The appellants want Canada’s highest court to overturn lower-court decisions that upheld the Liberal government’s May 2020 prohibition of about 1,500 firearms.
By Catholics for Catholics
In Canada, firearms advocacy groups and gun owners contested the federal government’s firearms ban before the Supreme Court of Canada on Nov. 9, contending that Ottawa surpassed its legal authority by banning firearms used for hunting and sport shooting.
According to a story by the Epoch Times, the plaintiffs are asking the court to overturn lower-court decisions upholding the Liberal government’s May 2020 ban on about 1,500 firearm models and variants, including the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14. The list of banned guns has since enlarged to more than 2,500 varieties of what Ottawa calls assault-style firearms.
Firearms owners Christine Generoux, John Perocchio, and Vincent Perocchio in written submissions argued that the restrictions violated provisions of the Criminal Code intended to protect legitimate hunting and sporting activities.
A key dispute concerns Section 117.15(2) of the Criminal Code, which stops the federal cabinet from prohibiting firearms that, in the cabinet’s opinion, are reasonable for use in Canada for hunting or sporting purposes.
In addition, the appellants contended that Parliament included the ban to protect firearms legitimately used for those activities and Ottawa improperly interpreted the provision as permitting public safety considerations to override those protections.
They claimed that some prohibited firearms were intended for sporting purposes and had been used within the law in Canada for decades. They also challenged Ottawa’s portrayal of the firearms as military-style weapons, arguing that some semi-automatic rifles did not have the capabilities the government attributed to them.
Still, the attorneys for the federal government questioned the appellants’ interpretation of the Criminal Code, contending that cabinet performed within its authority in banning firearms Ottawa considered a major threat to public safety.
