The Australian program did no such thing. Data show no statistically significant deviation from the preexisting trend. See page nine of my SECU brief, submitted with @Dr_Langmann, which summarizes the major research on this. It is linked in the next post.

There is indeed much wrong with this article. Parliament isn't evaluating the SKS; it was done anonymously, behind closed doors. Parliament was instrumental in getting the government's previous SKS ban in C-21 withdrawn, but the government seems to want another outcome. (1/3)

The recommendations aren't PSC's (though PSC chose the panel). PSC has adopted some of them; they banned some guns on the list last March. The government 'must' not complete the ASFCP by October. They have options, from the good (repeal) to neutral (delay) to bad (many). (2/3)

"...Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to grant cabinet ministers the power to exempt any individual or company from any federal law on the books — except for the Criminal Code — for up to six years." thestar.com/politics/politic…

It's about halfway through Bill C-15 under "Exemptions to Encourage Innovation, Competitiveness or Economic Growth".

The Final report from the Expert Advisory Panel on Firearms came out today. This will be a bit of a long post. The Panel - whose identities and expertise the government refused to disclose, so we can't determine their expertise - examined firearms on the so-called 'gap list'. These were the firearms that Liberals on SECU attempted to prohibit by adding the G4/G46 amendments to C-21, which were eventually withdrawn due to strong disagreement from Committee and Parliament, but which were included in later OICs anyway. The panel seems solely concerned with hunting purposes. They only mention firearms in the context of hunting, and never in defensive or farming use. Sport shooting is ignored where the firearm is used for sport shooting, or dismissed as secondary to public safety needs (no evidence is provided for this), but a firearm's lack of perceived use for sport shooting is used as a reason for a ban when it isn't. They recommend the prohibition of most items on the 'gap list', excluding some rifles - however, they suggest the government consider banning all semi-auto rifles with detachable magazines, all modified semi-autos, and any rifles which fire handgun ammunition. They also recommend prohibition on additional items not on the list, including rotary magazine shotguns. The panel also recommends banning the SKS if it has been modified to accept a detachable magazine. The panel still repeats Kim Campbell's outdated and inaccurate 'assault weapon' language without question and uses 'assault-style' as a term of fact. It's rather odd for an expert panel to use this terminology. The panel recommends that these bans be done by Order in Council. They suggest this as a stopgap while the classification regime (which they obliquely acknowledge that OICs broke in the first place) be simplified. Unfortunately, as expected, they want to do this through expanding prohibitions. The panel repeats the government language that these firearms are particularly dangerous (evidence writ large indicates otherwise). They seem to accept this prima facie. The panel does not cite much evidence for this beyond quoting Kim Campbell and the Mass Casualty Commission. The public report doesn't grapple with whether Canada's system has largely worked (1) (the MCC case used smuggled guns; Kim Campbell spoke prior to the current Firearms Act and both her and Chretien deliberately did not ban these guns). In short: this would be one of the strictest gun control regimes in terms of prohibitions in the Western world, it will expand, and there's no particular evidence in favour of it. However, all the signals are that the government intends to push forward. NB: The panel actually submitted this report last January. It's coming out a year later. 1: It's possible they did grapple with it in another place. Sections of the report are redacted.