Liberals want prisoners released but lawful gun owners disarmed?

Just a week ago, the Liberal’s Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair announced that “hundreds” of federal prisoners were being released due to fears that prisoners may contract COVID19 by staying within federal prisons. 

Blair said at a press conference, “[Corrections officials] have been working hard to make sure those individuals are considered for early release, and literally hundreds of people have, in fact, been placed back into the community.”

Minister Blair, since the beginning of April, had been pushing the heads of Canada’s prison system and parole boards to consider allowing prisoners early releases after cases of COVID19 started popping up in federal prisons around the country.

At the time Blair first announced the Liberal government’s intentions of wanting prisoners released, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (UCCO) put out a statement condemning the plan as irresponsible. 

The UCCO statement read, “The focus must be on changing routines in our institutions to respect social distancing and self-isolation practices to every extent possible. Canada is in crisis, and its citizens are already dealing with a potentially deadly threat. It is irresponsible to introduce further threats into our communities.”

The UCCO, instead of releasing prisoners, asked for more testing to be provided for staff and prisoners to avoid the risks associated with letting hundreds of prisoners back into the general population during a health crisis. 

Chief Public Healthcare Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that “If the PM is relying on [Correctional Service of Canada] to make this happen, it’s folly,” advocating the federal government take a more active role in depopulating the prisons over health concerns.

The Liberal government recently has been taking a lot of criticism from gun owners, seeing both gun bans and stricter regulations as counterproductive and draconian, which doesn’t match up with the recent lax approach to the prison system.

This is all in response to Prime Minister Trudeau announcing that the government would be “rapidly” increasing gun control in the wake of the Nova Scotia shooting.

National Firearm Association (NFA) Executives have found this effort to release prisoners during the COVID19 pandemic concerning and hypocritical after the Liberals’ advocacy for stricter gun laws and bans of “assault-style weapons” after the recent shooting rampage in Nova Scotia, committed by an assailant who did not possess a Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL).

The National Telegraph interviewed three NFA executives on the prison release in the context of the renewed push for gun control. 

NFA President Sheldon Clare explained his thoughts saying, “Releasing people from prisons will have community consequences. It is incongruent with trying to remove firearms from the general public. Taking away people’s valuable private prosperity will also have unintended consequences.”

The NFA Regional Director for Ontario, Jordan Vandenhoff had more pointed words saying, “The Trudeau government is willing to let convicted criminals out on early release! Only to commit to going after 2.2 million licensed law-abiding firearms owners and making them criminals with the stroke of a pen. The Trudeau government makes the wrong choices based on emotion and quickly dismisses facts and the evidence-based truth.”

Specifically, on the topic of the Nova Scotia rampage, Executive Director Charles Zach stated that “Gun control is a failure. The Nova Scotia mass murder proved this to be true.” 

Zach questioned the Liberal’s willingness to truly get tough on crime as he sees the actions they take as being anti-gun and not anti-crime.

Zach put forward that, “The Liberal government continues to scapegoat and demonize law-abiding Canadian firearms for the evil misdeeds of outlaws and has promised to enact even more ineffective gun controls. This is not leadership. This is not responsibly controlling illegal activity.”

Likely nothing will be known about new Liberal gun proposals until the COVID19 pandemic calms down, but it is clear that the release of prisoners at this time will be used as a point against the federal government when gun advocates get back to lobbying against the new legislation.