Trudeau the Tyrant Cracks Down on Guns

Justin Trudeau continued his tyrannical streak on December 5, 2024, when he outlawed 324 different types of firearms the Canadian government decided fit under its own definition of “assault-style weapons.” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc declared “These firearms can no longer be legally used, sold, or imported in Canada.” The federal government has given people until October of next year to comply with the ban and, in turn, participate in another one of Trudeau’s buy-back programs.

In an absurd twist, the Liberals have announced plans to send these newly prohibited firearms to Ukraine. The Canadian government is thus essentially taking away rightfully owned guns from Canadians and giving them to conscripted Ukrainian soldiers. Such a maneuver would be comedic if it were not so speechlessly Orwellian.

The recent gun ban was unsurprisingly announced on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the “Montreal Massacre.” The 1989 school shooting, while tragic, has been used as a political weapon every year by governments motivated to advance gun control legislation. The most ardent political supporter of gun control is none other than Justin Trudeau who has, since taking office in 2015, banned over 1,5000 “assault-style” firearms, froze the sale, purchase, and transfer of handguns, and introduced Bill C-21 which has been dubbed as the strongest piece of gun control legislation in the last half-century.

In announcing the newly enforced gun prohibition measure, Dominic LeBlanc stated the banned weapons “belong on the battlefield, not in the hands of hunters or sports shooters.” This rhetoric exemplifies the problem with Canadian gun culture, and the likes of Trudeau aren’t the cause but rather a symptom of it. In Canada, most people including conservatives and liberals are aligned in their views that guns are solely for hunting and sports. Nearly everyone also unilaterally agrees that no one should own such “weapons of war” or be permitted to carry firearms in public.

Americans are more outraged by Trudeau’s firearm prohibition crusade than many Canadians, for only the former believe that guns should be a natural right, to defend oneself from not only others but from governmental tyranny. This belief is either absent or rejected among the average Canadian, liberal and conservative alike. Carrying a firearm for the purpose of self-defense is illegal in Canada and using a gun to defend yourself, however justified, is likely to land you with manslaughter charges. Unsurprisingly, self-defense is not even a permissible reason to attain a firearm license and stating it as a reason could lead your request to be denied.

Given that the recent push for gun prohibition in Canada is a symptom of the culture, the erosion of gun rights is expected to continue regardless of which major political party takes the reigns. Anyone who thinks Pierre Poilievre, who is projected to be the next prime minister, will change course in any meaningful way has not been paying attention. For a cultural shift to take place, and to reverse half a century of gun control, the rhetoric needs to first change and that includes moving away from a fixation on hunting and sport shooting which is the messaging regurgitated by the media, the politicians, the school system, and even the useless “gun rights” lobbies. Instead, firearms ought to be treated as mere tools for self-defense and, ultimately, survival.

The right to firearms should also be woven into an identity that emphasizes freedom, permitting individuals a naturally derived or God-given sovereignty that is suppressed in nearly every part of the world, including Canada. The prospect of change in the foreseeable future is unfortunately grim, especially while something as mundane as pepper spray continues to be criminalized.

But even more troubling is the apathy that has become normalized among Canadians. The masses have for decades passively nodded and tolerated every erosion to their liberty, including the more recent handgun ban that many have already forgotten, and which angered more Americans than it did Canadians.