Canada's attempt at confiscating so-called assault weapons has been a master class in how to carry out a complete and total cluster...flop. We'll go with flop here. What I mean, though, is that at every step along the way, they managed to find a way to bungle it.
Now, as the deadline closes for gun owners to declare their firearms if they want any compensation for them from the government, it seems pretty clear that nothing has changed.
In fact, it's downright hysterical, because even if Canadians are less likely to be as defiant in the face of their government as Americans are, they're not exactly bending the knee, either.
Gun owners have reported more than 51,000 firearms to the federal government with one week left to go in a program to provide compensation for banned guns, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said Monday.
The figure is well short of the 136,000 firearms for which the government set aside money when the buyback program for individual owners opened in January.
Anandasangaree said he is "cautiously optimistic" leading up to the March 31 deadline for the program, which offers owners compensation for turning in or permanently deactivating their guns.
Since May 2020, Ottawa has outlawed about 2,500 types of firearms, including the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14, on the basis they belong only on the battlefield.
Prohibited firearms and devices must be disposed of — or deactivated — by the end of an amnesty period on Oct. 30.
It's possible they'll get something like another 130,000 declarations in the last week, but it would seem to me that most of those inclined to take the government up on its offer would have already done so.
And anyone interested in complying would be more likely to take the compensation deal than just destroy their guns for nothing.
What we're looking at here is that Canada's gun confiscation effort is coming up short, with fewer than a third of those expected being declared so far, and that's well short of the upper end of the estimates for semi-auto firearms in the Great White North, which is around 250,000 or so.
While what happens in Canada doesn't directly impact us, it's worth comparing this to the NY SAFE Act, which had a similarly low rate of compliance from AR-style rifle owners. That particular law just required registration with the state police, and ridiculously few complied.
The takeaway here is that no matter how anti-gun a government wants to be, just snapping their fingers and expecting armed people who intend to resist tyranny to just give up the best guns they have for that purpose simply because the government says so is about as stupid as thinking Starfleet Academy was the best offering of Trek in years.
You can say it, but it just makes you look like you should ride a bus to school with a lot less steel than the average, if you know what I mean.
If Canadians aren't playing that game, there's absolutely zero chance of Americans playing it, so the anti-gun left needs to give that crap up while they're ahead.