COLUMN: Think Again – Liberal public safety minister said the quiet part out loud

Remember the Liberal ban on so-called “assault-style” guns? It’s such a ridiculous policy that even Liberal partisans have a tough time explaining what “assault-style” even means.

Even though we have a new prime minister, the Liberals are determined to move ahead with their gun control plans. This includes forcing thousands of law-abiding gun owners to hand over their guns because they’ve magically appeared on the government’s ever-expanding list of “assault-style” firearms.

Anyone who takes more than two seconds to think about this knows that there’s little to be gained from targeting law-abiding gun owners. That’s because law-abiding gun owners aren’t breaking the law. That’s why we call them “law-abiding.”

In fact, law-abiding gun owners are some of the most heavily vetted and thoroughly trained people in the country. To assume that taking guns away from legal gun owners is going to make a dent in the crime rate is abject stupidity.

Hunters in Manitoba and Saskatchewan aren’t doing drive-by shootings in downtown Toronto. Nor are they walking into shopping malls and shooting innocent civilians. I’m also pretty sure that these individuals aren’t committing violent home invasions or armed robberies.

In contrast, the people who do commit crimes are known as criminals because they break the law. They don’t care what gun control regulations the Liberals put in place because they don’t buy their guns legally. Instead, they get their guns from gangsters who import guns illegally from the United States.

In other words, Liberal gun control policy has always been about optics—not concrete action. If the Liberals really wanted to crack down on gun violence, they would toughen punishments for anyone caught using a gun in the commission of a crime. Instead, they removed many of the mandatory minimum sentences for these criminals, making it easier for them to get back on the street.

Now, Liberal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree has said the quiet part out loud. In a surreptitiously taped 20-minute conversation with a constituent, Anandasangaree acknowledged that the Liberal government was sticking with its mandatory gun buyback plan because of political pressure from Quebec.

“Quebec is in a different place than other parts of Canada, right? And this is something that (is) very much a big, big deal for many of the Quebec electorate that voted for us. That’s one of the major things,” explained Anandasangaree.

In that same conversation, Anandasangaree acknowledged that municipal police forces likely don’t have enough resources to implement the gun buyback program and that this program would look very different if he could design it from scratch. Essentially, Anandasangaree acknowledged that Liberal gun policy doesn’t make sense, and that they are doing it purely to score political points in Quebec.

Of course, Anandasangaree quickly distanced himself from his comments once they were made public. He claimed that he stood firmly behind Liberal gun buyback program.

Ask yourself, however, which set of remarks are more likely to reflect Anandasangaree’s true thoughts on this matter. Would it be his unscripted comments to a constituent or a carefully written media release sent out as a form of damage control? I think the answer to this question is obvious.

The reality is that the Liberal Party has long used gun control as a wedge issue during elections. Not only does this do real harm to the interests of law-abiding gun owners, but it feeds into the cynicism that most Canadians already have about politicians.

It would be nice if the Liberals dropped their partisan talking points on this issue and did the right thing for a change. Perhaps this is too much to hope for.

Michael Zwaagstra is a teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.