One thing I had expected to hear more about is how much any legitimate buy-back would cost.
By prohibiting a whole bunch of firearms that weren't even previously registered, doesn't that create a bit of a tracking problem? What about all the untracked sales and resales between owners on forums like this one? Think of all the crates of SKS's that used to fly off the shelves at Wholesale.
It's a very large list that includes millions (tens of millions?) of unregistered firearms that will have to be purchased by Canadian tax payers and destroyed by the RCMP (you wanna bet they don't ask for 500 staff and 250 million to tackle this additional work??).
Then they are gonna send the mounties door to door to seize firearms from the holdouts?? that's going to require the ERT team because of course, they are dealing with non-compliant "criminals" in possession of "assault weapons".
I would guess that cost to be well into the billions of dollars.
What about the cost of all the accessories, rendered useless without said firearm? another couple billion....
All of this to say a buy back is just about as likely as the second coming.
If you are thinking you can at least expect a check after this fiasco I think you are mistaken. No government will ever get a buy back approved.
Equally though, no government will ever repeal gun laws that the sheep believe make them safer.
Therefore, who you vote for will have no impact on this situation whatsoever. Nothing will move this out of limbo except a strong Liberal majority and then the party will be committing political suicide by implementing a program thats cost many billions of dollars and, as we all agree, will accomplish exactly nothing. Much better to just pretend you are trying. Propose ideas the opposition is sure to fight. The government who put this OIC into place knew that, or ought to have known that, at the time.
The only possible solution I see is to challenge the OIC legally and win and that may require compromise.
In my opinion, As a nation of gunowners, we should be prepared to offer concessions.
How about allowing for a few more of the unregistered long guns into the restricted category?
Has it ever seemed right that an AR is restricted and a Robinson XCR is not even registered??
Isn't there a whole big list of guns that people bought specifically to avoid "restricted" status that are still pretty much AR's, at least functionally? They are gas operated semi-automatic rifles for which a wide variety of high capacity magazines are readily available.
Haven't many of us done the same since the OIC? How many shops can keep a PC9 in stock??
No wonder we have a proliferation of firearms that scare people.
Retailers and manufacturers who have promoted and capitalized on these "loophole" guns and magazines bear some of the blame here.
If the sheep are scared (and vote on that fear) then we have to acknowledge that we, as a community, have done little to assuage those fears.
Arguing facts (like gun crime statistics involving legal vs illegal guns) will do nothing to change beliefs and maintaining an adversarial position is more likely to entrench fears than ease them.
Offering a reasonable alternative may be the only way we will ever get anywhere........
In my opinion, it certainly doesn't help to be divisive.
