The term “buyback” isn’t just a loaded term in the gun world, it’s a misnomer. It implies that guns were someone else’s first and that the entity holding the buyback is simply buying them back. That’s generally not the case. However, the term gets used whenever a government offers money for guns. It’s the term the Canadian government is using for their efforts and they’re far from the first to use it.

However, that effort isn’t without criticism.

The head of the Canadian Coalition of Firearms Rights is blasting the federal government’s gun buyback plan after an independent report revealed higher than expected costs.

A recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer suggested the federal government would have to pay gun owners up to $756 million in the gun grab buyback program, but no estimate was made of administrative costs.

This sounds too much like the 1990s gun registry to Rod Giltaca, CEO of the CCFR.

“I’m not surprised. I’m reminded of the long-gun registry where it was supposed to cost $2 million and ended up costing $2 billion,” Giltaca said in an interview with Western Standard.

“The one variable is the government has no idea how many of these firearms there are. They also have no idea what the participation rate is going to be. So they could end up with a massive bill for buying back these firearms. Or they might be sitting there wondering why they built so much infrastructure to collect them.”

Cost aside, Giltaca believes the idea is a bad one for many reasons.

“For me, the problem has always been the government has decided that they will not justify why they’re doing this in the first place,” Giltaca said.

“In these days of unprecedented social division, I’m not sure why the government would choose to make hundreds of thousands of Canadians furiously angry.”

It’s easy to understand why gun owners are upset, Giltaca said.

“People jump through the hoops, they pay the fees, they paid the taxes on the purchases of these things, they pay the taxes on the purchases of ammunition, and they pay the taxes on the purchases of gun club membership. And then the government says, ‘Well, thank you very much. You know what, we’re just going to take that property anyway. We’ve changed the rules yet again,’” he said.

Yeah, I’d be pissed too.

Canadian gun culture is a bit different than American gun culture. Canadians are less likely to consider gun ownership a right than Americans are, especially since there’s no version of the Second Amendment up that way.

Yet the right to keep and bear arms isn’t an American right. It’s a natural right extended to all beings by virtue of them existing. Those rights cannot be justly taken without due process of law, and that’s not what’s happening in Canada.

Especially when people went through all the requirements the Canadian government laid out, only to have them change their minds.

Meanwhile, what spurred this? A mass shooting in Nova Scotia where the killer used a rifle illegally smuggled across the border. Does anyone really believe this will prevent another such shooting? Does anyone think this will do anything about illegal guns in general?

If so, they’re an idiot.

Unfortunately, it looks like Giltaca’s criticism won’t have much impact. It’s a shame, too, because he’s right. Maybe it’s time for Canadian gun rights groups to step up their efforts and hopefully win back their rights. Then, hopefully, they can enshrine them in something like the Second Amendment so this doesn’t happen again.