Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admitted his government is using Bill C-21 to target some hunting rifles, but said that's because those firearms are "too dangerous in other contexts."."Our focus now is on saying 'OK, there are some guns, yes, that we're going to have to take away from people who were using them to hunt,'" Trudeau said.."But, we're going to also make sure that you're able to buy other guns from a long list of guns that are accepted that are fine for hunting, whether it's rifles or shotguns.".In mid-November, Hunters were outraged by an amendment to Bill C-21, which builds on a May 2020 regulatory ban of more than 1,500 models and variants of what the government calls "assault-style firearms.".The proposed amendment would ban rifles or shotguns "capable of discharging centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic manner [and] designed to accept a detachable cartridge magazine with a capacity greater than five cartridges of the type for which the firearm was originally designed."Tracey Wilson of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights called it the “largest gun ban in Canadian history," while indigenous leaders have said the firearms ban could violate their treaty rights.On Dec. 5, Trudeau told a crowd in Ingersoll, ON the Liberals' gun control legislation was being reviewed to ensure it wouldn't target legitimate gun use."That's what we're listening to, feedback on how to make sure that we're not capturing weapons that are primarily hunting weapons," he said.But on Monday, the prime minister told CTV News there are some firearms used for hunting that "unfortunately fall on the wrong side of the line."."Not many, but there are some that are slightly overpowered or have too large a magazine capacity or technical reasons like that," Trudeau said. "Nobody wants assault-style weapons anywhere in this country. You don't use them for hunting, and you shouldn't have them for any other reason." .However, the prime minister admitted more consultation is needed on the bill, especially when it comes to concerns among indigenous Canadians. ."We need to consult more and work with indigenous communities on it to make sure they understand we're not going after any of their traditional rights to hunt. Because obviously hunting is a huge part of life for many, many Canadians … and we fully respect that and we're going to protect that," he said.
