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“We sold almost every gun we have in two days.”
James Bachinski, owner of the Calgary Shooting Center, is shown behind empty boxes that usually display pistols on Friday, June 3, 2022. Photo by Gavin Young / Postmedia
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The proposed federal gun law unleashed a pile of guns, say firearms store operators in Calgary.
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The Liberal government’s announcement this week of an indefinite freeze on arms sales, imports and transfers has led to a rapid depletion of arms stockpiles.
“We sold almost every gun we have in two days – we had three revolvers left over from yesterday,” said Cindy Lidal, a ProLine Shooters employee at 9th Avenue SE
Employees had to search the store’s warehouse area to find stocks to offer to impatient shoppers.
Many of these customers had planned to buy a gun at some point, but were urged to make the purchase now because of proposed legislation limiting the number of legally owned guns in Canada, Lidal said.
“They feel deprived of their rights; there are a lot of angry people. “
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Although heightened sales are a boon for now, they may be the last guns the store sells, she said.
“Most of the distributors are exhausted (exhausted),” she said, adding that if passed, the legislation would put a permanent dent in the business.
“It accomplishes absolutely nothing but makes people out of business; it will actually leave a bunch of people out of work. “
Last month, the owner of another gun shop in Calgary said legislation was aimed at increasing past checks and banning what Ottawa believes a wide range of attack-style firearms has led to a sudden increase in sales.
Firearms dealers in other provinces report quick gun sales ahead of expected legislation, which was debated in the House of Commons on Friday.
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James Bachinski said none of this was surprising and had been observed before during previous tightened arms control measures, especially in the 1990s.
“(Customers) react as quickly as possible. It’s certainly a panic, “said Bachinski, president of the Calgary Shooting Center.
“It’s a race against time to bring in these shipments and take them out the door.”
The period before legislation became law, he said, “gives us the opportunity to sell off inventory and it sells out.”
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These sales are growing despite continuing fears that the new legislation is simply a precursor to the confiscation of a gun from Ottawa, he said.
Bill C-21 also promises to force attack-style gun owners to sell them back to the government through a mandatory buy-back program by the end of the year.
“People take risks, they are not happy and they say, ‘I have to get a gun, what do you have?'” Bachinski said.
He agreed with Leedahl that the immediate jump in sales would be a cold comfort for business that would eventually be stopped.
“It’s all a short-term gain for long-term pain,” he said, adding that the shooting range of their business would also gradually shrink.
The federal government could have taken a different approach to freezing the gun by first banning the import of weapons, Bachinski said.
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And he said a ban on gun transfer legislation would eventually make them useless, causing owners to neglect securing them, making them more vulnerable to theft.
“People will be careless, they will not care to protect them,” Bachinski said.
The federal government and proponents of gun control say the measures will ultimately reduce the number of firearms in circulation and reduce accidents and their use in domestic violence.
But critics, including Bachinski and Lidal, say the laws will not affect the main misuse of guns – their use by criminals who smuggle them with many of these weapons smuggled in from the United States.
“This will make the black market more attractive and (weapons) more valuable,” Lidal said.
The government also wants to increase the maximum sentences of imprisonment for arms smuggling or trafficking to 14 years out of 10.
Pistol owners and those who sell them say legal requirements for the possession and use of weapons are already extremely stringent, with mandatory training, strict laws on storage and transportation limited between home and shelling.
“You need a temporary permit to transport them elsewhere, like a police station,” Lidal said.
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn
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