I can't imagine how this could be any more divisive

[robkelk]

The Government of Canada uses an Order In Council to ban the import of handguns.

Before the relevant legislation goes through the House and Senate.

I foresee a lot of "government overreach" complaints, even from people who think a handgun ban is a good idea.

EDIT: The closest equivalent in the USA to an Order In Council is an Executive Order, but an OIC requires Cabinet approval and can be written by any of a large number of Cabinet ministers who hold seats in the House.

[Labster]

Ah, I see Canada has gone for the American approach. You see, down here our politics are so broken that Congress simply can’t pass new policies, so major new policies like this are a negotiation between the President and the courts. Don’t worry, Congress still gets input by which judges they choose to reject. It’s a system.

And now Canada is joining us. Oh frappuccinous day!

[Dartz]

Time to open a handgun factory in Canada.

[robkelk]

I took a closer look at the order. (Which, by the way, is a Ministerial Order, not an Order In Council - which simply means that it came from a particular member of the Cabinet instead of from the Cabinet as a whole.)

Importing, sales, and purchases will all be prohibited, except for a few special cases that I haven't been able to find the definitions of (and probably won't until the regulations are actually posted).

And, the last time a reputable pollster did a poll, 67% of Canadians were in favour of a handgun ban. (The percentage is lower for a ban on rifles - there's still a hunting lobby in Canada.) So there isn't likely to be too much blowback on the regulations themselves, but the way they were put in place is another matter entirely.

[hazard]

The Ministerial Order is basically just the government going 'yeah, this is happening now', and the law currently going through the system will supplant it by design.

Claiming it is overreach is a rather... interesting thing to do.

[robkelk]

Claiming it is overreach is a rather... interesting thing to do.

Considering the stated reasons behind the month-long truckers protest earlier this year, and considering some people believed those reasons despite the facts, we live in ... interesting ... times.

[robkelk]

Bumping this because the regulations went into effect today.