We know that most Canadians don't seem interested in handing their guns over to the government, as Amy Curtis noted earlier today. In fairness, though, not every registered gun owner has a gun covered by this buyback, so it's probably not as bad as some have suggested it is.
But it ain't good, as we now have numbers for the so-called buyback, and it's laughable.
I mean, Canadians are generally considered to be a pretty polite and laid-back people who follow the rules, at least when compared to us. The number of people who actually took advantage of the "buyback," though, are almost what we'd expect to see in the United States.
Public Safety Canada says gun owners reported more than 67,000 banned firearms to the federal government as a first step toward receiving compensation in a buyback program.
The tally is about half the number of firearms the federal government expected to be eligible when the program opened in mid-January.
Officials had earmarked almost $250 million in compensation to cover about 136,000 firearms.
Since May 2020, Ottawa has outlawed about 2,500 types of firearms, including the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14, on the basis they belong only on the battlefield.
Prohibited firearms and devices must be disposed of or deactivated by the end of an amnesty period on Oct. 30, regardless of whether gun owners take part in the compensation program.
Public Safety says owners who do not comply could face criminal sanctions and the loss of their firearm possession and acquisition licence.
The deadline for declaring interest in the program was Tuesday of this week.
Public Safety said Wednesday the program will continue to complete declarations for gun owners who opened a case file but experienced problems, as well as for Canadian Armed Forces and law enforcement members working outside Canada.
That's fewer than half of the total expected.
While it's probably still higher than you'd see here in the US, it's still ridiculously low.
Most of the guns in Canada aren't covered by this ban. Most hunting rifles that aren't semi-automatic, for example, aren't part of this and won't be part of anything like this anytime soon. Eventually, they'll probably be called "sniper rifles" and taken away, too, but that's down the road. Here and now, they're safe.
Handguns are also registered, but they're not being rounded up, either. You can't do anything with a handgun currently because the leftist loons that run the country are terrified of good guys with firearms, but they're still technically legal to own.
Still, it seems that a lot of Canadian's don't really care all that much about what their government has to say about things. While that may create some problems for them, I respect the stand. I guess we're going to find out how firm that stand actually is in the coming weeks and months, but for now, I'll be very surprised if the rest of those with these guys decide to bend the knee.
After all, if you're not going to get money for it, why hand it over at all? Especially when that option was on the table, and you refused to take it.
Good for them.