Trudeau Bans Assault-Style Weapons After Canada’s Deadliest Mass Shooting

TOPLINE

Nearly two weeks after the country’s deadliest mass shooting, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a ban Friday not only on assault-style weapons sales but possession, with owners needing to relinquish their assault weapons within two years.

KEY FACTS

Crucial quote

“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada,” Trudeau said in a briefing where he announced the decision.

CHIEF CRITIC

Canada’s Conservative opposition party leader Andrew Scheer denounced the ban, pointing out the Nova Scotia gunman used illegally obtained firearms, which the ban doesn’t address. “Trudeau is using the current pandemic and the horrific attack in Nova Scotia to push his ideological agenda and make major firearms policy changes,” he said in a statement.

Key background

Canada’s gun laws have been tightened following mass shootings before. In 1989, a student killed 14 people during a rampage at an engineering school in Montreal, which led to the country implementing twenty-eight-day waiting periods, mandatory safety training courses, increased background checks and bans on large-capacity magazines.

Big Number

5. That’s how Canada ranks in world gun ownership, only behind the U.S, Yemen, Montenegro and Serbia, according to the 2018 Small Arms Survey.

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