Canada's proposed bill would freeze the sale or purchase of handguns : NPR & More News Here

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And I’m Mary Louise Kelly in Washington, the place President Biden addressed the nation from the White House final night time and begged Congress to behave on weapons.

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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Let’s meet the second. Let us lastly do one thing.

KELLY: Contrast that to what’s taking place north of the border. Canada’s authorities launched a bill on Monday that would freeze the sale or purchase of handguns and create new crimson flag legal guidelines. Well, I reached Canada’s minister of public security, Marco Mendicino, in Ottawa at present. He informed me this would be his nation’s strongest gun reform laws in a technology.

MARCO MENDICINO: The state of affairs is pressing. Last week, Statistics Canada issued a report saying that the tendencies are all moving into the mistaken path – that gun violence is up, handgun violence particularly is up, and that home violence in reference to weapons is up. And once you mix that with the quite a few mass shootings that we have had over the final quantity of years, together with most lately the Portapique taking pictures in Nova Scotia, there’s an actual crucial to behave.

KELLY: To what extent is what’s taking place in the U.S. influencing your pondering? I do know when Prime Minister Trudeau introduced this on Monday, he mentioned, and I’ll quote, “we need only look south of the border to know that if we do not take action firmly and rapidly, it gets worse and worse and more difficult to counter.” I heard that and puzzled, what do Canadians see once you look south? How do you perceive what’s taking place right here in the U.S.?

MENDICINO: The people-to-people ties between Canada and the United States are so deep and lengthy and essential to us. There’s little doubt that we really feel for our pals in the United States, for the communities in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas. And it is a robust second. And we’re proper there with you. We wish to assist you.

KELLY: Yeah. And to be clear, you are – this can be a Canadian proposal to handle a state of affairs…

MENDICINO: Exactly.

KELLY: …In Canada. This was not prompted by the horrors of Buffalo and Uvalde…

MENDICINO: Exactly.

KELLY: …In the final couple of weeks right here.

MENDICINO: No, that is proper. This is a chunk of laws that’s borne out of our personal challenges. So that is about defending Canadians.

KELLY: How significant can a Canadian ban be when you’ll proceed to have a 5,000-mile border with the U.S., the place weapons will stay far more broadly accessible?

MENDICINO: And that is why the bill additionally places into place some provisions that can tackle organized crime very immediately. I talked about elevating most sentences for unlawful gun traffickers. That’s aimed to denounce and deter those that would attempt to take weapons illegally from the United States into Canada. Reinvigorate the cross-border crime discussion board the place we are able to share intelligence and expertise on each side of the border. And then lastly, we’re simply including extra assets to our regulation enforcement at the border, extra expertise to cease unlawful trafficking at the border.

KELLY: What does that imply? Like, extra searches in the event you’re crossing the border in from the U.S.?

MENDICINO: It means higher searches, sure. Last yr, we made a file quantity of seizures of unlawful firearms, however there’s nonetheless a protracted technique to go.

KELLY: Will it’s sufficient?

MENDICINO: Well, that’s the central query. And by itself, the trustworthy reply is C-21, our new laws, can not supply a foolproof assure, which is why it needs to be half of a complete technique that I feel does three issues. One, persevering with to advance good, robust, efficient gun coverage like this new laws. Two, persevering with to put money into regulation enforcement at our border, in our communities. And three, we additionally must get at the root causes of gun crime, which implies wanting very fastidiously at social determinants like entry to secure and reasonably priced housing, entry to well being care, entry to secure education. When you ship your child to high school, you bought to really feel secure.

KELLY: Last factor, you’ll know properly that in the U.S., the debate over the right way to cease gun violence, significantly in colleges, is a spread from measures to manage weapons to quite a bit of Republicans saying that is not the reply. We want to take a look at psychological well being initiatives. We want to take a look at hardening colleges. We want to take a look at arming academics. Does any of that resonate in Canada? Does it resonate for you?

MENDICINO: There are some distinctions. I imply, in your nation there’s a constitutional proper to bear arms. In Canada, there is no such thing as a such constitutional proper. And we consider that with a purpose to get at the downside, you have to do all of this stuff. Put in place good legal guidelines. Make certain that you simply’re supporting regulation enforcement. But I feel additionally getting at the root causes in order that you do not have to arm academics, in order that you do not have to arm everyone to make sure public security. And that is in the end the vacation spot that I feel all of us wish to go.

KELLY: Marco Mendicino, thanks.

MENDICINO: Thank you very a lot for having me, Mary Louise.

KELLY: He is Canada’s minister of public security. We reached him at present in Ottawa.

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