While Canada does have a culture of responsible gun ownership, I think it's fair to say that the culture largely revolves around hunting, target shooting, and collecting, not self-defense. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau instituted a freeze on the sale of handguns in 2022 that remains in effect today, and existing gun owners in provinces like Ontario are subject to a number of restrictions and regulations.
So, when a homeowner in Vaughn, Ontario used a gun to defend himself and his family from multiple home invaders this week (at least one of whom was armed as well), it was pretty big news. And while Ontario Premier Doug Ford has hailed the homeowner, progressive politicians are clutching their collective pearls and criticizing Ford for his praise.
"Congratulations for shooting this guy — should have shot him a couple more times as far as I'm concerned," Ford said, after being asked about the incident at an unrelated news conference Wednesday.
Ford went on in his response to attack the federal government for "going after legal, law-abiding gun owners," as well as "weak-kneed judges" who are letting people out on bail.
"They always want to protect the bad guys, the judges always want to protect the Charter rights — how about the charter of rights of the people, to keep them safe rather than always protecting these criminals," Ford said. "I'm just sick and tired of it."
Opposition NDP Leader Marit Stiles called Ford's statement "very irresponsible nonsense" when speaking with reporters Wednesday morning.
"This premier has been premier of this province for eight long years now," she said. "If people in Ontario feel less safe today, then that's on him as the premier of this province."
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner echoed those sentiments in a statement to CBC News.
"It is irresponsible for the Premier to be making comments encouraging violence or celebrating the loss of life," he said. "He should focus on investing in measures that will make our province safer and empower first responders to do their jobs to serve and protect our communities.”
Stiles and Schreiner didn't say a word in condemnation of the criminals who broke into the man's home, nor the fact that the suspect who was shot was already known to police and wanted for a number of violent offenses. No, instead they bashed Ford for being happy that the only person injured in the home invasion was one of the intruders, not the homeowner and the other resident in the home (described by police as an "elderly woman").
What was "irresponsible" about Ford's comments? Well, some folks might get the idea that they have a right to protect themselves instead of waiting for first responders to show up and "do their job." That's the last thing most non-Conservative politicians in Canada want, especially while the Liberal government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a ill-conceived compensated confiscation scheme that's already running into opposition in many provinces.
Most last enforcement Ontario, for instance, has opted out of helping the feds collect banned firearms, including the Ontario Provincial Police and the Toronto PD. Ford has repeatedly criticized the "buyback" program for focusing on lawful gun owners instead of cracking down on violent criminals, and he's not wrong. As longtime gun rights advocate Prof. Gary Mauser recently pointed out, violent crime has been on the rise in Canada, even after Trudeau's handgun "freeze" went into effect.
Meanwhile, from 2015 to 2024 (the latest year of available data), gang crime in Canada doubled (up 208 per cent), homicides increased by 29 per cent, and Statistics Canada’s “violent crime severity index,” which measures changes in the intensity and seriousness of police-reported violent crimes, increased by 33 per cent. Since 2021, in Vancouver alone, murders have increased by 130 per cent.
Right now, the only people buying handguns in Canada are criminals who are acquiring their weapons on the black market. The restrictive laws implemented by Trudeau and his successor aren't making Canadians any safer, and the last thing progressive politicians want to see as they're rounding up guns and insisting no one needs them is someone using a firearm in self-defense against a repeat, violent offender who should have been behind bars.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and adopt Canadian-style laws criminalizing our Second Amendment rights.
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