Canada Bans Additional Firearm Models in Ongoing Effort to Restrict Gun Access

December 6 :
Canada's government has continued its campaign of prohibiting firearms and, 35 years after the Ecole Polytechnic de Montreal massacre in Montreal, which murdered 14 women and injured 13 others, has added 324 more types of weapons to the restricted list. The number of firearms outlawed in Canada has increased to 1,824 with this notice made on Friday, the eve of the 35th anniversary of the massacre.

According to Dominic LeBlanc, minister of public safety, the prohibited weapons and rifles were designed for use on battlefields, not for hunting. Experts, including those from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were consulted before the finalization of the list of prohibited firearms, which includes the most recent additions.

According to LeBlanc, these weapons are now illegal to possess, sell, or import into Canada, and their transfer or transportation is subject to stringent regulations. In light of the disturbing rise in gun violence, the Liberal administration has come under increasing scrutiny. Reportedly, the recent strategy of the Liberal Government to purchase back firearms did not produce any favorable outcomes. The Liberal Government has been unfairly blamed by the Opposition Conservative Party for the increasing crime rate, which includes gun violence.

Immediate effect is given to the order prohibiting the possession of further weapons. The buyback scheme will be in effect until October 30, 2025, for those who currently own them.

The federal government unveiled a number of gun control proposals in February 2021 through Bill C-21. Semiautomatic weapons that use center-fire ammunition and can contain six or more bullets in a magazine were the target of the new laws' efforts to outlaw them.

After facing pushback from opposition parties and First Nations people worried that the enlarged prohibition would restrict hunting weapons, the government scrapped its plan to employ a definition that would have added more firearms to the prohibited list in early 2023.

The acquisition, sale, or transfer of handguns in Canada was similarly put on hold when the law was passed in December 2023. It is the official position of the government that the buyback program has been in collaboration with the various jurisdictions and law enforcement agencies. According to LeBlanc, Ottawa is also trying to figure out if some of the prohibited firearms could be sent to Ukraine so they can fight Russia.