LILLEY: Trudeau goes for fear over facts once again on gun violence

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau boards his campaign plane in Ottawa on Sept. 29, 2019.The Canadian Press

Justin Trudeau held a different kind of town hall on Monday, one designed to try and give a professional stamp of approval on his political policies.

Trudeau gathered in a downtown Toronto hotel with doctors and other health professionals who back his call for banning certain types of guns.

“These are the things that people are calling for,” Trudeau said. “They are concrete actions, not just statements of urgency, because we recognize the public-health emergency that gun violence is becoming, as highlighted by these professionals.”

Trudeau asked each of the guests to tell their own personal stories and experiences and then tried to relate them back to his call for a so-called “assault weapons” ban.

One doctor spoke of the amount of blood each patient needs when they are brought in for treatment for gunshot wounds. Another described being called back to the hospital several times over a single weekend to operate on people who had been shot.

Against that backdrop, Trudeau pushed his message of allowing municipalities to ban handguns and rifles like the popular AR-15.

The main problem with linking these two ideas is that the doctors were talking about dealing with the violence, the pain and the carnage caused illegal guns wielded by gang members shooting up city streets across the country. Trudeau’s proposals, meanwhile, only targets law-abiding and licensed gun owners.

Have you ever heard of a gang member, Mafia boss or biker buying the guns they use in criminal activity at the local gun store after applying to the RCMP for a licence?

The answer is an obvious no.

Yet, Trudeau is hoping that most people don’t make the connection, don’t ask the obvious questions. The AR-15 rifle that he continues to reference has no history as a crime gun in Canada. I’ve found one instance of this gun being used in a crime in the more than 50 years that the gun has been legal in Canada.

As for the handgun ban, will anyone already in violation of more than half a dozen laws for using their illegal handgun suddenly stop wielding their weapon because of a municipal ban?

Again, the answer is no.

Not that this will stop Trudeau. He is pushing the idea that the only way to stop an all out gun fight on every street in the country is to make sure he is re-elected.

“The Conservative politicians want to weaken gun control where we want to strengthen gun control,” Trudeau said.

He even made the claim that the AR-15 and rifles like it are increasingly being used in mass shootings in Canada. No one wants mass shootings in Canada, or anywhere else, but isn’t it sad that our prime minister is seeking re-election by scaring people that events in other countries could come here? We are not dealing with the rash of mass shootings that they are in the United States.

Canada already has strong gun control, getting a firearms licence is extremely time consuming and difficult — more difficult than buying the kinds of illegal guns like the ones used in crime.

If Trudeau wanted to deal with the concerns raised by the doctors he was sitting with, he would be focussed on solutions that deal with crime guns and not the people shooting lawfully at the range on the weekend.

By making the choices that he has, Trudeau shows he wants easy votes rather than real solutions.

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