In response to a combination-arson-and-shooting spree committed by a madman in Nova Scotia last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved the country’s most sweeping gun ban into effect, banning over 1500 common firearms by name and designation. The option to add more guns to this new ban-list is open, without additional legislative review, should the firearms market try to work-around these restrictions.
To add insult to injury, Trudeau’s administration also stated they would be working with local governments to grant them the power to selectively ban the most commonly-used firearm for self-defense, the pistol, from private ownership on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. Given that this ban had nearly zero opposition, one could assume that most localities will embrace this new power, leading to what is essentially an all-out ban on private ownership of any meaningfully useful firearm.
Law enforcement, as expected, will not be required to adhere to any such standards.
Like New Zealanders, whose Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern endorsed a similar sweeping move in response to the Christchurch mass shooting, Canadian gun owners will have no legal recourse. Unlike the United States, Canada does not recognize the right to bear arms; as such, there is no Constitutional requirement to challenge the decision in the nation’s courts.
This means the United States now stands among (arguably) a total of three nations that still embrace relatively free ownership of firearms—Switzerland and Czechia being the other two.
This is a sad turn of events for the right to bear arms worldwide, and only more reason that we, as Utahns and Americans, need to understand that this is a culture war; as friends at Open Source Defense so poignantly pointed out, being right–chiefly, that bearing arms is a human right–nets you very little, and you cannot expect to win if you are neither popular nor a majority.
We wish Canadian gun owners the best of luck in their fight to regain and establish the right to keep and bear arms. This should not be–and indeed is not–a fight only Americans should be engaged in.