The federal government announced new gun control measures Thursday, adding several hundred models and variants to its list of banned weapons.
“These firearms can no longer be legally used, sold or imported in Canada,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters.
The announcement comes one day before the 35th anniversary of the massacre at École Polytechnique de Montréal. Radio-Canada first reported the news earlier Thursday.
The new measures, which are effective immediately, list more than 300 makes and models of assault-style firearms as prohibited weapons.
There will be an amnesty period until Oct. 30 of next year for current owners to comply with the ban. The new models will be part of the government’s planned buy-back program — the program still has not collected a single gun.
Edit: According to Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc, the list of newly banned guns is currently unavailable and its exact date of release is undefined.
The RCMP stated that the list of banned guns would be available “very shortly”. Exactly where the list of banned guns would be available to read was not disclosed.
Edit 2: List of banned guns is at this link
Only the army and special forces should be allowed to have guns.
Outside of a perfect world scenario, on a practical level, there is an argument that the issue of gun violence in Canada is best addressed by tackling illegal firearm smuggling, and making penalties for violent offenders more effective. Any sympathy to that angle?