Non-Firearm Owners Should Care About Trudeau Grabbing Guns

One of the things law-abiding Canadian firearms owners find most frustrating about the Liberal federal government attempting to take away their property is the non-gun owning publics’ naive approval of the whole situation.

According to an Ipsos poll from May, 82% of Canadians strongly/somewhat approved of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ban of “military style” rifles, and only 18% strongly/somewhat disapproved of it. Seeing as 26 percent of Canadian households have at least one gun (not all household members being owners), the Ipsos poll seems to reflect a split between mostly non-firearm owners and firearm owners.

There seems to be a certain disconnect between non-firearms owners and what Trudeau’s new firearms regulations and bans mean to property rights. 

Firearms are like any other legally held piece of personal property, and if the government believes it can take the power to restrict the use and ownership of firearms, without evidence that legal firearms owners are significant contributors to firearm related crime, then the government could arbitrarily apply the same rule to other forms of property as well.

Rod Giltaca, CEO and Executive Director of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR), explained to The National Telegraph why non-firearms owners should be taking the property rights aspect of firearms ownership far more seriously.

Giltaca said:

The average Canadian should take an interest in this case because it will affect them in profound ways. The government has determined that it can take anyone’s property for any reason and without justification, there seems to be case precedent that supports that. The real issue is that the government can use any political excuse, not legal reasons, to take property or to make it illegal and therefore confiscate it. For example, the government can use political justifications such as climate emergency, economic emergencies, a pandemic and so on. Imagine what an ideological government could do to you within a system like this. How bad do you think your life could be if the government decides it wants to abuse these powers?

Giltaca went on to urge the importance of pushing back on these government power grabs, stating that, “In [the CCFR’s] opinion, they are abusing them now, and there’s plenty of talk about increasing that abuse. Limiting the power of government should be a priority of all Canadians whether it’s a Liberal government now or a Conservative one later.”

It should be noted that the CCFR is currently taking the federal Liberal government to court, based on the violation of the property rights of gun owners inherent in the Federal Liberal Party’s new law. This lawsuit is expected to be one of the largest and most expensive cases of its kind.

But non-gun owners should be careful about what federal government policies affect their lives. Everyone dislikes when the government meddles in their business, and non-gun owners should be made aware that firearms regulations and bans absolutely have long term negative implications for the ownership of all forms of personal property. 

Giltaca is exactly right when it comes to the Liberals’s environmental agenda. If the government can deem a rifle as not being necessary for self-defence or hunting, then what would prevent them from saying a truck is needed to move around, and not just rented, because it causes more emissions than a compact car?

Letting the government get away with one lame excuse for property confiscation opens the door to more in the future. 

Think about it this way; currently the government believes rifles and handguns cannot be used by law-abiding gun owners, despite being the least likely group in Canada to commit a violent crime, because of some nebulous threat vaguely defined gun violence, nothing stops the government from applying this broken logic to property that non-gun owners value. 

Every Canadians property rights should matter to every Canadian. We are all on the same team.