4 mai 2020 | Local, Terrestre

Liberals set to break promise to buy back ‘all’ assault weapons in Canada

The Liberal government is walking back an election promise to buy back “all" military-style assault rifles in Canada, opting instead to allow current owners to sell their weapons to the government or to keep them under a grandfathering process, federal officials say.

The measure is set to anger both sides of the gun-control debate, who are already polarized over the looming ban of a number of semi-automatic weapons.

The partial buyback program is the latest example of the Liberal Party of Canada promising strict gun-control measures during an election and then backing off in government.

Under grandfathering, new weapons sales will be stopped, but current owners will be allowed to keep their banned weapons at home under certain conditions. The broad details of the buyback program were provided by federal officials, whom The Globe and Mail is not identifying because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Alison de Groot, of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, said a partial buyback program is “bad public policy” and doesn't make sense.

“It is totally ineffective and a waste of taxpayer dollars,” she said. “Canadians will not be safer.”

Nathalie Provost, who was hit by four bullets during the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in which 14 women died, said a partial buyback is another disappointment in her 30-year battle for gun control. She said she understands the logistical difficulties of a full buyback, but blamed the situation on a series of failures by successive governments to enact strong gun-control measures.

She was particularly critical of the elimination in 2012 of much of the federal long-gun registry under the previous Harper government.

“I'm so angry, you can't imagine,” said Ms. Provost, who is part of a gun-control group called Poly Remembers.

As previously reported by The Globe, the federal government is implementing its election promise to ban military-style assault rifles in Canada. Federal officials said the government has adopted a list of nine weapons to be prohibited in Canada, including firearms such as the AR-15, the Ruger Mini-14 and the Beretta CX4 Storm that have been used in mass shootings, in Canada or abroad

Provisional list of recommended prohibited firearms

Estimated numbers in Canada

M16, M4, AR-10, AR-15

Sandy Hook, New Zealand,

Las Vegas, Orlando

Mini-14

Polytechnique

83,570

16,860

M14

Moncton

Swiss Arms Classic Green

5,230

1,340

Vz58

Quebec Mosque

CZ Scorpion EVO 3

11,590

1,810

Beretta CX4 Storm

Dawson College

SIG MCX and SIG MPX

1,510

1,000

Robinson XCR

Guns above 20 mm calibre

1,830

30

Guns with muzzle energy above 10,000 joules

600

MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GOVERNMENT OF CANADA

The ban, which has been made through a cabinet decision, is set to be announced and take effect shortly.

The government expects that banning the nine platforms and their variants will scoop up close to 1,500 different models in the country, totalling tens of thousands of individual firearms.

In addition to the nine platforms, prohibitions are expected to be placed on guns with a muzzle energy exceeding 10,000 joules, which would snare .50-calibre sniper rifles, and those with calibres in excess of 20 millimetres, a rare grade of firearm that includes some grenade launchers.

“Those are the only two prohibitions that make sense,” said A.J. Somerset, author of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun and a former gunnery instructor with the Canadian Forces. “They seek to ban things around specifications. Going after individual models perpetuates the same failed approach."

Mr. Somerset said that prohibiting specific models resembles a push in the 1990s to crack down on semi-automatic assault-style rifles under then-prime minister Jean Chrétien. Rather than passing comprehensive legislation, the government of the day sought to stamp out “military-style assault weapons” by identifying gun models through order-in-council.

According to RCMP briefing notes, the orders-in-council were intended to be updated continually as new guns arrived on the Canadian market. For the most part, that never happened and gun manufacturers easily switched production to firearm models that circumvented the regulations.

“As soon as they prohibit one model, other models will become popular – it's whack-a-mole,” said Alan Voth, a gun forensics consultant and retired RCMP firearms analyst.

Mr. Voth said the 1990s prohibitions made Canada's classification system so convoluted that regional RCMP forensics labs would often disagree with one another over how certain firearm models should be classified. The government eventually centralized classification duties in Ottawa, in part to overcome regional discrepancies.

Unlike the coming ban on specific assault-style weapons, the buyback program, and further gun-control measures being prepared by Ottawa, will need to be enacted through new legislation and are only scheduled to take effect next year. It remains unclear how much the buyback program will cost, but Ms. de Groot said the Liberals “grossly underestimated” the cost when they provided a $250-million price tag during the election.

In a statement, Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus accused the government of using the “immediate emotion” of a recent mass shooting in Nova Scotia to “make major policy changes” such as the ban on assault weapons. The NDP and the Bloc Québécois both said they support a ban of assault weapons.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended the timing of the ban on Thursday, explaining his government was nearly ready to introduce the gun-control measures when Parliament suspended its regular activities in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-liberals-set-to-break-promise-to-buy-back-all-assault-weapons-in/

Sur le même sujet

  • Eurosatory 2018: Rheinmetall Canada unveils production-ready Mission Master Cargo unmanned ground vehicle

    12 juin 2018 | Local, Terrestre

    Eurosatory 2018: Rheinmetall Canada unveils production-ready Mission Master Cargo unmanned ground vehicle

    Rheinmetall Canada has unveiled a newly named Mission Master Cargo unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), which is a new version of the Multi-Mission UGV that was first revealed at IDEX in February 2017. The platform is designed for direct support of dismounted troops and is available in a cargo and casualty evacuation version, and a surveillance and reconnaissance version. The new UGV was revealed during Eurosatory 2018 in Paris, and Rheinmetall Canada spoke to Jane's prior to the event. Modules can be swapped in and out as required, so the UGV can fulfil mission sets including logistics support; weaponised; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear and explosives (CBRNE); and communications relay. “The end user can buy either a surveillance module, CBRN module or fire suppression module and clip it onto the vehicle itself with no modification required. The software can integrate and interact with any of those mission modules that are already embedded into every single UGV,” Alain Tremblay, vice-president of business development for Rheinmetall Canada, told Jane's. In the weaponised role, the platform is fitted with a remote weapon station featuring a 12.7 mm machine gun. Live fire testing was done at the end of 2017 on a military base in Canada to trial how the UGV could lock onto a target, the target then be confirmed by operators, and the platform fire by itself up to a range of 800 m. Tremblay noted that any type of remote weapon station, regardless of the manufacturer, can be fitted to the platform. “The open architecture of the software allows anything to be mounted, even a Russian type missile which has a different architecture system to the western world,” he said. “Early next year we are going to be starting to work on a medium calibre 20 mm remote weapon station for the same platform which is actually not that difficult to do. http://www.janes.com/article/80789/eurosatory-2018-rheinmetall-canada-unveils-production-ready-mission-master-cargo-unmanned-ground-vehicle

  • U.S. government announces Canada will spend more than $2 billion on warship radars

    12 mai 2021 | Local, Naval, C4ISR

    U.S. government announces Canada will spend more than $2 billion on warship radars

    The Liberal government has approved the purchase of a U.S. radar system for installation in the Royal Canadian Navy's new fleet of warships.

  • Simthetiq Awarded Contract from Canada’s DND

    7 décembre 2018 | Local, Aérospatial

    Simthetiq Awarded Contract from Canada’s DND

    Simthetiq has been awarded a new contract under the CASE SEM contract from the Canadian Department on National Defence (NDN) to grow the Canadian Armed Forces's (CAF) access to additional simulation entity models from their interoperable 3D Model Library. Simthetiq was selected in 2016 for the unique benefits offered by their X1 library, such as the ability to publish to multiple simulation formats, accessto source files and the capacity to further enhance the 3D models with crucial functionalities such as material encoding for sensor/thermal simulation. Vincent Cloutier, CEO of Simthetiq said “We are extremely proud of our continuing role as a supplier to the Canadian DND. We are looking forward to supporting the growing needs of existing and new CAF customers as well as expanding the use of Simthetiq's library by other allied nations.” http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/news?news/2584

Toutes les nouvelles