OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Canada mentioned Thursday it’s outlawing any other 324 firearm types — weapons the general public protection minister mentioned belong at the battlefield, now not within the fingers of hunters or game shooters.Ottawa additionally mentioned it’s running with the federal government of Ukraine to peer how the weapons may also be donated to make stronger the combat in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The transfer follows the Would possibly 2020 ban of one,500 makes and fashions of firearms, a bunch that grew to greater than 2,000 by means of November of this yr as new variants had been known.The newest restriction, introduced Thursday by means of Public Protection Minister Dominic LeBlanc, follows expressions of outrage from gun-control advocates that many assault-style firearms weren’t integrated within the 2020 ban.“This implies those firearms can not be used,” LeBlanc mentioned.Protection Minister Invoice Blair mentioned Canada approached Ukrainian government, who expressed hobby in one of the most weapons.
“Each little bit of help we will be offering to the Ukrainians is one step towards their victory,” Blair mentioned.The government says it’s running with provinces, territories and police on a deliberate buyback of prohibited guns from person homeowners.
Mass shootings are slightly uncommon in Canada, however the newly introduced measures come at the eve of the thirty fifth anniversary of the École Polytechnique in Montreal capturing, the place a gunman killed 14 ladies sooner than killing himself. The Ruger Mini-14 utilized by the gunman, Marc Lepine, was once some of the guns integrated within the 2020 ban.
Nathalie Provost, a survivor who was once wounded within the assault, mentioned Thursday she was once focused for being a girl finding out engineering.“Those are simply killing guns, struggle guns, army guns, so I’m proud we’re doing one thing,” Provost mentioned.Canada has had some distance fewer mass shootings than the U.S. partly on account of a loss of simple get admission to to weapons, although the U.S. inhabitants is also some distance greater than Canada’s. Officers have said weapons smuggled into Canada illegally are ceaselessly utilized by criminals. Opposition Conservative chief Pierre Poilievre known as the announcement a “stunt” by means of Canadian Top Minister Justin Trudeau’s executive that assaults “approved & law-abiding hunters and game shooters.”