Thank you for giving me this opportunity to testify before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
Gun control is just one of many measures to reduce gun violence. There are different gun control measures that aim to prevent different types of crime, in all sorts of very different contexts. But since our group is made up of victims of mass shootings, our primary goal is to prevent similar tragedies.
The majority of mass killings are committed with legal weapons, mostly assault weapons, but also handguns. This is why we call for a ban on assault weapons and handguns, as well as a ban on high-capacity magazines.
And, given that the massacre at the École Polytechnique was linked to pure misogyny, and that mass shootings are closely associated with domestic violence, we also seek to keep guns away from violent spouses. Over two thirds of the mass shootings in the United States were perpetrated by aggressors that had a history of violence. That is why we are also calling for significant improvements in firearms licensing.
I will now touch on three areas that we feel need to be addressed.
The first is large-capacity magazines. The law passed in 1991 limited the number of cartridges in magazines to five for long guns and 10 for handguns, with some exceptions. Unfortunately, since then these exceptions, combined with new interpretations of the law and changes in the market, have accentuated major flaws in the laws and regulations.
Here are only two examples. First, the law allows magazines designed for more than the legal limit to be sold as long as a device blocks their number at the legal limit. However, according to the RCMP, these modifiable magazines are readily restorable to their full capacity. Many recent mass shooters legally purchased modifiable magazines and illegally converted them to their full capacity, including Justin Bourque, Richard Bain, Alexandre Bissonnette and Matthew Vincent Raymond.
The second is that the Conservative government in 2011 introduced a new interpretation of the 1991 law: If a magazine is not specifically designed for a gun in which it fits, it is exempted from the legal limits. There is zero public safety rationale behind this. In fact, the coroner who investigated the 2006 Dawson shooting said this loophole allowed the shooter to use a 10-bullet magazine for his restricted long gun, the Beretta Cx4 Storm, instead of a five-bullet one, suggesting that this could have made a difference.
The risks created by these flaws are as obvious as the urgency to fix them.
The second point I want to talk about is the verification of the validity of a potential buyer's licence. In 2015, the Liberals promised to reinstate the mandatory verification of a potential buyer's licence by the RCMP before the transfer of a non-restricted firearm. In 2018, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-71. The measure in the bill is described in official documents as follows:
C-71 provides that vendors must verify the firearms licence of the buyer, by contacting the Registrar of Firearms before transferring a non-restricted firearm. The Registrar would check the licence number in the Canadian Firearms Information System and issue a reference number if the licence is valid.
Running the licence number through the system is the only way to ensure that a licence is not counterfeit, stolen or revoked. A seller cannot check that themselves, and yet the regulations tabled last June require no such thing. According to the proposed regulations, once they check the photo on the buyer's licence, sellers will have to contact the RCMP to obtain a reference number authorizing the transfer. However, there is no obligation for a seller to provide any information whatsoever related to the buyer's licence to the RCMP, and there is no obligation stated anywhere in the laws and regulations that the RCMP has to run the licence number through the system.
This shocking loophole was confirmed to us in writing by Public Safety officials and to the Canadian press by a Public Safety spokesperson.