The Canadian government announced a new gun control bill on February 16 local time, which introduced a gun buyback program to reduce more than 1,500 kinds of blacklisted firearms, and empower local governments to prohibit the use of pistols and increase criminal penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking.
Prime Minister Trudeau announced that the federal government will continue to promote the revision of relevant legislation, including the Criminal Code and the Guns Act.
Under this bill, smuggling, trafficking and possession of loaded restricted firearms or weapons will face 10 to 14 years in prison.
If the bill is passed into law by Parliament, Canada will establish a law called “Red Flag” and “Yellow Flag”, which allows relatives and friends to apply to the court to immediately deprive someone of the gun he holds in case of danger.
Public Security Secretary Bill Blair explained that these laws are mainly used to prevent domestic violence crimes and dangers caused by mental illness patients.
In addition, the bill also establishes the crime of modifying firearms magazines, imposes stricter restrictions on the import of ammunition, and allows local governments to prohibit pistols through rules restricting their possession, storage and transportation.
Controlling guns has always been one of the political ideas of the Liberal Party of Canada. In the 2019 federal election, the Liberal Party proposed a gun buyback plan and was ready to spend 400 million to 600 million Canadian dollars on it.
In April 2020, a serial killing with a gun that killed 22 people occurred in Nova Scotia, Canada. Half a month later, on May 1, the Trudeau government announced an executive order banning more than 1,500 guns.
Now, the Liberal government has pushed for the bill to be upgraded into law and made it part of the Criminal Code.
