Alright, *cracks knuckles*, let's do the promised Twitter thread about the big shiny nothingburger the Liberals announced re: gun control yesterday.

The important thing to understand is that this is yet another example of many where their rhetoric vastly exceeds their action. +

This isn't knew for them. Examples abound. This is a government that prefers the big, splashy announcement to the actual, you know, work of delivering. I giggle every time — every single time — I think about the hoopla they made about deliverology. I'm giggling now! ±

Oops, forgot to link to the actual column. Here it is. Thread will resume after this. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matt-gurney-only-one-reason-for-the-liberals-toothless-gun-law-they-know-lawful-firearm-owners-are-not-a-threat

Anyway, what the Liberals actually announced we can break down into two broad categories: the benign, even good, stuff that they are making a big deal about, but that is actually just a repackaging and re-announcement of stuff that already exists.

And the bullshit category.

So in the first category, we have good stuff, or benign stuff, that isn't going to accomplish anything because it's all been done already.

The Liberals are going to up the penalties for gun smuggling. Sure, just jack up the penalties.

Harper-style dumb-on-crime from PMJT. +

Ditto their efforts on tampering with ammo magazines to increase capacity beyond what's lawful — five rounds for rifle magazines and 10 for handguns.* Just making it MORE illegal is, yet again, just more dumb-on-crime that won't help and looks weird on the LPC, but hey.

* There are some magazines that are used in both rifles and handguns interchangeably, but otherwise it's five for rifles and 10 for handguns.

The Liberals are also making a big deal about the so-called "red flag" provisions they're going to establish. This is a good idea! Truly!

In fact, it's SUCH a good idea that it's already part of the law and has been since the 1990s.

So, I mean, thanks, I guess?

There's also stuff about more community funding to keep young men — that's where the problem is — out of gangs and crime, and more money for policing the border. This is all fine, but it's not new, so don't expect miracles.

This concludes the first category. Onto the bullshit.

The first bullshit is the Liberals deciding to just weirdly let municipalities usurp something that is clearly in the federal jurisdiction — if they want! — by outsourcing a handgun ban to municipal governments, even though guns are federally regulated. I am sorta at a loss here.

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about the reasons why even the concept of a municipal-level ban was a really stupid idea. Find that column here. My objections were basically pragmatic — it won't work because it's dumb.

It's still dumb. But .... https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/matt-gurney-the-liberal-handgun-proposal-is-breathtakingly-stupid

... it's WORSE than dumb. I'm not even sure this is constitutional. I'm decidedly not the expert, but I asked experts, and while they're waiting to see more details, they found the concept pretty bizarre, too. Can the LPC find a way to make this work, legally? Maybe. Maybe not.

And they can only even clear the "Maybe, maybe not" bar if the provinces decide to allow them to. Saskatchewan has said it won't. Alberta doesn't seem inclined. I doubt Ontario will. Quebec will be an interesting one.

So let's review here.

The BEST-CASE scenario for the Liberal handgun proposal is this:

- The provinces have to let us, and some won't.
- If they do, it still might not be constitutional.
- Even if it is, it's still a stupid idea.

So, OK, good job, Mr. Prime Minister.

Let's move onto the "assault-rifle" ban or whatever they're calling it.

Even the title is bullshit. The rifles impacted aren't assault rifles (those are banned already). And the rifles aren't actually being banned.

This is key. The government isn't taking the guns. +

There was a cute little moment where the PM, clearly reading closely from notes, laid out a bunch of things that they weren't going to let Canadians do with these guns. They can't BUY, they can't SELL, they can't USE, they can't TRANSPORT.

But they can KEEP them.

These guns are, as the prime minister has previously said, killing machines. His words! He hasn't beaten around the bush. These rifles are designed to kill, and that's why, in the interests of public safety, Canada is, um, letting people keep them.

Any danger posed by these rifles is inherently posed by their POSSESSION by members of the public. That's the danger. New regulations about when and where and why they can be transported are just window dressing. The presumed danger is in the ownership.

And that's not changing!

There's an estimated 80,000 or so AR-15 rifles in this country. I suspect it's quite a bit higher, so let's use 100,000 as a round number. And for fun, let's say it's not AR-15s, but rabid zombie tigers.

100,000 rabid zombie tigers are owned by Canadians.

Some Canadians are understandably worried about this. They don't think people need to own rabid zombie tigers. They're worried a rabid zombie tiger might kill them or a loved one. They've seen too many news stories from the U.S. about rabid zombie tigers getting into schools.

So the Liberals say, OK, OK, OK. We hear you. Rabid zombie tigers are a problem. So we're saying you can't sell your rabid zombie tiger, so take it to the park, or take it for a walk, and you can't take it to get groomed.

Problem SOLVED, the Liberals declare.

There's still 100,000 rabid zombie tigers out there. But the Liberals have changed the rabid zombie tiger rules, and then go on a tweet binge of self-congratulations, lauding their efforts to make the country safe from rabid zombie tigers.

This is what they're doing with AR-15s.

Let's review some of that self congratulations, and I'll annotate a bit.

Here is a comment by the prime minister, who is letting Canadians keep 100,000 AR-15s. https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1361840085755387904

Here is a tweet by the deputy prime minister of a government that is letting Canadians keep 100,000 AR-15s. https://twitter.com/cafreeland/status/1361810679875973120

Here is the public safety minister of the government that is letting Canadians keep 100,000 AR-15s. https://twitter.com/BillBlair/status/1361713480559116297

You see what I mean? The rhetoric doesn't match the action here.

Further, given the probability of an election in the near future, it's very likely that this legislation dies without going anywhere.

So ... what can possibly explain this?

Let's see. Hmmm. We have a government making a big splashy announcement about something that won't work, or has already been done, and they don't really have the time left, in all likelihood, to actually pass this into law.

Could ... could this perhaps be ... gasp ... politics?!

Here's the thing, folks. The LPC could ban the handguns and the "assault rifles." They could do it with an Order in Council, with near immediate effect. This would be controversial and complicated, and never fully effective, but it's possible. This is well within their means.

I don't think they should. But they COULD. There is no doubt that they have the authority and the ability do ban these guns. Immediately. Easily. They don't need legislation.

But they aren't. Why?

The answer is obvious. The Liberals have been tinkering with gun control since their first mandate. Remember Bill C-71? They spent years studying that one. Did a proper job, credit to them, of consulting and studying and researching the issues.

And after years of studying and consulting and researching, they came up with a bill that ... basically didn't change much of the system they'd inherited from Harper. There were some marginal tweaks — some good, some bad, some neutral. But they were tiny.

They were tiny because, after years of studying the issue, and despite the OBVIOUS political upside for them to be Tough On Guns, they looked long and hard at the system and concluded that it was ... working. So they made a few tweaks and called it a day. Mission accomplished!

Then there was a series of tragedies. Mosques in Quebec and New Zealand. The Vegas and Parkland shootings in the U.S. Nova Scotia and the Danforth here. Gang shootings in the big Canadian cities.

But the Canadian events sort of proved the point. They fell outside the system.

But the POLITICAL need to do more — to be seen to be doing more, anyway — was amped up. And the Liberals and especially the prime minister, their progressive image tarnished by harsh, unforgiving contact with their actual record in office, turned to guns.

So what did they do?

They could have banned handguns, but they chose not to. Instead, they came up with a flimsy idea of how other people can ban handguns, maybe, but probably not.

They "banned" assault rifles, but let tens of thousands of Canadians keep them.

They re-announced a bunch of stuff they'd already done or that were in place long before they were in office.

And they tweeted a lot about public safety.

Judge these Liberals, as anyone else, by their actions, not their words.

Their actions are pretty loud and clear here.

If the guns owned by licenced Canadians were really a problem, the Liberals have the legal means and indeed a strong political reason, to ban them.

But they didn't.

Because the Liberals know the guns aren't really a problem. But pretending otherwise is good politics.

Thanks!