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The Canadian government announced a ban\/buyback on over 1,500 “assault-type weapons”.\u00a0 This is modeled on New Zealand’s ban\/buyback (okay, “confiscation” to be accurate.) Here’s a viewpoint from a Canadian writer of what’s up:<\/p>\n
Like Canada, New Zealand has a substantial number of firearms and firearms owners: 26.3 firearms per 100 persons, compared to Canada\u2019s 34.7. In 2019, in response to a tragic mass shooting in Christchurch, the government banned certain guns and implemented a buyback. Unlike Ottawa, however, which has focused its ban on specific \u201cassault-style\u201d firearms, New Zealand banned almost all semi-automatic firearms.<\/p>\n
The buyback ran from June to December 2019 and involved confiscation of over 60,000 firearms, though New Zealand police have estimated the total number of prohibited firearms in the country might be as many as 240,000. The buyback wasn\u2019t cheap. The government initially budgeted $16 million (in C$) for the administrative costs of the program. In the end, the country\u2019s auditor general found, costs had almost doubled, to about $31 million. But that was just for administration. The cost of compensating gun owners was about $106 million, which works out to a per firearm price of about $1,800. Those numbers are for a country with a population of just over five million.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Note there are an estimated 300-400 million guns for our population of 330,000,000.<\/p>\n
After the guns were bought and removed from the hands of New Zealanders, what happened to gun crime? Violent gun crime actually went up. During the decade before the buyback violent firearm offences averaged 932 a year. In 2019, the year of the buyback, there were 1,142 offences; in 2020, 1,156; in 2021, 1,338; and last year, 1,444. That\u2019s up almost 55 per cent over the pre-ban decade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thought this was supposed to reduce gun crime, what? Still, Canada jumped in with both feet despite history:<\/p>\n
\nThe National Police Federation, the union that represents the RCMP, says Ottawa\u2019s buyback is costly legislation that does not address current or urgent threats to public safety. \u201cIn fact,\u201d the union says, \u201cit diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the likely cost of Ottawa\u2019s buyback? In 2019, the government said it would be $200 million. But history and independent estimates suggest a much higher bill than that. The last major gun control program in Canada was the long-gun registry. The government initially promised it would only cost $2 million. The final tab was over $2 billion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n