Trudeau in both his election platforms proposed banning assault rifles. He never got around to it because of its unpopularity. He then used the tragedy in Nova Scotia to revisit the issue and linked his ban to the tragedy with these words:
“Their (victims of the mass shooter) families deserve more than thoughts and prayers. Canadians deserve more than thoughts and prayers,” and
“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time,” said Trudeau.
The problem with using a tragic incident to prop a law is that this acts based on emotional reaction and not well thought out principles.
So for example the ban covers some 1,500 models and variants of what the government considers assault-style weapons and the list can be found at:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6880974-Canada-Gazette-May-1-2020-Part-II.htmlBecause of the rush to react, the list was assembled to quickly leading to too broad a list that covers 10 and 12 gauge shotguns, bolt-action rifles and even airsoft guns which will affect almost 100,000 sport gun owners but over a million hunters and duck hunters. By doing that its alienated people who use rifles who might have otherwise agreed with a regulation to control assault rifles.
The ban also has two other inherent weaknesses. The first is that the ban and list will not prevent owners of rifles not on the list on their own to modify them making them assault type rifles. The government admitted this and said they will look into making sure “manufacturers” can’t get away with making minor tweaks to illegal models so as to render them legal, but gave no specifics and does not address how they will stop legal rifle owners from reconverting their legal rifles.
The next flaw and the one many who would otherwise support rifle regulation oppose is that it does not address illegal smuggling in of firearms or criminals or mentally ill getting their hands on weapons. In fact it ignores hand-guns and delegates the concern of hand-guns to municipal governments. It in fact focuses on legal rifle owners, who are law abiding and who have been requires to complete training as to storing, transporting and using their rifles and who have been screened through the Canadian Police Information Centre daily to make sure no laws are being broken. It focuses on the wrong people and does not prevent high powered rifles getting into the wrong hands. It focuses on law abiding rifle owners not mad-men or criminals who get their hands on weapons.
The issue that remains unanswered by the ban is how we address any weapon getting into the hands of criminals or mentally ill people.