Number of Prohibited and Restricted Guns Increases in Canada Despite Promises

Before the election in 2015, Justin Trudeau promised to tighten Canada's current gun laws. Two years have passed since he was elected prime minister, but the amount of prohibited and restricted guns has anything but dropped. The amount of restricted firearms rose 5.5% last year to over 800,000, they include semi-automatic weapons such as pistols and semi-automatic rifles. Also the amount of prohibited firearms in Canada has risen by 0.5% last year to almost 200,000, and these include guns which are fully automatic. That adds up to a total of 4.4% increase in restricted and prohibited firearms from last year.

The government not doing anything about restricting fire lead to a steady increase of restricted firearms in the past few years. The amount of restricted firearms had increased by 15.4% since the Liberals formed the government, and rose by 5.5% since last year. The amount of restricted weapons increased almost in every province. The province which has the least increase in the amount of restricted weapons were Manitoba and Ontario which

increased by 1.3% and 1.8%, and the only area which had a decrease in restricted weapons was Nunavut with a 6.3 percent drop from last year. Although this increase is less than when the Conservatives formed the government percentage wise, it's nowhere near what some Canadians had hoped for.

Restricted firearms were not the only ones which are increasing in amount, prohibited firearms were increasing too. While the amount of prohibited firearms increased in Yukon and British Columbia by 6.5% and 4.9%, the only provinces that dropped in amount were Ontario Quebec which are the provinces that had the highest amounts of prohibited firearms. Even then, Ontario and Quebec only dropped 2% and 0.5% respectively. The number of prohibited firearms are meant to drop as time goes on due to the fact that they can only be grandfathered (cannot be bought nor produced). However, that increase in the amount of firearms may be caused by their owners moving or movie companies bringing them into Canada as they can only be brought in by police, military, and movie companies.

Restricted firearms include guns which are semi-automatic, these are very dangerous due to the fact that you don't have to cock the gun every time you shoot. These include pistols and semi-automatic rifles. However, restricted firearms are nothing compared to prohibited firearms. Prohibited firearms include fully automatic weapons which are very dangerous due to their high rate of fire compared to semi-automatic guns. This includes the infamous AK-47 which we see in movies.

These weapons directly affect the safety of Canadian citizens, but nothing is being done about them by the Canadian government. Since Trudeau had been elected, there has been no change in gun laws in Canada. Out of the 8 promised changes to Canada's gun law on the Liberal Party website, only one of the changes have the government taken action to change. That change was to repeal of the changes made by Bill C-42, a bill passed by the conservatives which reduced the required paperwork to transport restricted weapons for lawful purposes. However, that was back in 2015 and it was to no avail. Instead of putting all their effort into other issues, the Canadian government should really focus some attention and put some effort onto this problem that we have in Canada.