Teapot tempest around Carey Price
There’s a tempest in a teapot this weekend about Carey Price putting up an Instagram post against federal firearms legislation. Price is not an authority in law or in criminology so we can dismiss his views, but people are upset about it.
JaneyB 11:29 on 2022-12-04 Permalink
He’s from Western Canada; I’m not surprised. Everyone hunts out there. Still, he’s not thinking clearly: people don’t need a semi-automatic rifle to hunt successfully. Probably people need to do some target practise instead.
Chris 13:03 on 2022-12-04 Permalink
>Price is not an authority in law or in criminology so we can dismiss his views
I mean, neither are you, so we can dismiss your views too. 😉 And mine too! But we’re reading your blog, so we’re presumably interested in your views. Likewise, if you’re following Price’s socials, you’re presumably interested in his views. I don’t get why so many get bent out of shape because someone is expressing a view they disagree with.
Kate 13:14 on 2022-12-04 Permalink
People are annoyed because Price is using his fame as a soapbox, a situation which is not similar to mine. If people are following him, it’s most likely because of interest in him as a sports figure, not to find out what he thinks about issues. He’s free to express himself, of course, but many sports figures who stray out of their lane end up falling on their faces.
Not only did Price speak against the legislation, he spoke in favour of the group CCFR which recently put up specials with the code POLY. Doing this as the anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre approaches – a key event in the history of fighting for gun controls and a dark day in the history of Montreal – demonstrates his tone‑deafness to the city where he made his fame.
Blork 13:40 on 2022-12-04 Permalink
I’m also annoyed by the bullshit angle. In his tweet he’s holding a shotgun, which might be pump-action but looks more like a semi-automatic. In either case, that firearm is not threatened by Bill C-21.
Then the Conservatives pile on with additional layers of bullshit. Poilievre says:
“Hunting is a great Canadian tradition. Trudeau’s attempts to ban hunting rifles are an attack on rural and Indigenous people.”
So suddenly the Conservatives are great defenders of Indigenous people. Right. Also, he says “hunting rifles” when Bill C-21 is clearly aimed at assault and battle rifles as well as handguns.
The one sticky bit that glues all this bullshit together is the inclusion of the Simonov SKS on the list. That’s an old Soviet-era rifle that has been used by guerrillas and insurgents around the world for decades. It was the precursor to the AK-47. Once the AK-47 came to prominence in the 1950s the Soviets and Chinese had all these heavy and clunky SKSs laying around so they sold them off around the world to armies and revolutionaries and anyone who wanted a bunch of cheap rifles. That includes the US, where millions of them showed up in the 1970s because they were dirt cheap (like $150 bucks each).
These rifles are technically “battle rifles” but they’re in a middle ground between AK/AR style assault weapons and plain old hunting rifles. They look pretty much like old hunting rifles from the 1930s but they have a 10-shot clip and are semi-automatic. The only place where this contravenes the law (AFAIK) is that in Canada you can’t use larger than a 5-shot clip. However, there are adapters to make them 5-shot maximum, but they’re easily defeated.
And no, Indigenous people don’t NEED those rifles for hunting, but that’s what many of them HAVE. If you outlaw them then you need to provide a replacement. Hand in your old SKS and we’ll give you a nice new Remington 30-30. Sounds like a pretty simple solution.
But the main takeaway here is that the Conservatives are using the grey-area nature of the SKS (is it a hunting rifle or a battle rifle?) to imply that Bill C-21 is designed to take away people’s hunting rifles.