Airsofters aren’t generally part of the Second Amendment community. Some happen to also own real firearms, but most airsofters are folks who like to play war. Rather than playing with sticks are toy guns like many of us did when we were kids, they use a weapon that fires a small projectile that eliminates the ageless debate of whether someone got someone else or not.

However, the pastime may be coming to an abrupt end up in Canada.

Why? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assault weapon ban.

A new gun control bill from the federal government could spell the end of the Airsoft gun industry.

Bill C-21, which has not yet passed, would ban “mid-velocity replica firearms.”

The text of the bill reads:

• “Update the Criminal Code to ensure that any device, including an unregulated airgun that looks exactly like a conventional regulated firearm (i.e., shoots over 500 feet per second), is prohibited for the purposes of import, export, sale and transfer.
• Current owners may keep their ‘replicas’ but cannot transfer them to anyone else.
• No further ‘replica’ firearms could be imported into, or sold/transferred in Canada.
• This amendment does not affect other types of airguns that do not exactly replicate a conventional regulated firearm.”

That wording has Aaron Strauss, the owner of Cache Tactical Supply in Regina, worried about the future of his business.

Strauss joined Gormley last week to explain what Airsoft is, and how he believes the new legislation would do major harm to the industry.

…

Many of the guns used in the game can look similar, or nearly identical, to real guns.

Because of that, Strauss argues they would be affected by Bill C-21.

Yep. Airsoft guns will likely end up banned. Items that are basically toys would likely end up heavily restricted to the point that no one would really be able to get them, thus killing off an entire industry and pastime.

And to be clear, no one is likely to start smuggling airsoft guns into Canada. While they may occasionally be used in crime, they’re not used in such a way that causes harm. They’re replica guns, much like a non-working replica that doesn’t fall under this law.

Of course, airsoft weapons are also used in weapons training, particularly as a poor man’s force-on-force training tool, which may account for some of Trudeau’s animosity toward the guns. Then again, it’s just as likely that he’s oblivious to the impact his new pet law would have on people who have little or nothing to do with the firearm community as a whole.

Folks in Canada would do well to look at this and remember that Trudeau’s hostility toward guns came not from some deep desire to make Canada safer but from an attempt to deflect attention away from his own “brown-face” scandal.

That’s right. Millions of Canadians will be made to suffer, including tens of thousands who do nothing more than just engage in a harmless game, all because Trudeau didn’t want the press to beat up on him too badly.