Canada’s stringent gun controls failed to stop a firearm and Molotov cocktail attack Tuesday on Edmonton’s City Hall.
The Edmonton Journal reported that the alleged 28-year-old shooter was armed with a long gun when he “entered the building through the parkade, fired shots and threw a Molotov cocktail.” Some councillors were in the building at the time of the attack but were taken to safe locations by police/security.
The attack on Edmonton’s City Hall occurred despite Canada’s stringent gun controls.
Those gun controls include a ban on “over 1,500 models of assault-style firearms and certain components of some newly prohibited firearms (the upper receivers of M16, AR-10, AR-15, and M4 patterns of firearms),” which went into effect May 1, 2020, according to the Government of Canada. And Canada had ammunition magazine restrictions long before the “assault-style firearms” ban was adopted.
Licensing is the law of the land in Canada and passage of a firearm safety course is a requirement for acquiring a license to a own a gun. A license is also necessary to legally acquire and/or possess a firearm.
Canada requires extensive background checks on those intending to purchase a firearm. Moreover, Ottawa’s City News reported that beginning July 7, 2021, Canada expanded the scope of the background check conducted so that it looks not simply at the previous five years of a would-be purchaser’s life, but at their entire life. At the same time, the prime minister announced requirements on firearm retailers in Canada were increased.
Canada also has a waiting period for gun purchases.
For example, Click on Detroit outlined the wait and other criteria involved in purchasing a handgun in Canada as of May 2022:
In order to buy a handgun, Canadians are required to prove that they practiced at an approved shooting club or range, or show that they are a gun collector. Those looking to purchase any type of gun must complete a safety course, then pass a written test and a practical test.
Canadians must obtain two character references, list the names of the partners they’ve lived with within the last two years — who must also sign the application — and then apply for a permit and wait a month for processing to start. Then, purchasers have to pass a background check that considers their criminal record, mental health and history of domestic violence and assault.
Once approved, a gun can be purchased. If it is a handgun, Canadians must register it with the police before they can take it home.
Despite these and numerous other gun controls, a 28-year-old attacker–who allegedly made a video mentioning, among other things, the “genocide” in Gaza before attacking–was able to open fire on the Edmonton City Hall Tuesday.
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Matt Perdie / Breitbart NewsAWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a Turning Point USA Ambassador, and a Sightmark rifle optical pro-staffer. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
