>>615655
Fortunately, all but one response I wrote in a different program and was able to just paste back in.
R8. This isn't everything I submitted even though I know it's a waste of time and nobody is going to read it.
>"Assault weapon" is a meaningless term designed to take advantage of the ignorant by provoking fear, as a political tool to pass restrictive gun laws. Such weapons have no substantial differences in function to non-"assault weapon" semiautomatics. If they did, then there would have been no need for the myriad individual by-name prohibitions; such bans are already a de facto attempt to prohibit most "assault weapons", and if there really were any defining physical traits to the classification, then they would have been used in the first place. Introducing the term to legislation will do nothing but create further opportunities for the unelected RCMP to reclassify weapons at will. Already, Canadians who purchased guns or accessories legally may find themselves declared criminals overnight ex post facto through the RCMP's arbitrary decisions. Already, the RCMP makes petty abuses, such as prohibiting the CZ-858 Spartan, which differs from its unrestricted variant only in a decorative engraving. Bringing the impossibly nebulous "assault weapon" concept into law will only serve to worsen this situation.
>Legalize concealed carry, so that Canadians confronted with violent criminals have the means to defend themselves. In the United States, defensive gun uses outnumber gun deaths by well over an order of magnitude, even before subtracting things like suicides (which cannot be used to justify gun control, given the Supreme Court's ruling that Canadians have the right to die if they so choose). In the UK, within ten years of handguns being banned, the number of violent crimes using guns doubled. In the same period, the total rate of violent crime quadrupled. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, the most common form of gun license in the Czech Republic permits concealed carry of handguns; Prague is one of the safest capitals in Europe. Which American cities are the most notorious for crime: Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit? All have a long history of strict gun control, including handguns. It does not work. Other governments have already made the same mistake ours is now trying to make. We do not need to make them again.
>The paragraph at the top of this survey states that it concerns "an examination of a ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada, while not impeding the lawful use of firearms by Canadians". This can be interpreted in two equally useless ways. Strictly speaking, legislation cannot impede the lawful use of firearms since it defines their lawful use. Such an interpretation renders it a meaningless tautology, and if this is the intended reading, then it makes it quite clear that I am wasting my time, and the government has no interest in any response but those they want to hear. Interpreting "lawful" as "legitimate and rightful", any ban on handguns and so-called assault weapons would, in and of itself, impede the lawful use of firearms by Canadians. The lawful use of firearms by Canadians is ALREADY being grossly impeded by current laws, such as the ridiculous ban on .32 and .25 caliber handguns, and the endless list of by-name prohibitions. The right to bear arms, while not explicitly listed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is nonetheless inherent in its provisions, such as Section 7, and even if the very Charter itself should be revoked, the right to bear arms is and always shall remain a fundamental principle of liberty, without which a nation or society cannot be called free.