Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday the introduction of a bill that will limit the possession of firearms across Canada.
“What this means is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” Trudeau told a news conference.
“In other words, we are limiting the market,” he added.
If passed, the new anti-gun legislation will fine gun smuggling and trafficking by “increasing the maximum criminal penalties and providing more tools for law enforcement to investigate firearms crime,” Trudeau said.
The new legislation will also require long gun magazines to “never” contain more than five cartridges.
“Gun violence is a complex problem, but in the end the math is really quite simple: the fewer guns there are in our communities, the safer we all are,” the prime minister said.
Trudeau added that while most gun owners use their guns safely and legally, “we don’t need assault weapons designed to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time.”
The announcement follows two recent mass shootings in the United States. On May 24, a gunman entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, firing more than 100 bullets, killing 19 children and two teachers. On May 14, 10 people were killed in a racially motivated mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
Trudeau had promised
Ending gun violence was part of Trudeau’s campaign in the 2019 election. In 2020, his government banned more than 1,500 types of military-style assault weapons on the heels of Canada’s deadliest shooting in modern history.
Guns were “the most serious weapon in most violent firearm-related crimes” between 2009 and 2020, making up 59% of those crimes, according to a statement released Monday by Trudeau’s office.
The number of registered pistols in the country increased 71% between 2010 and 2020, reaching 1.1 million, according to the statement.