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Letter: Conservative gun policies not ‘securing the future’

It’s time to take community action and reduce access to assault weapons and illegal handguns
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Conservative gun policies not ‘securing the future’

“Secure the Future” for children, while allowing semi-automatic weapons on B.C.’s city streets? Really?

Alana Delong tweets out images of a child holding up her sign with the Conservative Party campaign slogan “Secure The Future”. I just don’t get how a Cowichan Valley candidate, who presumably cares about a child’s future, can promote or even support a platform that pledges to repeal Bill C-71 and reverse the ban on assault-style rifles [Editor’s note: the Conservative platform on this issue has changed mid-campaign, with federal leader Erin O’Toole now stating that the ban will remain in effect pending a review].

Firearms, like the controversial AR-15 and the gun used by the perpetrator of the 1989 Montréal Massacre, the Mini-14, would again be legal. In addition, this party plans to investigate a “simplified classification system” for firearms that could actually make semi-automatic rifles much easier to acquire and use. It seems obvious to me that change is long overdue, and people must come before lobbyists and their political party affiliates. It’s time to take community action and reduce access to assault weapons and illegal handguns, not the opposite…for the sake of all children, now and in the future.

Denise Leighton

Duncan