Look, the shooting in Montreal was not a great moment in Canadian history. I get that, and I agree, and that's even if we were to assume that the video that looks like a police officer killing someone just trying to get out of harm's way doesn't actually show that. Public active shooter situations like that are never a good thing, and they're not a good look, especially in a country that has such extensive gun control laws.
However, it's unsurprising that the calls have been renewed. The mayor of Montreal clearly wants gun control, though she was vague on specifics.
A leading Canadian gun control group, however, was not.
A prominent gun control advocacy group is repeating its call for an immediate end to new sales of SKS rifles following deadly shootings in Montreal.
Police have not identified the type of firearm used to kill Montreal police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane and civilian bystander Michel Mizrahi this week.
But images circulating online indicate a long gun lying on the ground at the shooting scene appears to be an SKS.
In a media statement today, the group PolySeSouvient urges the federal Liberals to halt new sales of SKS models, saying it would close an obvious gap and send a clear signal.
...
PolySeSouvient is calling for a “precise and accelerated schedule” for consultations and regulatory action on existing SKS rifles.
“The current pace is indefensible, and there is no official timeline,” the group’s statement says. “These weapons remain widely available, repeatedly linked to violence, and treated with a leniency they do not merit.”
The SKS has not been banned already, in part because it's just not in the same category as the so-called assault weapons that have been. It has an internal magazine, a 10-round limit, and is a piece of military history. They're apparently pretty popular up in the Great White North, too, which has offered them some degree of protection.
So even if you accept the premise that so-called assault weapons shouldn't be available for civilian ownership, the SKS deserves the leniency that PolySeSouvient says it doesn't merit because it's nothing but a simple semi-automatic rifle chambered in an intermediate cartridge that used to be really affordable and was a decent enough gun to hunt things like deer with.
Of course, PolySeSouvient has never been fond of the SKS remaining legal, which needs to be kept in mind when we deal with our own homegrown anti-gunners. They might pretend it's just the ARs and AKs they want to ban, but at some point, something like the SKS will be on the table, too. Considering I have an heirloom SKS that wouldn't go anywhere even if I were willing to hand my firearms over, that's going to be an even bigger issue in my mind.
The sad thing is that I think they'll actually get what they want. Never mind that "scarier" guns were recovered in Regina recently, despite the bans, but I do think the government there will cave and do precisely what this group wants because they have no respect for the right to keep and bear arms. Officials have even denied that the right exists outside of the United States.
Which, I guess, is why the Second Amendment is so necessary.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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