Canadian competitive sports shooters caught in the crosshairs of sweeping federal gun control reforms
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/canadian-competitive-sports-shooters-caught-in-the-crosshairs-of-sweeping-federal-gun-control-reforms/article_6d7148f5-9804-4c8c-be99-5f2aa67cbeb2.html?utm_medium=SocialMedia&utm_source=Twitter
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Of course they are. It was abundantly clear from all the SECU debates that deleting sport shooting was a deliberate part of the OiCs and C21. Gutting competitive shooting is an intended outcome as part of the known game to ban all civilian firearm ownership in the country. And before the slippery slope accusations start rolling, the government had several opportunities to simply integrate athletes across disciplines into the ATC system, but repeatedly said no. If your intention isn’t to harm shooting sports, then the behaviour plainly indicates the opposite.
With the end of shooting sports, the next domino to fall will be hunting, and so on. The government gets disarmed Indigenous Peoples, no fears of another Oka, and infinite ability to do whatever it wants with majorities. It’s a long colonialist and classist game that’s been played since slowly but surely since confederation.
>The new regulations have not only impacted access to the guns used for IPSC competition, and is threatening the viability of facilities used for training and equipment maintenance for elite sports shooters in general, but experts say the regulations have also had unintended implications for Olympic pistol sports athletes.
They’re in the crosshairs because that’s the point. PolySeSouvient have themselves stated they even want to eliminate olympic level shooting sports:
>close potential loopholes if the Olympic handgun exemption is being abused with respect to the freeze on new handgun purchases;
https://polysesouvient.ca/Documents_2025/PRSS_25_04_30_Statement_2025Election_Results.pdf
This will not stop until the prohibitionists have their way. PolySeSouvient has already advocated for removal of “high powered sniper rifles” (hunting rifles), and you can be sure they will take this as far as they’re able to go.
This article is refreshing to read, but also a bit frustrating, as its about 6 years late to the story.
This isnt a “whoopsie unintended consequence that only shows up with time” type of result. The LPC and PolyS wrote it this way, heatedly defended it with fingers stuck in ears, or limited discussion when stakeholders brought up concerns with legislation. Most media neglected to cover the SECU hearings, despite what should have been dozens of easily exposed, deeply embarassing admissions that the people who wrote the laws had no idea what was in it.
Similarly, it took 4 years to see a CBC article saying “airsoft guns could be banned under Canada’s proposed regulations”, when it was noted that was written in plain english in there from day one.
The impact on shooting sports isn’t an accidental effect.
It’s the point. The goal is to eliminate shooting sports in Canada, which is why this ban targets firearms used in shooting sports but which are rarely (or never) used in homicides in Canada.
There’s also no indication that they’re going to stop there. There will be more bans in future, and the trial balloons are already being floated on terms like “sniper rifle” and so forth that will dig deeper into the range of hunting firearms.