Long beleaguered by a gun-hating, freedom-hating government, Canadian gun owners once again find themselves under siege. On December 5, the government announced it had added another 324 guns to the nation’s already lengthy list of banned firearms.
Federal Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, in a press conference announcing the action, said the ban on guns that the current government calls “military-grade assault weapons” is effective immediately.
“This means these firearms can no longer be used, sold or imported in Canada and can only be transferred and transported under extremely limited circumstances,” LeBlanc said at the press conference, adding the outrageously false assertion that the newly added models and variants are, “made for battlefields, not for hunting.”
Rick Igercich, national president and CEO of Canada’s National Firearms Association, said the most-recent announcement increasing the number of guns on the banned list didn’t surprise his organization at all.
“It’s nothing more than smoke and mirrors,” said Igercich in an exclusive interview with America’s 1st Freedom. “The liberals are propped up by the New Democratic Party so have a majority in the House. This whole thing is nothing about public safety. It’s all about trying to garner votes and catering to special-interest groups.”
Igercich said that of the 324 guns just added to the list—which now totals between 1,800 and 2,000 guns when you count variants of listed guns—135 are already registered to Canadian gun owners. He said the government was well aware of that fact when it added those guns to the list.
“Since the amnesty has been extended to 2026, the government hasn’t started seizing them from users yet,” he said.
Igercich said that the latest list also includes guns made by two Canadian companies that designed the firearms to be compliant with the government’s ever-evolving definition of “assault weapon.”
“One was the Kodiak Defence WK180C, which is on the banned list now,” he said. “The other one is the Lockhart Tactical Raven. These firearms were produced after the original ban to fit within the government regulations; in fact, they were designed to comply with the ever-shifting specifications. But now these firearms are on the chopping block, and both of these firearms producers are in a bad position with millions of dollars in inventory.”
The newest list even includes two pistol-caliber carbines recently reviewed in America’s 1st Freedom in 2024—the Smith & Wesson M&P FPC and Ruger LC Carbine 45. As Igercich said, neither should be considered “military-grade assault weapons.”
“One thing that’s notable is that they included a lot of pistol-caliber carbines on the new list,” he said. “I don’t know what their reasoning was behind that. If you go back to the original ban in 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland actually made a statement at the time that they did ban some of these guns because they looked scary.”
While the Canadian government hasn’t begun confiscating banned guns from private owners yet, it has started pressuring licensed gun dealers who have some of those guns in their inventory to give them up on somewhat of a “voluntary” basis. According to Igercich, the first phase of a so-called “buyback” of the guns and parts from firearm businesses is now underway.
“They did start seizing guns from industry people last Friday in Quebec,” he said. “They started going around to gun shops doing this so-called ‘buyback.’ The government never owned them in the first place. Hard-working Canadians worked and paid taxes to buy those firearms. There are a lot of mom-and-pop gun shops out there that have a few of these firearms or AR-15 uppers or lowers in stock. They’re coming to take these, and right now it’s strictly voluntary. But that’s going to change shortly.”
Igercich believes that the Liberal government currently in charge won’t stop until it ensures that no citizens can own firearms for any purpose.
“The ultimate goal of the Canadian government is to get rid of all civilian gun ownership in Canada,” he said. “That is a United Nations mandate, and the mandate says to get rid of all civilian-owned firearms by the year 2030. The current government is all-in on that idea. Our current prime minister [Justin Trudeau] has aspirations of a high-level seat in the United Nations, and that’s why he’s working in that direction. But this is nothing new. We’ve been fighting this stuff since our inception in 1978.”
In the end, Igercich said the only hope for Canadian gun owners is a change in government, and he is hopeful that change could be coming soon.
“We’re looking at a government change up here, just like you Americans down there needed that big government change,” he said. “I’ve met personally with the opposition candidate, Pierre Poilievre. He has assured gun owners that he is going to get rid of this Order-in-Council banning these firearms. In that case, the guns will go back into normal circulation.
“While our best hope right now is a government change, we do have some stuff for backup. I’m working with our legal team to figure out how to challenge some of this latest stuff. I can’t comment on it right now, but there are definitely options.”
