Gun control advocates want police to have easy access to firearms sales data. It's a measure that existed in law before, but was dismantled in 1995 with the introduction of the now-defunct long gun registry.Ī rifle owner checks the sight of his rifle at a hunting camp property in rural Ontario, west of Ottawa, on Wednesday Sept. Second, the bill would require that firearms businesses keep track of all their sales - including sales of non-restricted firearms, like shotguns - to help police trace guns used in crimes, detect "straw purchasing" schemes (where someone permitted to own a gun buys for someone banned from owning a gun) and identify trafficking networks. Three aspects of the bill - which is still before the House of Commons at the third-reading stage - are seen as crime-fighting measures.įirst, it tasks the RCMP with enhanced background checks which would cover the entire history of a would-be firearms licensee - rather than the current standard of a five-year check - to weed out people considered too risky to own a gun.
"Bill C-71 accomplishes those objectives." We need to tackle it head-on in ways that are effective and focused on public safety outcomes, while ensuring the firearms owners and businesses are treated fairly and reasonably," Goodale said at a recent Commons committee meeting studying the legislation. "This is a Canadian problem and it's a Canada-wide problem. (Some have criticized the use of 2013 as a baseline year because it saw Canada's lowest rate of criminal homicides in 50 years, and the lowest rate of fatal shootings ever recorded by Statistics Canada - making any comparison look particularly dire.) Idea of getting firearms vendors to track sales revives old gun control debateīetween 20, according to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the number of criminal incidents in Canada involving firearms rose by 30 per cent, while the number of gun homicides spiked by 60 per cent.Liberals propose tightening Canada's firearms law with new record-keeping practices.No magic wand to end Toronto gun violence, mayor says.
Advocates say troubling crime stats demand action.
#Gun facts liberas cannot accept crack
Liberals have pitched the bill, C-71, as a collection of "common-sense measures that will crack down on illegal handguns and assault weapons, creating safer communities" while "protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners." The changes were explicitly promised in the last Liberal election platform as a way to reverse a decade's worth of Conservative government changes to gun rules that the Trudeau government claims have bolstered gun-related crime.Ĭritics maintain the bill is nothing more than a symbolic sop for gun control advocates that will penalize lawful gun owners by burdening them with unreasonable regulations. In response to these pleas, the federal Liberals are pointing to their multi-million dollar spending plan for a guns-and-gangs initiative, and new legislation Ottawa says will tighten the country's firearms regime and keep more guns out of the hands of criminals.īut will the bill slow the circulation of crime guns used to commit these increasingly brazen homicides? As major Canadian cities face a spike in gun violence - Toronto has seen 10 people shot in just the last five days - local leaders are calling on the federal government to do more to help them grapple with a wave of gang-related crime.