Gun Control

Growing up in a decidedly left-wing household, I was lectured on a regular basis about the dangers and evils of firearms and the horrible kinds of people who own them. This despite the fact that my father kept a .22 rifle hidden in the basement. Granted, a .22 does not pack the firepower of most other guns, but on rare occasions when he thought he could get away with it, my dad would take me out plinking with the admonition that I keep it on the sly, since my mother would have, shall we say, “registered her disapproval.” Very adamantly.

A new study suggests otherwise.

Gun sales in the U.S. exploded last year, first when the Covid-19 pandemic reached our shores and again when the death of George Floyd set off a wave of protests and violence in cities. Some commentators maintain that these sales in fact fueled the violence—a theory that fits nicely with some advocates’ preexisting priorities. President Biden and his team have been especially eager to turn the conversation about the abrupt crime spike into a conversation about guns and gun dealers.

OTTAWA — The parliamentary budget officer says it could cost the government $756 million to buy back guns now prohibited in the country, depending on how many there are in Canada and how the Liberals structure the program.

The high-end buyback figure is the budget officer’s estimate for how much it would cost for the government to buy back every gun that the industry estimates is owned across Canada.

An analysis has revealed that more than three-fifths of all U.S. counties are so-called “Second Amendment sanctuaries” after a number of states this year passed legislation declaring them as such.

The website, Sanctuary Counties, found on June 20 that there are now 1,930 counties that are “protected by Second Amendment Sanctuary legislation at either the state or county level,” representing 61 percent of all counties.