Within a week of the devastating school massacre in Texas, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced (on May 30) a planned handgun ownership freeze. This legislation effectively prohibits the importation and sale of guns.
On May 24, a school shooting occurred in Texas, United States.
The parliament will have to approve Trudeau’s bill. The ruling Liberals presently possess a plurality of seats.
“We’re introducing legislation to implement a national freeze on handgun ownership,” Trudeau said at a news conference. Dozens of gun violence victims’ families and friends attended it.
“What this means is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” he then said. “In other words, we’re capping the market for handguns.”
The Canadian government will outlaw 1500 different types of guns in April 2020. The decision was made in the aftermath of the country’s worst mass shooting. The disaster likewise claimed the lives of twenty-three people.
Last Thursday, the federal statistics office estimated that violent crimes using firearms account for less than 3% of all violent crimes in Canada.
However, since 2009, the per capita rate of weapons pointed at someone has nearly tripled. The rate of guns fired with the intent to kill or wound has increased by fivefold.
Handguns were in use in nearly two-thirds of gun crimes in urban areas.
Fewer the guns, the safer the communities
Gun smuggling from the United States is frequently cited by Canadian police. They claim that this is the main supply of illegal handgun in Canada.
According to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, there are approximately one million pistols in the country. It is a huge increase from a decade earlier.
Trudeau also remarked, “People should be free to go to the supermarket, their school, or their place of worship without fear. People should be free to go to the park or to a birthday party without worrying about what might happen from a stray bullet.
“Gun violence is a complex problem,” he said. “But at the end of the day, the math is really quite simple: the fewer the guns in our communities, the safer everyone will be.”