Delays to the federal buy-back program for banned guns should send the whole idea back to the drawing board, say members of Red Deer’s Fish and Game Association.
Ross Towers, the association’s first vice-president and outdoor gun range chair, considers the federal Liberal government’s 2020 ban on 1,500 types of military-style weapons to be “a knee-jerk reaction to crime” that won’t fulfill its purpose.
Law-abiding gun collectors are being targeted by the program, not the criminals who smuggle illegal arms into the country, said Towers.
In 2020, the government initially set a two-year timeline to remove “assault” weapons from circulation. Owners of banned guns were supposed to send their unloaded, secured weapons in specially-issued boxes back to the government to be destroyed — and financially compensation of up to $6,200 per gun would be issued.
But four years later, the program is still in limbo. The government amnesty period allowing banned firearms to be kept locked up by owners at home has meanwhile been extended to the end of October 2025.
Some gun owners are complaining that they can’t do anything with these locked away weapons while they are forced to wait for compensation.
The CBC reported on Tuesday that, according to federal sources, Canda Post doesn’t want to collect guns from owners based on concerns about employee security and potential conflicts. Talks between the government and Canada Post are continuing.
Towers said he can understand why Canada Post would not want to play middle man between the federal government and gun owners.
Most collectors own these firearms for the “thrill” of shooting them at paper targets on gun ranges and not for any nefarious purposes, he added.
But the gun control lobby has successfully argued that assault-style weapons — including the AR-15, used in several U.S. mass shootings — need to be taken out of circulation in Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agrees with the lobby group that there’s only one purpose for these weapons — to kill the most people in the shortest time. He said there’s no place for such weapons in this country.
Gun collectors have noted that most firearms used in the Nova Scotia massacre that killed 22 people in 2020 were illegally smuggled into the country from the U.S.
Towers believes it’s time for a more “common-sense” approach. Instead of a gun ban, he said there should be more police crack-downs on known criminals and stiffer sentences issued for gun-related crimes.
Fish and Game Association lifetime member Rob McCoy also feels the government should reconsider the law in light of this latest hitch — which will likely extend the delay between the ban and the government buy-back even further.