Canadians tend to have a different view of gun control and gun rights than Americans. The lack of any equivalent to the Second Amendment means lawmakers don’t even need to pretend to care about people’s right to keep and bear arms. In fact, some officials have claimed that it’s not a right in Canada.

Yet there are those in Canada who do value their gun rights. They actually believe they have a right to keep and bear arms, even if the government disagrees.

I have to respect that.

However, as it stands right now, Canadians are looking at a situation where their absolute best hope is simply no additional gun control.

The mayors of Montreal’s five largest cities are calling on leaders of federal parties to make a “clear and firm” commitment to fighting gun trafficking.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume, Laval Mayor Marc Demers, Gatineau Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, and Longueuil Mayor Sylvie Parent issued the call during a press conference Tuesday in Montreal’s Old Port.

Meanwhile, Erin O’Toole has found himself in hot water after reversing a platform promise on gun laws.

O’Toole broke with the party’s platform in recent days, explicitly saying he would maintain a May 2020 Liberal cabinet order that banned 1,500 makes of semi-automatic firearms, promising instead to review the classification of those weapons.

In its list of demands on federal parties, Montreal called for a country-wide ban on the private possession of handguns and assault weapons in order to tackle “the source” of the rise in gun violence in the city.

And the best they can hope for is O’Toole and his Tories simply opt not to give in.

That’s the absolute best they can get since O’Toole has said he won’t repeal Trudeau’s anti-gun decree that banned millions of rifles in Canada.

The truth of the matter is that Montreal is calling for an effective end to self-defense in the country. After all, so-called assault weapons and handguns are two of the best tools one can use to defend themselves, so by eliminating those, you make it more difficult for people to protect themselves from criminals.

Not that anyone in Montreal’s city government actually gives a damn about any of that.

So what’s Canada’s gun community left to do?

To start with, they need an effective gun lobby. Rallying behind a single group is probably best for the time being. Make it a strong, powerful group that will also work against candidates who don’t respect gun rights.

The truth is that there’s not a lot of hope of getting gun rights back in the Canadian court system. That means it has to be done via the legislature. So the parties there need to learn there are ramifications for not backing gun rights. Then you need to stick with it.

Granted, elections work differently in Canada. That makes this approach trickier.

Regardless, though, gun owners need to do something or else they’ll end up looking at England’s gun laws longingly someday. That’s something no one wants.