That's an interesting question. I'll say as follows. It's unfortunate that inflammatory political rhetoric has taken the place of an informed policy debate.
I think this committee is a great example of what can happen when we actually look into the legal, regulatory and technical sides of these firearms. The statement that those guns were designed to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time is false. That's borne out by the fact that we happily equip our police officers with these firearms. We give them to them because they are efficient and reliable, and we know they operate well in all conditions.
The Prime Minister similarly said, “You don't need an AR-15 to bring down a deer.” Obviously, as someone who clearly doesn't understand both the wildlife regulations and the Firearms Act...he would know that the calibre of a bullet fired by an AR-15 is in fact considered too weak to take down a deer, and is therefore prohibited for hunting deer in virtually every province. Those are firearms that are regularly used for varmint or predator control by farmers.
I think what we need to do is take out the political rhetoric. We don't need to have an inflammatory debate. We don't need to divide people or to demonize one group over another. We need to have an evidence-based discussion on the direction in which we want to take gun policy in this country. I think that's what Canadians expect. It's what they deserve.