Canadian woman’s fiancé killed in random attack while working in New Zealand 

The Liberal government continues its push for a ban on handguns⁠—but they aren’t very clear on what that is.  

Many are perplexed by the proposed ban, including police departments across the country, despite Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair’s claiming they support the ban on Tuesday in the House of Commons, saying, “For more than four decades police chiefs have been calling for the banning of those weapons”.

This claim is put into question by the an annual meeting of Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, reported by CBC back in August. The consensus was given in an interview with the CBC by Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer, who stated that in the majority of cases involving gun violence, the handgun in question was already illegal in the first place.

“In every single case there are already offences for that,” Palmer said in Calgary, following the meeting. Palmer is the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

“They’re already breaking the law and the criminal law in Canada addresses all those circumstances,” said Palmer. “The firearms laws in Canada are actually very good right now. They’re very strict.”

The ban the Liberals are proposing wouldn’t be at the federal level due to the high expense of a buyback program as there are already 900,000 guns legally owned in Canada. This strategy would also only target law-abiding handgun owners. Instead, the Liberal plan would leave it to the individual municipalities to regulate the parameters that best work for them.

This poses a number of questions around how such laws would be implemented, according to professor and constitutional scholar at the University of Ottawa Carissima Mathen when speaking to the CBC earlier this year. The ban would come with the risk of punishment, which would fall under criminal law, and that is federal jurisdiction, whereas municipalities look to provincial law for guidance. The ban would therefore require all three levels of government to cooperate, according to Mathen. 

Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford said that his party rejects the idea of a handgun ban in Toronto, saying it would unfairly punish legal firearms owners, when the majority of gun crimes are committed with illegal firearms, many smuggled in from the US. 

Chief of Police for Toronto Mark Saunders seemed to support Ford as well in a recent interview with CBC Radio estimating that 80 percent of illegal guns seized on the city’s streets can be traced to sources in the US.

The Post Millennial reached out to Blair, the minister in charge of the proposed ban, for an explanation of how this ban would work and which police chiefs have been calling for the ban for decades. His office has yet to respond to request for comment.

“Bill Blair once again shows Canadians he has trouble being honest with them. The Canadian Chiefs of Police Association President Adam Palmer stated clearly that there are already offences for illegal use of firearms and that criminals are already breaking the law. Minister Blair would do well to listen to the experts on this and refocus on combating crime.” said Tracey Wilson, VP of Public Relations for the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, a registered federal lobbyist group.

“People can’t be naive to the realities of how it works with organized crime and smuggling,” said Police Chief Palmer. “There will always be an influx of guns from the United States to Canada. Heroin is illegal in Canada too, but we have heroin in Canada.”

In a previous interviews, Blair told the host that gun bans do not work, citing his experience as the former Toronto Police chief. Since becoming the minister of public safety he reversed his position.

At least five people are dead and at least 12 injured, following the eruption of a volcano on New Zealand’s White Island. The eruption occurred on Monday afternoon (local time). 

A cruise ship carrying tourists was close by at the time of the eruption. Footage of the incident was captured by many of them and posted to social media. The footage shows giant clouds of black smoke and people panicking to leave the island. There were a mixture of tourists and New Zealanders at the scene of the natural disaster. Among the tourists was Micheal Schade, who tweeted footage of the volcano and was lucky enough to be on a boat that had just departed the island mere minutes prior to the eruption. 

In another post, Schade added, “This is so hard to believe. Our whole tour group were literally standing at the edge of the main crater not 30 minutes before. My thoughts with the families of those currently unaccounted for, the people recovering now, and especially the rescue workers…”

Many flights, combing over the island were unsuccessful in finding survivors according to New Zealand Police who said there were “no signs of life.”

23 people were evacuated from the island soon after the eruption took place. Everyone in the group was injured in some sort of way according to New Zealand National Operation Commander Deputy Commissioner John Tims. According to police, at least 10 people are still thought to be on the island. 

When addressing reporters Tims noted, “The island is unstable … the physical environment is unsafe for us to return.”

In their statement, the police said, “Based on the information we have, we do not believe there are any survivors on the island.” They went on to say, “Police is working urgently to confirm the exact number of those who have died, further to the five confirmed deceased already.” 

Police also mentioned that they would return to the island on Tuesday morning using a New Zealand Defence Force Ship. 

According to the Austrailian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Austrailians were also involved in the eruption. On Twitter, Morrison said, “Australians have been caught up in this terrible event and we are working to determine their well-being.”

GNS expert, Ken Gledhill, said that the eruption hadn’t been a very big one and said in a press conference, “(The plume) went up 12,000 (feet) into the sky, and so on the scheme of things for volcanic eruptions, it’s not large, but if you were close to that, it’s not good.” MetService announced a volcanic ash advisory at 8:30 p.m. ET (local time) on Sunday. They asked people close to the area affected by the eruption to stay indoors and listen to the radio/TV for further updates.

Tracey Wilson is the VP of Public Relations for the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, a registered lobbyist. She’s an avid hunter and sport shooter. She resides in Ottawa and enjoys spending time with her children and grandson at the range and hunting camp.

Canadian gun owners find themselves in turmoil, once again being threatened with forced confiscation of their legally acquired property. Why? Because we have a Liberal government, again, who will do anything they think pleases their voters and possibly gains them a wedge issue to add more voters onto their team, by any means necessary.

The 30th anniversary of Canada’s worst multiple victim mass shooting has come and gone. The memorials to the 14 women who lost their lives on December 6, 1989 were packed with people, standing in solidarity, honouring these victims. This is as it should be. 

So why bans now? One answer–the outrage mob, and the Liberals are happy to bend a knee to it. Anti-gun lobby groups have been applying tremendous pressure on the government to ban semi-auto firearms for months leading up to the anniversary; it’s paid off. They have a promise from the Liberal elite that they will finally punish gun owners for that decades-old-crime by banning the type of gun used in the shooting, and others like it. The “list” of guns on the government’s radar has not been published as of yet, but gun owners wait with bated breath to see if theirs are on the list. 

The idea of picking and choosing guns from a list due to their notoriety shows Canadians this isn’t about public safety; it’s about pacifying the rage mob. The infamous Ruger Mini 14 that was used that fateful day was never again used in a mass shooting, in fact mass shootings are rare in Canada and hunters and ranchers have used the Mini 14 for decades since then without issue. It’s a semi auto, magazine-fed hunting style rifle that is affordable, easy to clean and reliable. It functions the same as any other semi auto rifle, and in Canada they are all pinned to a maximum of five rounds of ammunition. 

So, the Liberal plan is to skim through the FRT (Firearms Reference Table), a list of guns in Canada, consult with the outrage mob, and pluck this gun or that one and put them on “the list” according to their notoriety alone. Imagine crafting policy about anything else in this manner.

What of drunk driving? Ban the Toyota Corolla or the Honda Civic because they are involved in the most fatal accidents? Or maybe ban Vodka and Whiskey because they are the vector most often used? This kind of policy development almost seems infantile to those who understand what they are actually doing. 

The outlier here is the AR-15, likely the most misunderstood rifle of all time, a gun that has never been used for a mass shooting in this country.  We found one case of it being used in a crime. Louise Russo was shot during a botched mob hit at a North York sandwich shop in 2004. The mob hitman used a stolen AR-15. No licensed gun owner has ever committed a crime with one, ever, and no mass shootings were ever committed with one in Canada. But rest assured it’s on “the list”. 80,000 AR-15’s are owned across Canada by licensed, RCMP-vetted gun owners, every one of them registered, pinned to a maximum of five rounds and are confined to be used solely at RCMP approved ranges. Their downfall is their notoriety, nothing more. 

The biggest tragedy of this entire mess is the resources and focus wasted on buying legal guns out of the safes of gun owners rather than investing that $600 million-plus in a credible way to combat crime. 

None of that matters to a government who is content to trade it’s integrity, and your safety, for political cheap points. We are witnessing political theatre replacing evidence-based policy decisions. 

The outrage mob celebrates, and Trudeau’s administration panders to them despite knowing better. 

At least 11 people were shot in New Orleans French Quarter Sunday morning, with two victims taken to hospital in critical condition.

The suspect, who has been detained by police, opened fire in an area known for its nightlife early on Sunday morning.

New Orleans Police were already on scene, as security was already heightened for a college football game between Southern University and Grambling State University.

According to local media, New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said the shooting occurred on the 700 block of Canal Street.

Officers say they were only feet away from the shooting.

This is a breaking news article and will be updated.