Free Republic

There is no conceivable reason why an ordinary person needs a handgun, writes Tony Keene. The government has finally moved to ban military-style assault rifles. Great. So now let's go to the next step, a complete and comprehensive ban on the sale and ownership of all handguns. There is no conceivable reason why an ordinary person needs to own a handgun. No reason whatsoever. Those of us trained in the use of handguns (and I mean properly trained, by the police or the military, not just a weekend course at the local gun club) know that the armed amateur is...

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau promised a ban on “assault-style weapons,” following the hours-long shooting spree that lasted Saturday night through Sunday morning and left at least 18 dead in Nova Scotia. Buzzfeed reported that the attacker, Gabriel Wortman, was allegedly “looking for a former significant other” when the killing spree began. He used “a replica police vehicle and what looked like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform to pull over random drivers and execute them on the spot.” The Press Democrat reported that authorities have yet to confirm that “assault-style weapons” were used in the attack, but Trudeau indicated he...

At first glance, it is easy to chalk up the train wreck that is the NAFTA re-negotiations to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bad luck. But in politics, there’s an old saying that you make your own luck. And there should be some tough questions asked and accountability demanded on how it all came to this: a last minute “take it or leave it” ultimatum for Canada to sign a trade deal seemingly reached between Mexico and the United States while Canada watched from the sidelines for five weeks. Two years ago, when a populist presidential candidate tapped into NAFTA as...

It was a remarkable scene to watch unfold. On Tuesday afternoon, Canada’s Liberal cabinet rose to vote on a Conservative motion calling on the government to get tough on Iran. There was every reason to believe they’d vote against it. Conservative Senators had previously brought forward similar legislation and it was defeated last month by Justin Trudeau-appointed Senators. So everyone figured they knew how Tuesday’s vote would go down: Conservatives in favour, Liberals mostly against. Even Speaker Geoff Regan must have thought this. Because after he’d finished tallying the “yeas” from the Conservative side he then called to register the...