"The day this legislation goes into effect it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns in Canada," Trudeau explained to reporters.
If passed, the freeze on handguns is supposed to come into force in the autumn. Canada's public safety minister has tabled regulatory amendments in parliament to guarantee it can be implemented swiftly, according to a ministry announcement.
The killing last week of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas has fed concern regarding gun violence worldwide. Canada already has extremely stronger gun ownership limitations than its neighbor to the south.
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Canada banned the sale and use of some 1,500 models of assault weapons, like the AR-15 rifle, two years ago. Soon afterward, gun advocates marched to Parliament Hill throughout the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights in protest to the ban.
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Speaking alongside Trudeau, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino confirmed the "imminent launch of the initial phase" of a program to purchase back and compensate owners of such weapons.
Bill Blair, minister of emergency preparedness, announced that Canada is very different from the United States while taking a jab at its gun laws.
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"In Canada, gun ownership is a privilege not a right," Blair stated. "This is a principle that differentiates ourselves from many other countries in the world, notably our colleagues and friends to the south. In Canada, guns are only intended to be used for hunting and sport purposes."
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He further announced that guns are usually smuggled in illegally from the U.S., which he stressed has one of the largest small arms arsenals in the world.
The new legislation, Bill C-21, further suggests taking away the firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking.
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The legislation proposes stricter sentences for gun smugglers and traffickers, and seeks to provide law enforcement with new tools like wiretapping to stop gun crime, Mendicino announced.
The government will further require long-gun magazines to be permanently altered so they can never hold more than five rounds, and will ban the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines.
"Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives," Trudeau explained to reporters at a briefing.
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Canada's rate of firearm homicides is 0.5 per 100,000 people, compared with the U.S. rate of 4.12, according to a 2021 analysis by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
"Canada can teach us a lot," tweeted Bruce Heyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada under the Obama administration.
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