TheGunBlog.ca — The Liberal Party of Canada will fail to stop criminal gangs with its plans for mass gun confiscation targeting federally licensed firearm owners, Garry Clement, a former RCMP official, told Power and Politics on CBC News.
Clement, a former national director of the Proceeds of Crime Program at the Ottawa-based Royal Canadian Mounted Police, spoke with TV host Vassy Kapelos in a 10.5-minute video published today on YouTube.
He’s the latest in a growing movement of active and retired police who don’t support criminalizing legitimate firearm users.
Background: Trudeau Promises Mass Gun Bans, Confiscations in Election 2019
The following excerpts were transcribed by TheGunBlog.ca.
On police statistics:
Clement: Police statistics I think are wrong, and the way they collect the stats, they talk about “crime guns” rather than guns used in crime.
…
A “crime gun” is one that … they picked up, but it doesn’t put it to a particular crime necessarily. It might have the serial number erased off it or something like that. So they call it a “crime gun.”
On government policy:
Clement: If the government wanted to really be effective in this, they would treat it very similar to what we have with the human trafficking that’s been done.
…
We would take down the gangs that are trafficking massive amounts of weapons, and they exist in this country, but nobody seems to be focused on them.
On gun bans:
Clement: What we’re getting is what I would consider very knee-jerk reactions, municipalities saying, “Well, we’re going to ban guns in the municipality.”
It’s not legal guns that’s the issue, it’s the illicit guns.
On rising gang and mafia crime:
Clement: … Organized crime has continued to escalate in their capability, their skill set. So weapons just happens to fall in one of those commodities that they’re happy to deal in. When you’ve got no enforcement, it’s pretty easy to continue working in it.
On Liberal confiscation plans:
Clement: You’re saying to people that are being responsible that, “We’re going to take your guns away.” … So we’re going to take legitimate guns from legitimate people away from them. … We still haven’t dealt with the underlying problem, and that’s criminal guns.
On Clement’s proposal:
Clement: I believe in taking a strong stand, but let’s do it the right way. I mean, let’s go after those that actually are causing all these problems. I don’t think we do enough of that. I think organized crime has had a free ride far too long. We really need to be far more effective and go after them.
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