House of Commons Hansard #93 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was guns.

Topics

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1:15 p.m.

Bloc

Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech and her testimony, knowing that members of her family have been affected by gun violence. The fact is that there are one million handguns circulating in Canada. That number increases by 55,000 every year.

What are my colleague's thoughts on the Bloc Québécois's proposal to create an optional handgun buyback program?

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1:15 p.m.

Liberal

Judy Sgro Liberal Humber River—Black Creek, ON

Madam Speaker, when it gets referred to committee in the immediate future, there will be an opportunity at the committee level to discuss all the options on the table, including the issue of buyback.

Whatever we can do to get guns off the street is something I am very supportive of.

Second ReadingCriminal CodeGovernment Orders

June 21st, 2022 / 1:15 p.m.

Conservative

Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON

Madam Speaker, I am always grateful to stand up and represent my constituents of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. However, in this case, I am representing all legal firearms owners, our law enforcement, our military, our security forces around the country and even our Parliamentary Protective Service. I challenge every MP to talk to them and ask their opinions about this bill, as well as to get the opinions of sport shooters, hunters and the vast majority of my constituents in Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

I am disappointed that we are already curtailing debate on this important bill, especially considering that we have only had seven Conservative MPs speak to it, and that was only because we split our time.

On that note, I will be splitting my time with the member for Brandon—Souris.

I am going to focus on three key aspects in my speech. Number one is data and facts, number two is openness, transparency and honesty, and finally, number three is respect. The key to all of this, and the key to reducing gun violence in Canada, is education.

Let me speak first to the data and the facts. I asked the previous member speaking to define military-style assault rifles, which is a question I have been asking the government for almost three years now. The definition does not exist. I asked that question in a written submission to the government, and its response was to please check a commissioned report by Hill+Knowlton Strategies. If we read that report, do we know what it says? The government really needs to define what it means by assault rifles or military-style assault rifles. A definition still does not exist, and that adds to the confusion so many Canadians face when we are trying to deal with the important issue of reducing gun violence across Canada.

I am going to go back to the original, key piece of legislation in the past couple of years. It was from the last Parliament around the order in council that banned 1,500 so-called military-style assault rifles. In that document, there was actually no definition or criteria for what determines or establishes what is a military-style assault rifle. When I asked what criteria were used, I was told there were none.

The government used three principles. Number one is that the guns are semi-automatic in nature, with a high sustained rate of fire. That statement is a contradiction. If it is semi-automatic, the rate of fire is controlled by the shooter and not by the firearm, so whether someone has a slow finger or a fast finger determines whether a firearm should be prohibited or not. It does not even make logical sense.

The second principle the government used is that the firearms are of modern design. I asked what was meant by modern design. That means post-World War II. If the firearm was designed post the Second World War, we should be banning it.

Number three is that they exist in large quantities in Canada. Again, this does not pass the common sense test. Let us take firearm x as an example. There are 100,000 of them in Canada that have been used in zero gun crimes. Let us ban it. With firearm z, let us say there are only 10 of them in Canada and all 10 have been used in firearms crimes. It is good to go and will not be banned. Again, there is no logic behind the principles, and there are no criteria to determine that list.

I have been asking for evidence and data that support any of the firearms legislation the current Liberal government has brought forward. I submitted a written question to the government asking for any evidence or metrics behind how the government thinks any of this legislation is actually going to reduce gun violence. I received a response on January 29, 2020, that would only take me 30 seconds to read out. There is no evidence or metrics on how this is going to reduce gun violence in Canada.

The member for Winnipeg North stood and said that this has been broadly consulted on. It has not been consulted on in my riding. In the previous Parliament, the minister of public safety at the time came to my community and talked about Bill C-71 from the 42nd Parliament. I can guarantee he walked out of there and there was not a single person who talked to the minister during that consultation session who supported Bill C-71.

I will go back to my point around data. Where is the data that shows legal firearms owners are responsible for gun crime in Canada? I talked about education. I spent 25 years in uniform carrying all sorts of restricted and prohibited firearms, because I could as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. I was an infantry officer. I walked around with a fully automatic firearm. That is what assault weapons are: fully automatic. They have been banned in Canada since 1977. During my last two deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, I walked around everywhere with a handgun. Handguns do not kill people; people kill people.

To get to the point about education, despite all that, when I got out of uniform and became a civilian, I had to get a possession and acquisition licence and a restricted possession and acquisition licence, a PAL and an RPAL, in order to potentially buy a firearm or a restricted firearm. Those courses are extensive. Did I learn a lot about safety on those specific firearms? No. I was safe and had no problem passing the practical portions of both of those courses, but I did learn a lot about our laws. As I suggested in the last Parliament, it would benefit every member who wants to sit here and debate firearms legislation to do the PAL or the RPAL course because it would teach them a lot about our very restrictive firearms laws that currently exist in Canada.

To continue on education, when I was door knocking in 2019, I heard similar concerns that have been addressed by other members during the debate about why anybody would need that firearm. I was shown a picture from a Cabela's magazine or some other magazine that someone had received in the mail, and they asked me why anybody would need that. I looked at it and compared it with another firearm in the brochure. I pointed to the firearm that they thought was so scary and said I would walk 200 metres down the street and stand there. They could shoot at me all they wanted and I would not even move.

I asked if another firearm was okay, and they said yes. It was just a hunting rifle. I said that if I stood another few hundred metres away, as soon as someone started shooting at me with that firearm, I would take cover. Again, it is the lack of education in understanding firearms. Just because they look scary does not mean they are more dangerous. It is based on their capabilities and criteria.

I asked the minister, when he first introduced Bill C-21 in the House last week, about handguns in particular. As I mentioned earlier in my speech, handguns are restricted and they are registered. I asked a simple question about how easy it is for law enforcement to track how many gun crimes in Canada have been committed by legal firearms owners with legal handguns. He refused to answer that question. It was the same question I had asked his officials the week prior during the technical briefing. Again, I ask that they please get us the data. It would help so much.

I would point out that restricted firearms owners are the most law-abiding demographic in Canada. In fact, they are three times less likely to commit a crime than the average Canadian. I would argue, it is even less likely than that for the majority of the Liberal caucus.

Openness and transparency are key around all of this. Let us debate this. Everybody wants to reduce gun violence in Canada, but we need to do that based on data, based on evidence and based on statistics. Law enforcement demands this. One of the things that a lot of Canadians do not understand is that our law enforcement and security forces depend on these restricted firearms for their own safety and training. They do not get the time on the range to do this, so a lot of legal firearms owners are in law enforcement who own these firearms on their own. I get that Bill C-21, specifically on handguns, says that they would still be able to own them, but let us remove the politicization around this and talk about what is important to solve this.

My final point is on respect and trust. Let us respect parliamentarians in the House, let us respect legal firearms owners and, most of all, let us respect Canadians by talking about the real key facts.

In conclusion, there are data and facts, openness and transparency, and respect and trust. Let us educate Canadians on the root causes of gun violence in Canada, i.e., crime, drugs, the illegal trafficking of firearms and, most importantly, poverty instead of going after law-abiding Canadians.

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1:25 p.m.

Kingston and the Islands Ontario

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)

Madam Speaker, I would like to pick up on some of the closing comments from the member. He said that we should respect parliamentarians, respect the process and respect Parliament. We would not know that, coming from the way the member and his colleagues have been acting in the House over the past several months. They are refusing to let the bills they supported in their election platform go through the House.

The member talked about the limited amount of time people have had to speak to the bill. Has he had the opportunity to reflect on how much more time he would have had if the Conservatives had not been playing procedural games and delaying bills such as the fall economic statement to provide more supports to Canadians? Had they actually let that stuff go through as it should have, fairly easily, he would have had so much more time to speak to this and other bills that the Conservatives are genuinely passionate about.

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1:25 p.m.

Conservative

Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON

Madam Speaker, I am not going to even provide a dignified response to that. The fact of the matter is that every member of Parliament should be able to speak to every bill at every stage, if it means something to their constituents. That is why we are here: to represent our constituents, whether we are Conservative members of Parliament or Liberal backbenchers. It would be nice if that member or the member for Winnipeg North would let somebody else in the Liberal caucus speak.

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1:25 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. What is the member implying when he says that I am not allowing other people to speak? Is he suggesting that I am suspending other people's democratic opportunities? He is implying that I am suppressing other people's ability to speak—

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1:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

Indeed, we should not, in any way, make those kinds of accusations. I would invite the hon. member to perhaps reflect on his comments. We should not be assigning intentions to other members. I would really appreciate it if the hon. member would withdraw the comment.

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1:25 p.m.

Conservative

Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON

Madam Speaker, I withdraw that comment.

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1:25 p.m.

Bloc

Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He knows I love him. We were on a 12-day mission together not long ago and I had a great time. We had some great discussions, but we could not get away from debating guns. We disagree, and that is just the way it is.

I would like to know what he thinks about the Bloc Québécois's proposal to create a list of groups in our cities that stir up trouble with shootings all over the place. We would like to have a list of these groups, like the one we already have for terrorist organizations.

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1:25 p.m.

Conservative

Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I have a great deal of respect for him.

I have no issues with lists of criminal organizations right across this country. The challenge I have in my riding, as in a lot of rural ridings, is how we quantify that and get down to it, etc. I have no issues with criminal organizations being listed. I think that is important information that law enforcement should have if it can help, because I think it really gets to the root causes of gun violence in Canada: illegal crimes and gangs. Let us fix that.

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1:30 p.m.

Liberal

George Chahal Liberal Calgary Skyview, AB

Madam Speaker, there is a lot in my colleague's speech I would disagree with. I spent a number of years chairing a public safety task force in the city of Calgary talking about guns, gangs and gun violence. Also, I was a member of the police commission in Calgary. My colleague talked about data and using data on gun crimes. In western Canada, in Calgary, it was identified that the majority of guns used in crimes were obtained through legal means: through legal purchases and ownership.

I would like to ask my colleague this. Knowing that data point, what can we do to make sure that those legally obtained guns are not used in a crime? Those were the majority of the guns in the data provided by the Calgary Police Service last year at the Calgary police commission. What can we do to prevent that from happening? What would he want to see in this or other bills to make sure that guns and gun owners' rights are—

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1:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

I have to give the hon. member the opportunity to answer. The hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

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1:30 p.m.

Conservative

Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON

Madam Speaker, as my first question, let us provide that data. I would love to see it. Please email me that data, because that data has not been tabled. I have been asking for the government to table any data around firearms crime that has been committed by legal firearms owners or by legal firearms, but the government has refused to table it and bring it forward.

I guess the best bet, going back to a previous speech and the amendment, which is what we are actually debating here, would be to refer this whole study to the committee of public safety and deal with it there. Then we can bring back legislation that actually makes sense and is informed, rather than being based just on political—

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1:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Brandon—Souris.

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1:30 p.m.

Conservative

Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Madam Speaker, right off the bat, I want to point out that our Conservative team was willing to split this bill so that the House could swiftly pass the clauses on which we all agree. There are parts that we still need to debate, but we were prepared to make sure that the other elements could quickly proceed. We would have immediately sent on to the committee stage the elements of Bill C-21 that are focused on protecting potential victims of firearms crime and tightening up laws that address firearms smuggling. Those elements would have also included red flag provisions to allow law enforcement to remove firearms from dangerous domestic situations more quickly and to allow more severe penalties for criminals smuggling guns.

It was a reasonable proposal and it was disappointing that the government did not accept the offer. As with all firearms-related legislation, the government is far too comfortable with labelling those who disagree with it as firearms lobbyists. It is more than willing to disparage us and law-abiding firearms owners than to propose legislation that fixes the root issue of firearms violence. In the 2019 election, the Liberals tried to scare people into voting for them in our riding by sending out a brochure with firearms on it. It did not work, and they got 12% of the vote. The Liberals once again tried to scare people in the 2021 election, and the result was the same:12% of the vote.

The good people of Westman are not buying what the Liberals are trying to sell. A couple of years ago, I took my RPAL, my restricted possession and acquisition licence, and went for training in the basement of the late Don Teale. Like hundreds if not thousands before me, I sat in his makeshift classroom in his home in Brandon with a dozen or so Westman residents who had signed up to take their firearms training. As I walked into the room, I could tell that a few of the other students were slightly perplexed about why I was taking the safety training with them.

Not long afterward, Don, who was a plain-spoken and straight-shooting veteran, told them how happy he was that a sitting member of Parliament was educating himself for the firearms act. Don was right. I was not in his basement because I wanted to purchase a firearm; I took the training to get a better idea of the rigorous process that Canadians must go through before they can get a firearms licence.

As a lot of MPs might know, there was a movement a couple of years ago from law-abiding firearms owners urging legislators to get their PAL or their RPAL. They were tired of politicians getting up and speaking about the firearms act without ever reading or understanding it. They were upset that too many are quick to disparage firearms owners without understanding the law or the process.

There is no evidence to justify many changes found in the Liberals' firearms legislation. In fact, they are only further burdening law-abiding firearms owners, rather than actually going after the people who commit the crimes. I, for one, would prefer that our law enforcement agencies and our Government of Canada spend their time, energy and resources in cracking down on gangs and criminals.

Since the Liberals announced Bill C-21, I have received countless emails from law-abiding firearms owners who feel that once again the government is using them as a scapegoat instead of tackling the root of firearms violence in Canada. I have heard from retired law enforcement officers, veterans, competitive sport shooters and everyday Canadians who are tired of being blamed and shamed by the Liberal government. They are fed up with the Minister of Public Safety's gaslighting.

To give just one example, the minister said, “Bill C-21 doesn't target law-abiding gun owners, it targets handgun violence, it targets organized crime.” Of course this bill targets law-abiding firearms owners. Suggesting it does not is an insult to the intelligence of those who have been following this debate. I am looking forward to watching the deputy minister appear at the public safety committee to inform the MPs that we have all just misunderstood the minister once again.

The reason firearms businesses have run out of stock is that as soon as this bill was announced, everyone with an RPAL went out to purchase a handgun before the freeze takes effect. Anyone who tries to phone the RCMP firearms centre right now will sit on hold for hours, as everyone is trying to purchase or transfer a firearm right now. How could the Minister of Public Safety go on national television and say something so erroneous? Does he actually believe what he is saying? He knows perfectly well that Bill C-21 is going to prevent Canada's RPAL holders from ever purchasing a handgun once this legislation passes.

The truth of the matter is that the Liberal government decided to target law-abiding firearms owners from the moment it came into office. The Liberals repealed various elements of the common sense firearms act that my colleague just talked about, Bill C-71. They deleted the sensible change of introducing an automatic authorization to transport firearms and they then removed any oversight of the classification of firearms.

Let us fast-forward to 2020, when the Liberals reclassified hundreds of firearms as “prohibited”. With the stroke of a pen, they made millions of firearms illegal to use in Canada. Some of these firearms have been in people's possession for decades, and now the government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase them so they can be destroyed.

If those hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on policing, social programs or literally anything, there would be a much better chance of reducing crime. Once again the government has failed to make a serious case for one of its bills, and in doing so, it is unnecessarily going after millions of law-abiding firearms owners who have done everything by the book.

According to Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation, “it is the experience of law enforcement that most of these guns are illegally obtained,” and I would add, “from the United States”.

As our Conservative shadow minister of public safety said in her speech, the committee recently studied guns and gangs and had a very robust debate. It had police and crime experts appear, and not one recommendation in its report was to ban handguns. That is because none of the experts, none of the police experts and none of the community anti-gang experts said that banning handguns would be a solution. All of them said that such an approach would not work.

In relation to some questions we just had, the committee heard from the Toronto police that over 85% of handguns used in violent crimes are smuggled in from the United States. From Quebec, Chief Inspector Benoît Dubé said that most firearms linked to crime seized in his province come from the United States. He said, “We need to focus our efforts on the borders between the United States and Canada.” According to Chief Inspector David Bernard from the Montreal city police service, approximately 80% of illegal firearms seized in Quebec have been smuggled in from the United States.

To date, we have seen very little evidence from the government to suggest that law-abiding firearm owners are responsible for the rise in firearm homicides and shootings. What we do have is a gang and organized crime problem in Canada. On a weekly basis, we are hearing about deadly shootings happening across the country. All this violence has led to the tragic loss of too many, and it is having an impact on countless communities and neighbourhoods.

According to the latest Statistics Canada data, there were 8,344 victims of police-reported violent crime in which a handgun was present during the commission of an offence, which is a rate of 29 per 100,000 population. Since the Liberals were elected in 2015, gun crime has gone up steadily each year, and for residents in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and other cities, gun violence is an everyday occurrence.

I have always stood for common sense firearm safety and strong consequences for those who commit firearms offences. If the Liberals had proposed a bill that explicitly focused on guns, gangs and criminals, they would have found a much more receptive audience on this side of the House.

For years, we have been calling on the government to address gun smuggling and improve the ability of border agents to prevent the flow of illegal firearms into Canada. I cannot and will not support legislation that specifically targets law-abiding firearms owners and ignores the root problems of illegal firearms.

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1:40 p.m.

Kingston and the Islands Ontario

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)

Madam Speaker, I listened to the intervention from the member and I could not help but reflect that he was here when the Conservatives were last in power. I realize that part of his argument, as it often is from the Conservatives on gun-related issues, is about cracking down on illegal guns that are coming across the border, but I cannot help but reflect on the previous government. He was part of that government, as he was a member of the Conservative Party when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, and that government actually significantly reduced funding that border services needed in order to crack down on this kind of stuff.

Can the member inform the House how he responded to that when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and he got to sit in a caucus meeting with him? Did he often and routinely raise the issue that the government of the day should not be removing money needed by border operations in order to crack down on this illegal activity?

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1:40 p.m.

Conservative

Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, as ill-informed as it might be.

I just wanted to say, though, that for the last three elections, if he has been paying any attention at all, this side of the House has been calling for greater efforts to stop smuggling guns into Canada. All of the police chiefs and heads of police in the provinces that I just spoke of in my speech—and I know he was listening to it, because that was what he was referencing—show us that 80% to 85% of these crimes are caused by illegal guns that have been smuggled into the country, and that is where our focus should be. That is where the dollars can be spent the best to try to prevent the unconscionable street crime that we are seeing.

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1:40 p.m.

Bloc

Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Brandon—Souris on his speech, and I have a message for him from the member for Jonquière, who wants to congratulate him on his hard work.

In Bill C‑21, the government opted to include a list of prohibited assault weapons, specifying models. Our colleague from Rivière-du-Nord suggested a completely different approach, which is to precisely define what constitutes an assault weapon so that weapons can be prohibited if they meet the criteria in the definition, not just if they are a certain model. What does my colleague from Brandon—Souris think of that?

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1:40 p.m.

Conservative

Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Jonquière for his compliments on my abilities.

This is exactly the point that my colleague was just trying to make: The government has never come up with a definition of an assault rifle. My colleague, as we know, has gone to great lengths to try to find that in all of the debates and in all of the information that is available today. The government cannot even define it for us.

That is why this legislation is such a flawed piece of work. It needs to go to the public safety committee so that it can come back, as was indicated by the member and my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound here, with recommendations that will really help fix the problem, instead of blaming law-abiding firearms owners.

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1:45 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Madam Speaker, I always enjoy hearing the member for Brandon—Souris speak and I have enjoyed my conversations with him as we have travelled across the country back and forth.

He said that the Conservatives are anti-crime, and I believe that, but there is a question that perplexes me. He knows, as he has been in the House for a long time, that when the Harper government was in power, it destroyed, gutted, the crime prevention programs right across the country.

In British Columbia, we had a very active crime prevention sector. It was gutted and eliminated, and it does not make sense, because for every dollar we invest in crime prevention, we save $6 in policing costs, in court costs and in jail costs. Putting in place effective crime prevention strategies and funding them adequately actually makes a great deal of sense.

Why did the Conservatives do that? Why did they gut crime prevention programs when we know they are very cost-effective and help to reduce crime?

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1:45 p.m.

Conservative

Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Madam Speaker, I respect my colleague as well. We have had many of those good conversations.

I want to say that it is not the registration of a firearm but the licencing of it that will help prevent crimes. The only difference is that firearms should be licensed according to their function, not their form.

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1:45 p.m.

Liberal

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

1:45 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House:

(a) on the day the House begins debate on the second reading motion of Bill C-28, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (self-induced extreme intoxication), no later than the ordinary hour of daily adjournment or when no member rises to speak during the debate, whichever is earlier, the bill shall be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole, deemed considered in Committee of the Whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at the report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed on division; and

(b) the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights be instructed to undertake a study on the subject matter of Bill C-28 when the business of the House resumes in September 2022, during the course of this study the Minister of Justice be invited to appear as a witness, and the committee report its findings to the House no later than Friday, December 16, 2022.

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1:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms), be read the second time and referred to a committee, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.