Gun control angle in the La Roche shooting

I have been trying to discover what type of firearm the killer used in the horrible shooting at the La Roche Community School in northern Saskatchewan. I assume that the gun was non-restricted, partly because news items have been silent on this matter. (If it has been a handgun or an AR-15-type rifle, they would have touted it in their headlines.) The only reference I could find was in this National Post article where an eyewitness student said he heard a yell, “There’s a shotgun! There’s a shotgun!” So it appears I am right in my assumption that the murder weapon was non-restricted.

If this is the case, it is important to remember that when then-Justice Minister Allan Rock introduced Bill C-68 into Parliament in the mid-nineties, he touted one of its features - the long-gun registry - as an indispensable crime-fighting tool. Though the long-gun registry is long gone, a shotgun is just the type of firearm that would have been required to be registered under C-68.

Or maybe not. If you are engaged in ‘subsistence hunting’, the registration requirement for long guns was waived. Because the only people who could legitimately claim to be subsistence hunters are natives, this loophole was clearly inserted for their benefit. But if the gun registry was as important a crime-control measure as Allan Rock claimed it to be, why would Rock deny the protective umbrella of the long-gun registry to Canada’s Indian communities?

The real answer is of course fear. After the Oka crisis, Canadian politicians were well aware of how well-armed Canadian aboriginals are. Because of the resistance they showed themselves to be capable of, these same gun-grabbing politicians knew well enough to give Canada’s Indian reserves a wide berth. Once bitten, twice shy. Therefore, because they knew the Indians wouldn’t comply with any gun registry, they gave them - and themselves – a face-saving out. In other words, Rock likely added the ‘subsistence hunting’ clause into Bill C-68 out of cowardice.

Just an unflattering little fact to keep in mind in case the hoplophobes try to use the La Roche atrocity as a pretext to resurrect the long-gun registry.

Comments

[Billythreefeathers]

from a reliable source - shotgun, double barrel

[Don Morris]

Yes,as a hunter,I've been waiting for the calls for gun control,the speechifying by Wendy Cukier and Heidi Rathjen, but so far, not a word.

I guess being Indian over trumps gun control.
Rock caved for many reasons,one being the Indian vote almost always goes Liberal, another being resistance by Indian politicians who in many cases feared being assassinated by their own Band members, and undoubtedly because,as you say,the politicians of this Country are scared shitless of armed resistance, especially from a designated victim group.

Now there's been a middle-aged white guy in Calgary armed with a shotgun,shot to death by cops before he could do any harm, so maybe, just maybe we'll hear something from the usual suspects.

I figure my days as a hunter are numbered, expect some form of confiscation as soon as there's an incident that doesn't involve a victim group.

[Peter Abbruzzese]

The assumption here seems to be that if the gun was registered the shooting would never have taken place. The long gun registry would have had ZERO impact on this crime or any mass shootings.
Do you really think the shooter would have thought " Oh my, this shotgun is registered, I can't use this....." Seriously ?? When a bad person wants to do bad things a registry won't stop them AT ALL !!
Mental health and societal decay are the real issues here.

[Cincinnatus]

Hi Peter:

I'm in 100% agreement with you.

My point is not that the long-gun registry is good for anything, but that the Libs might try to use it to score points. So far it hasn't happened, but I wanted to be ahead of the curve.