An open letter to South Surrey-White Rock MP Gordie Hogg.
I see the Liberal government planned this week to announce new firearms laws.
Historically, Liberals have opposed private ownership of firearms, and every measure your party has supported has had some combination of these elements: expensive, no effect on criminal misuse and affecting only legal owners.
Your party’s laughably useless and – at more than $2 billion – laughably expensive effort to register duck hunters is still well-remembered, both by the lawful hobbyists who were criminalized by it, and by the non-shooting public who had to pay for it.
Your recent “gun control” parliamentary advisory council deliberately recruited organizations with: 1) no knowledge of firearms history, technology, or use, and 2) no firearms licences; and deliberately excluded organizations who were actually informed on the issues.
If this week’s announcements in fact only propose reliable and strong penalties against those who use firearms to harm others, I will publicly retract my concerns and support it. If your proposals are consistent with your history – inconvenient to shooters, costly to the public and ineffective against criminal use, I will donate $200 to the opposition candidate.
David Danylyshyn, Surrey