Category: Gun Fearing Wussies
Canada’s government is forcing licensed and law-abiding firearm owners to surrender, export or permanently “deactivate” thousands of prohibited firearm models. Meanwhile, a criminal investigation involving former Member of Parliament (MP) Inky Mark shows Canadian authorities already possess extensive laws to pursue actual firearm trafficking and other illegal criminal conduct.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested former MP Mark, 79, after executing search warrants on July 7, 2026, at his Dauphin, Manitoba, residence. Investigators reported seizing 439 firearms, ammunition, an antique cannon and more than C$300,000 in cash, which Mark claims is from the sale of Manitoba properties. Former MP Mark faces 12 Criminal Code charges, including firearm trafficking and possession of property obtained by crime.
He has been released from custody. Mark denies the charges but did tell the Canadian Broadcast Corporation that “he did something stupid” and admitted he transferred firearms to an individual he has known for 30 years.
Mark, also the former mayor of Dauphin, is outspoken and critical against Canada’s Liberal Party, which dominates politics north of the border. Mark wasn’t in Canada’s Parliament when the gun confiscation bill was voted upon.
Criminal Conduct Is Already Illegal
RCMP officials said investigators believe at least three of the seized firearms were illegally trafficked and one had an altered serial number. The investigation reportedly began after another Dauphin resident was charged with firearm offenses in the United States.
Those allegations are serious. But they do not expose some previously unknown gap in Canada’s gun laws.
Firearm trafficking, altering serial numbers, unauthorized possession and violating secure storage laws are already criminal offenses. RCMP officials acknowledged that Canadians may lawfully possess large firearm collections. The legal line is crossed by criminal conduct, not by the number of firearms a licensed citizen owns.
That distinction should guide public policy.
Confiscation Moves Forward
In the meantime, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is pressing ahead with the so-called “Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program” covering more than 2,500 makes and models prohibited since May 2020. The entire scheme, begun under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has been a fiasco from the get-go.
The declaration period for law-abiding gun owners ended March 31. Collection, destruction, deactivation and compensation are already underway and are expected to continue through early fall. As of June 8, owners had declared just 68,717 firearms, including 2,520 in Manitoba.
Participation in the compensation program was technically voluntary. But compliance with the prohibitions is not. Owners who decline compensation must ultimately surrender their affected firearms without payment, export them or pay to have them permanently deactivated.
Facing measly compliance rates, the Canadian government extended its amnesty orders after the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear a challenge to the 2020 prohibitions. The amnesty will now expire 90 days after the court issues its decision, expected in 2027. The confiscation program, however, continues.
Target Criminals, Not Lawful Owners
Nothing alleged against former MP Mark suggests Canada needed to prohibit thousands of additional firearm models or confiscate lawfully acquired property to investigate him.
Police used existing laws directed at trafficking, unauthorized possession and altered serial numbers. That is precisely where enforcement belongs.
The courts will determine whether former MP Mark committed the offenses alleged against him.
The United States had their own brush with a state lawmaker convicted of trafficking firearms. California Democratic state Sen. Leland Yee was a “known champion of open government and gun control” according to an NPR report. The Brady Campaign named him to its Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll for his bill to require unworkable microstamping. He was also part of the effort to require California’s “bullet button.”
Except he was an illegal firearm trafficker. Yee accepted over $42,000 from undercover FBI agents to provide up to $2.5 million in firearms from Muslim terrorists in The Philippines and smuggle them into the United States.
The disgraced state senator was convicted of felony racketeering charges for money laundering, political corruption, arms trafficking and bribery. He spent five years in prison.
Canada’s Mark faces his own day in court but policymakers there should nevertheless recognize the larger lesson already staring them in the face.
Public safety is not advanced by disarming hunters, recreational shooters and other licensed citizens who obey the law. It is advanced by identifying criminal conduct, prosecuting those responsible and leaving lawful firearm owners alone.
As many TTAG readers likely remember, when a federal court ruled last September that the blanket ban on firearms in post offices was unconstitutional, the federal government tried to severely limit the scope of the ruling to those who were Second Amendment Foundation members when the suit was originally filed.
Plaintiffs pushed back — and the court sided with SAF
Plaintiffs responded by filing a brief critical of the Department of Justice effort to limit the ruling. SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said at the time: “The critical thing to remember here is that the government is fighting tooth and nail to continue enforcing an unconstitutional law against as many people as possible.”
The court subsequently rejected the government’s effort to restrict that relief to only those who were members when the lawsuit was filed. Now, in a major reversal, the Trump DOJ has now asked to abandon its appeal in the case.
FPC v. Blanche started in 2024 — and now it’s over
Originally filed in June 2024, FPC v. Blanche, formerly FPC v. Bondi, challenged the ban on firearms carry in U.S. Post Offices and on postal property. SAF was joined in the case by the Firearms Policy Coalition and two private citizens.
SAF: The injunction is now permanent — the win stands
“This is huge news for SAF members,” Bill Sack, SAF senior director of legal operations, said in a news release announcing the DOJ move. “We now have finality and clarity that the hard-fought injunction we secured on behalf of our members, striking down the post office carry ban is the permanent outcome of the case.
The government appears to now agree, especially in light of the recent Wolford decision, that the ban on the lawful carry of firearms in post offices fails constitutional muster.”
Gottlieb: The DOJ saw the writing on the wall
Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president, said the government rightly “saw the writing on the wall” that it was not going to win the case.
“We certainly appreciate the DOJ recognizing the facts and voluntarily dismissing their appeal,” Gottlieb said. “With this injunction in hand, SAF has once again fulfilled its mission of defending, securing and restoring the Second Amendment rights for its members as well as the public at large.”
Combs: The DOJ deserves no credit for finally abandoning an unconstitutional law
Speaking for his organization, FPC President Brandon Combs said the Trump DOJ “spent far too long defending an immoral and unconstitutional ban that treated peaceable Americans like criminals.”
“Now, after losing on the merits and failing to gut the relief protecting our members, the government is finally waving the white flag. Good,” Combs said. “This victory protects every present and future member of the FPC Grassroots Army, and it proves once again that membership can have real, direct consequences for the exercise of constitutional rights.”
“But the government deserves no credit for finally abandoning its authoritarian effort to preserve an unconstitutional and immoral law. FPC will continue to Fight Forward until every unconstitutional gun ban is eliminated, full stop.”
The court called out the DOJ’s associational standing arguments
While gun-rights groups had battled hard against the federal government to get the ban overturned, until the recent reversal the DOJ argument that the scope should be limited was a lame one. And the court found the DOJ’s argument unconvincing.
“Despite its arguments, the Government has not provided, and the Court has not found, a case limiting injunctive relief to only those members of an association at the time a lawsuit is filed,” the court wrote in its ruling. “And while Plaintiffs could have sought class certification, they apparently also relied instead on associational standing — which the Government seemingly agrees they have in some form.”
Nato leaders surprised by Turkish president’s gift of guns after summit
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented engraved revolvers – with bullets – to his guests in Ankara, causing security concerns
What does a world leader do with a gun and six bullets? That was the conundrum Nato leaders faced after the Turkish president offered them each a revolver after the Ankara summit.
Keir Starmer was the first to mention the highly unusual gift presented by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to his guests. On the flight back from Ankara, where Nato leaders had gathered for two days, the British prime minister said he and others had received a revolver engraved with their names.
Alongside the gun sitting in a red box lined in black were six live rounds and a note exempting the weapons from export controls.
It was a surprising gift to say the least, several officials from the different alliance member states said, and gave rise to some “insane” scenes among the various delegations’ security teams.
“An unusual gift from president Erdoğan at the Nato summit: a Magnum revolver with ammunition, engraved with my name,” the Hungarian prime minister, Péter Magyar, said on X.
The Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, only “learned of the exact nature of the gift” after landing in Belgium. “The prime minister was surprised and immediately handed it over to airport police so it could be placed in a secure safe and the matter was handled in accordance with relevant procedures,” an official said on Thursday.
De Wever’s security team also handled the revolvers given to the EU chiefs based in Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, with all the security and protocol-related headaches such an effort brings.
Von der Leyen “expressed her thanks” to Erdoğan for the gift, her spokesperson said, adding that it would be decommissioned and donated to a military museum.
The revolver presented to the Polish president, Karol Nawrocki, also arrived safely, but with the necessary precautions and a previous incident still fresh in everyone’s minds.
In December 2022, Poland’s police chief brought back an anti-tank grenade launcher from Ukraine that he had received as a gift. The device exploded in his office, slightly injuring him and causing extensive damage to the police headquarters in Warsaw.
This time, “it is certain that no one is going to fire it”, an aide to Nawrocki told a local radio station.
Several revolvers, including those belonging to Starmer, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the Dutch prime minister, Rob Jetten, have for now remained in the Turkish capital.
Depending on the laws in force, transporting firearms is often far from straightforward, especially when they are fully functional.
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, took his revolver with him but left the ammunition in Turkey, Canadian officials said. They did not explain why.
The weapon given to the Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, “will have to be transported to Sweden in accordance with all applicable procedures”, his team said in a statement.
Beyond the logistical challenge, the gift also puzzled several delegations attending the summit, which focused on Ukraine, Iran, and relations with the US president, Donald Trump.
The question asked over and over again: why such a gift? While it is very common for heads of state to exchange various gifts during meetings or summits, such exchanges rarely require these kinds of precautions.
The Turkish presidency did not immediately respond.
Banning so-called “assault weapons” has been the top priority of various gun-ban organizations, including so-called Everytown for Gun Safety, for the past few decades. After all, these “weapons of war” are truly “evil,” they say, and Americans would be much safer with a law saying nobody could own them.
It seems, however, that with the recent announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court that it would hear an “assault weapons ban” case next session, gun-ban groups just might be well aware that their sacred bans run afoul of the Constitution. Why else would they be so worried now that SCOTUS has agreed to take up such a case?
Everytown is throwing a fit — because they know the constitutional argument doesn’t favor them
Everytown is a prime example.
“Today, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, which involve reckless gun lobby challenges to Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut laws restricting assault weapons — weapons that are frequently used in our nation’s deadliest mass shootings,” Everytown stated in a press release reacting to the announcement.
Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment litigation at Everytown Law, then jumped into the nuts and bolts of the half-truths the organization relies upon so heavily.
“Assault weapons cause massive devastation,” Carter said. “They are the weapons of choice for mass shooters. These laws are critical public safety measures, and they are consistent with the Second Amendment. Six federal appeals courts have rightly upheld assault weapon and large-capacity magazine laws, and we urge the Supreme Court to follow suit.”
32 million AR-15s means “common use” — full stop
Here’s the problem with Everytown’s argument — and why they’re worried they’ll lose before SCOTUS.
The Supreme Court in both the Heller and Bruen decisions ruled that the Second Amendment protects arms that are in “common use.” And the question of whether AR-15s and other semi-autos are in common use is easily answered.
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there are more than 32 million AR-15s and other guns considered “assault weapons” by gun-ban advocates in private hands in the United States. Obviously, that’s in “common use.”
Rifles account for 3% of homicides — AR-15s are a subset of that 3%
On a more practical level, so-called “assault weapons” account for a miniscule number of murders in the United States each year. According to FBI statistics, rifles of all kinds are used in only about 3% of homicides by firearms, and AR-15s and other semi-auto rifles are only a subset of that 3%.
Handguns cause most gun homicides — but nobody’s calling for handgun bans anymore
Of course, handguns are used in the vast majority of murders by violent criminals, but you don’t hear the gun-ban groups calling for a sweeping handgun ban. That’s largely because most Americans don’t support such a ban, a fact that the anti-gun group Brady knows all too well.
Brady used to be called Handgun Control, Inc., with its main emphasis on trying to ban private ownership of handguns throughout the country. When it became apparent that the public vehemently disagreed with their stance, they not only changed their emphasis, but even had to change their name to try to become acceptable to the masses.
When Brady gave up on handguns, gun-banners pivoted to AR-15s
When they gave up on banning handguns is when gun-banners turned their sights to so-called “assault weapons,” despite the unarguable fact that they are very, very seldom used for criminal purposes. Ultimately, gun-banners want to ban something, and the AR-15 and similar rifles are the latest target.
Everytown Panics as SCOTUS Takes Up AR-15 Ban Cases
If the SCOTUS case goes our way next session, it will be yet another loss in a long list of anti-gun defeats. Maybe, they’ll just pack up, go home, and leave America’s lawful gun owners alone as we head into America’s next 250 years.