That the current Liberal Government has initiated a campaign to eradicate Canada of legally owned firearms in the name of public safety comes as no surprise to many of us. It has garnered much support from those citizens who know very little or nothing at all about either firearms issues or public safety issues in general.
They are led to believe, by our politicians, that by eliminating firearms from legally licensed owners it will reduce gun crime and result in greater public safety as well as reducing bail restrictions on accused, and lessening sanctions for offences involving the use of a firearm by criminals.
This, of course, ignores well established facts and statistics showing that legal gun possession in Canada does not lead to crime or the deterioration of public safety. This is supported by law enforcement who have been calling for greater bail reform and more resources to stem the flow of illegal guns across our border with the United States.
However, this plea has been ignored or delayed by government and certainly ignored by the mainstream press in order not to trigger the ire of the Government and thus reduce access to government subsidies.
Canada’s soft on crime approach is producing unintended consequences for both law enforcement and politicians and may become the most serious problem with respect to public safety yet visited upon an unsuspecting public.
From a CBC news report posted 10 November, 2023 reporting the shooting deaths of a father and son in Edmonton:
“The child and his 41-year-old father, Harpreet Uppal, were killed inside their vehicle around noon Thursday. The boy was not mistakenly hit, Edmonton Police Service acting Supt. Colin Derksen told a Friday morning news conference.
Uppal was “followed with the intention of finding him and ending his life. And it happened,” Derksen said.
“With the young boy, his son, we don’t know yet …that he was targeted in that sense. But what we do know, and sadly, is that once the shooter or the shooters learned that the son was there, [they] intentionally killed him. Shot and killed him. So he was not caught in a crossfire or killed by mistake…
EPS has recorded 196 shootings — most of them believed to be targeted — so far this year. Derksen said that is a 46 per cent increase over the same period last year”.
This is how public safety is progressing in the City of Edmonton. Sounds like a movie, but it isn’t. Rest assured, what happens there will quickly spread to other urban areas of the country in the not too distant future.
Criminals in Canada, both organized and unorganized, have until recently, maintained an unwritten code of conduct which prohibited the behaviours as described above. No longer, it seems.
The unintended consequence for politicians in dealing with the indiscriminate killing of innocent persons connected to a hardened criminal and subsequent collateral damage will only make a mockery of the concept of public safety.
Another unintended consequence of this behaviour will be how criminal organizations deal with each other in future and us, once this ethical line has been crossed.
Perhaps Prime Minister Trudeau will call on Canada’s out of control criminals to; “exercise maximum restraint!”