It would be easy to trace the current Canadian gun grab to the Nova Scotia shooting in 2020. It really goes back a bit further, to a photograph of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dressed as Aladdin from the Disney film, complete with makeup to appear darker. "Brownface," essentially.
The scandal was loud, up until he decided to take a page out of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's book and dedicate himself to gun control. The media backed off in what was one of the most overt signals of media bias it's ever been my displeasure to witness.
It just wasn't until 2020 that he got enough support for his efforts to make anything happen.
It's not 2026, and while the regulations were supposedly going to go into effect years ago, they haven't. The Canadian government is completely befuddled as to what it should actually be doing, and now, as they have to defend the ban in the nation's highest court, their gun grab is on hold.
For now.
Private gun owners and firearms advocacy organizations have been battling the government in court ever since the first major gun bans were announced in spring of 2020, but at every turn, the feds have seen the legal wrangling go in their favor. Then, in late March, the Supreme Court of Canada said it would hear four appeals that were related to the firearms buyback program.
Until the appeals are decided, there will be no change to the status of Ottawa’s plan to seize these firearms. However, the appeals will give gun owners and the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights (CCFR) the chance to have another day in court, where things might finally go their way—and that’s a lot better than their chances have looked for a while.
But just as importantly, the amnesty for Canadian gun owners has been extended past the end of October. Given that court cases can drag on, many firearms owners could have faced a problem where the case was still in court, but their firearms were now illegal and the amnesty ended. With that in mind, the government program saw the amnesty extended again until the court offers its opinion. As per the feds’ website:
“… the Amnesty Orders have been extended and set to expire 90 days following the date the Supreme Court of Canada renders its decision, which is expected next year. By extending the amnesty period, the Government is providing certainty to individual owners and businesses that they will continue to be protected from criminal liability while the Supreme Court hears the appeal and renders its decision.”
That bumps the "voluntary seizures" to at least 2027, and if the Canadian Supreme Court rules against the government here, then all will be well.
This comes, though, as anti-gunners push to include the SKS rifle in the ban. It was exempted initially because it's a particularly popular semi-automatic firearm with the indigenous people, and due to treaties with them, trying to ban a particular kind of gun can get dicey. Plus, it doesn't look like the typical "assault weapon."
But a shooter in Montreal used one recently, and while he didn't rack up a high body count, thankfully, it was more than enough for Canadian anti-gunners to push for the rifle's inclusion.
The thing is, if there is no ban, there's no list for the rifle to be included on.
Whoops.
Personally, I'm skeptical that the court up that way will defend the right to keep and bear arms in any real way. We have more than enough trouble with that here in the United States, and we have the Second Amendment to help us. They don't, as some officials have been fond of noting. I'm not sure what legal basis would be applied if the court were to protect gun rights, but I'd love to find out.
This is why our Second Amendment matters, though. We at least know, definitively, that our rights are sacrosanct, even if too few courts in our great nation seem to understand that. There's a comfort in that certainty, even if we get hit with a few judicial defeats along the way. We know where we stand.
I hope our Canadian brothers and sisters get actual justice.
