a “Prohibited” in its most recent firearms bill. Government claims that the AR-15 and other similar rifles “are specifically designed to inflict mass human casualties and have no place in Canadian society.” Not true.

Recently, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree announced that a pilot project for the buy-back program (including AR-15s) will take place in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Lawful owners – who are currently licensed to possess this previously restricted but now prohibited rifle, are encouraged to surrender their guns and be reimbursed for them until October 2026. It’s reported that the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) has stated they will not participate, and some other Canadian police services are leaning that way as well. Police services have only so many people to do the growing list of things they have to do.

Muddying the waters completely is the leaked audio recording of the Public Safety Minister expressing concerns about the efficacy of the program and the political motivation behind it, basically the very concerns being raised by the lawful owners of the weapons being sought by government.

The actual AR-15 has been used in a handful of murders in Canada, as have other military looking rifles. The semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14 was used in the Montreal École Polytechnique mass murder in 1989 and in the Portapique rampage in 2020, as was an AR-15 and another similar semi-automatic rifle. The Nova Scotia shooter was not licensed to possess any firearms. Both the other rifles he used have both been similarly banned at the same time as the AR-15. Historically, there hasn’t been many mass shootings in Canada compared to the U.S., and only a small percentage of those involved an AR-15 style rifle. I assume in part that is because those that own such Restricted weapons in Canada are licensed, trained, have had background checks and store safely as per our tight firearms legislation.

Let there be no doubt that any murder is tragic and unacceptable, whether it’s by firearm, knife, motor vehicle of whatever means. However, comparatively, the number of people slaughtered by illegally obtained pistols in the hands of people that were not licensed to possess any firearm, is staggering and ever-increasing. This legislation does nothing to address that issue.

Various reports estimate the cost of buy-back program to be in the several hundreds of millions. A year ago, it was reported that the program had already cost $67 million and had yet to acquire one gun. There’s a pile of tax dollars at play here, for something that even the Minister overseeing it apparently has misgivings about.

The RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) are both woefully underfunded and understaffed. They are the pointy end of the stick for securing our international border with the United States, in terms of firearms and drug smuggling, among other commodities. Would the considerable funding for the buyback program not be better spent by investing more in the RCMP and CBSA for human and physical resources? Leave the AR-15 style weapons as Restricted and use the money elsewhere.

By having properly funded federal, provincial and local law enforcement working together with U.S. authorities to investigate known importers/exporters at the same time the border integrity is finally seriously tightened, a significant difference in the northbound flow of handguns could be achieved. That would give Canada a way better bang for the precious buck rather than spending countless millions of taxpayer dollars to take away guns that statistically are not a threat to public safety, from people that statistically aren’t a threat either.

But so far, that isn’t the strategy.

  [i] Schuppe, Jon, America's rifle: Why so many people love the AR-15, NBC News, December 27, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/america-s-rifle-why-so-many-people-love-ar-15-n831171