The Canadian government has announced legislation creating new regulations that will ban the sale, purchase, importation or transfer of handguns, as well as a buyback program requiring owners of “military-style assault weapons” to turn over their firearms, reports the New York Times. The handgun sales ban and the proposed assault weapons law are the latest in a series of steps Justin Trudeau has taken to restrict firearms since 22 people were killed in rural Nova Scotia by a gunman in 2020.
Trudeau’s program, which echoes a semiautomatic weapons ban and buyback program launched by New Zealand in 2019, should begin by the end of the year. Since there is no legal definition of a “military-style assault weapon” in the books in Canada, Trudeau said the government would seek to come up with one that could not be easily circumvented by gun makers. Other measures in the sweeping bill include making it a crime to modify a rifle to increase its capacity; increasing the penalties for gun smuggling; and giving police power to seize guns from people whom a judge has determined to be at risk of hurting themselves or others.