TheGunBlog.ca — For Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, yesterday’s totalitarian dystopia is today’s campaign promise.
In a 2011 interview with The Hill Times newspaper, the Liberal Party politician dismissed Conservative Party concerns that a future government might use its registry of federally licensed firearm owners to order mass gun confiscations.
Two weeks ago, that’s what Trudeau promised to do if he’s re-elected on Oct. 21.
He is threatening hundreds of thousands of men and women with jail unless they surrender their hunting and sporting guns, including handguns and AR-15 target rifles. The plans aim at the owners of 250,000 mainly “Non-restricted” rifles, and every licensed handgun owner in the country.
Trudeau Promises Mass Gun Bans, Confiscations in Election 2019
Highlights
Trudeau told The Hill Times in the 2011 report by Tim Naumetz:
- He owned guns and was “raised around guns, raised shooting.”
- He had a licence to own handguns, shotguns and rifles including the AR-15.
- He was taught to shoot by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
- He’s “okay with a handgun, quite good with a rifle, but best with a shotgun.”
- His family’s firearms were stolen from their “country place” some years earlier. The article doesn’t say if police charged the victims of theft with illegal gun storage under the Criminal Code, which is common in such cases.
The Liberal Party didn’t respond to a request for comment from TheGunBlog.ca about the interview.
The report requires a subscription to read at The Hill Times, but has been published elsewhere. Try this Google search.
Excerpts
Excerpts from The Hill Times, 01 Nov. 2011:
Mr. Trudeau — who disclosed in an interview he has long been familiar with firearms and has a licence to buy and own both long guns and restricted weapons such as handguns — told The Hill Times that the Conservative gun registry measures promote fears among gun owners that the registry records might some day help a government of another stripe confiscate hunting rifles and shotguns.
“There’s no question that this is a very, very ideological exercise,” Mr. Trudeau said. “Listen, I’m a gun owner and the fact is that the underpinning of the entire message of the Conservatives is ‘Once we know where the guns are, they’re going to come and take your guns away,’ which is not at all part of the Canadian psyche or possibility. It’s just a question of recognizing we’re better off knowing where those guns are.”
…
“I was raised around guns, raised shooting, we have guns up at our country place, they were registered until they were stolen in a break in a few years ago, but it’s something that is part of my life,” Mr. Trudeau said.
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Update at 01:20 on Oct. 03: Edits second paragraph to say “dismissed” instead of “made fun of.”