Edward Burlew: The federal government gun buyback program has faced some blowback, but will it actually make Canadians safer? Edward Burlew is a lawyer who specialises in firearm cases, and Irvin Waller is professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa and author of The Science and Secrets of Ending Violent Crime. Great to have you in studio, Edward. Thank you. Great to have you on the line, Irvin. Edward, I'm going to start with you. The federal firearms buyback program is nearing its deadline for registration. It's 31st of March. What do you believe the program will accomplish?

Irvin Waller: It's not going to accomplish much. It hasn't so far. By the way, you used the word registration. It's not. It's called declaration.

Edward Burlew: Okay.

Irvin Waller: What that means in very plain terms is I, as a gun owner would declare, I have this gun, this gun and the other gun. Some of the guns are already were registered. They know about those. Some may be the one that the minister talks about, which is the Ruger Mini 14, which was always non-restricted. They wouldn't know I have that unless I say I have it. I put on my declaration. The declaration is not a contract. It does not obligate the government to pay me anything for that gun, no matter where or how it's surrendered.

Edward Burlew: Now, the government has said that they hope that this program results in fewer mass casualty events. Does this program do that at all?

Irvin Waller: I would say no, because for the last six years, since May of 2020, when they did the Big Grab or the big announcement that made the AR 15 and another. About 2000 1500 actual guns, types of guns and models prohibited. They haven't been used in mass casualty in Canada. And it's significant to look at the Canadian situation of licensing, compliance, regulation and constant eligibility because we have very strict and demanding laws that govern our ownership of handguns and all guns. In fact.

Edward Burlew: Irvin, I want to get you in here. Let's talk about the declaration. What do you believe that the program will accomplish given what Edward has said?

Irvin Waller: Well, it looks as if it will eventually bring in. Who knows, 50, 60,000 guns, assault style guns. My interest is very much what policies will actually reduce the number of homicides. And it's very clear that this action really going back so many years and inspired a little bit by Australia, is not going to save a lot of lives.

Edward Burlew: All right, with that being said, it seems like a drop in the bucket when we talk about exactly, you know, how many guns are actually going to be declared here. You as a lawyer, you represent the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. That's correct. I'm hoping and among other groups, and I want to help us understand how is the buyback program being viewed among legal gun owners at the moment?

Irvin Waller: Well, we do have some that are participating by doing the declaration, but by and large, they've developed a wait and see look, because they understand that there's limited amount of funds and there's no guarantee they'll get paid. That's of course a big motivation. And the other one is that they say it's voluntary. Well, right now it is voluntary to make a declaration. But come the end of October.

Edward Burlew: 31st.

Irvin Waller: Then it's no longer voluntary. And there's a lot of risk. Two things have developed. Number one, the response to the voluntary declaration expiring on the today has been less than robust. And now the Supreme Court will be hearing the appeal of the challenge that may defeat the order in Council, and that may be argued in September.

Edward Burlew: So not very straightforward. A bit confusing for some gun owners who might be wondering where they stand in the law.

Irvin Waller: Very much so. Very confusing. People are seeking direction and we're not really getting that. We're getting the same statements, which still are the law today, there's no doubt about it. But things may change. We don't know. And people are looking at these maybes.

Edward Burlew: Okay, Irvin, much of the focus, as you mentioned, firearms like AR 15, critics often say that that's a weapon designed really for military purposes. So I am curious from that perspective, do you think taking them out of civilian circulation would make things safer?

Irvin Waller: Well, yes, but very marginally. We know that AR 15 are used significantly in mass shootings in the United States. You have to remember that mass shootings still only account for 1 or 2% of all homicides in the United States. We also know that mass shootings have been increasing over the last decade in the United States. So, yes, potentially there may be more mass shootings in Canada involving assault style weapons, but it's hypothetical, and I think unlikely to lead to loss. A lot of mass shootings, there are much better things that they could be doing to reduce deaths from from guns in, in, in Canada. And they're not doing that everywhere.

Edward Burlew: I'll get your take on that.

Well, I agree, and I'd like to work with him on with Professor Waller to work on a strategy. One of the things we've been pushing for about three years and me about ten years through this Canadian Shooting Sports Association, is to develop better police powers. For instance, when a person is found guilty of something, some act of violence, it could just be an assault. They're given a prohibition or order by the court. Prohibition order means you can't touch a gun, right? You can't pick one up. And that goes sometimes lifetime, mostly 5 to 10 years. But those people don't have to say where they live. They're not subject to police inspection. They don't have any reporting. We would like that changed. We would like that as and this is the majority of gun owners like this. When I talk to the police about it, you know, in courts and other sessions, they say, please do it. And we would very much like to see this done so that those people with prohibition orders can be traced. They can be held accountable because as gun owners, we are just give them the same sanction of reporting that we are subject to. And the courts have found that the sanctions we are facing are constitutional. We did nothing wrong. And we're saying we're not saying loosen them to us, but put other people under them. That will make a significant difference, because you can see it in the reports that we see every day. So and so was arrested. He had a gun. He was he was already under a probation or prohibition order that would go along way.

Irvin Waller: I want to take a step back here. Help me understand there are probably viewers and listeners who are wondering, why do people need to have an AR 15?

Edward Burlew: Well, first of all, let me define something after that highly tragic event. The Canadian government immediately changed the law about cartridge magazines. Semi-automatic rifles were restricted to five rounds, period.

Irvin Waller: That's it.

Edward Burlew: That's it. So the AR 15 seconds can only shoot five rounds legally. That's all you can have. It's used primarily in competition sports. And those competition sports are sanctioned through Canadian bodies, international bodies which are actually larger bodies than the Olympic Foundation. And the first thing all those sanctioning bodies do, be it IDPA or IPSC. Are give increased safety rules and you have to have accuracy and you have to have safety rules that you learn on top of the other safety rules that exist. And that's the reason why people have that and they participate in that way. That's what they're used for in Canada.

Irvin Waller: I want to get Edward in here, but I do have a quick follow up here. You mentioned rules, and one of the things that I have to ask is, well, criminals don't follow a lot of those rules.

Edward Burlew: None of them. They don't. They flaunt them. They, they, they absolutely flaunt them.

Edward Burlew: Is there a fear that if people are aren't following the rules, then we're. Does this open up concerns and issues that, you know, if we put in these policies that you had mentioned, will people who are taking advantage of are criminals will continue to do what they do?

Irvin Waller: Well, I think a criminal will continue to flaunt rules, but it gives the the police access to where they are, to their homes, to their cars and to checking up on them. And that's very important because these are the people who have been found to be violent or be violent with guns, and they need to be watched. They need to have sanctions.

Edward Burlew: All right. Very good. I want to get Irvin in here. Unlike the AR 15, handguns are often used, as you mentioned, in crimes in Canada. But they are now controlled by legislation in initially with a handgun freeze in 2022, then became law in 2023. Does the focus on handguns better address the root causes of some of these? Some of the gun violence that we're seeing?

Irvin Waller: Absolutely not. And of course, the way that the government did it, they actually expanded the number of people who were owning handguns. But I don't think the legal owners of handguns are the major issue in urban areas. So in urban areas, we know about how to stop that gun handgun violence before it happens south of the border. There is being dramatic changes in handgun homicides and really brought about not by handgun controls, but by tackling the causes and risk factors that lead to young men using these guns.

Edward Burlew: Edward, I'm going to get your take on here, but I do want to get an understanding of what is working and what is not. Canada's gun control framework includes licensing, storage and enforcement rules. Where is it succeeding? Where is it falling short?

Irvin Waller: Well, it's succeeding in the training. The mandatory training. In the control by storage, transport where we can shoot. It's being successful. It's also being successful in mental health issues. A lot of what I do is counseling, arranging, counseling and and working with people who've had problems psychologically with and then police get their guns. We have tremendously strong laws about that and instantaneous police response to any type of suicide threat or threat of, of harm to others. And that's been built into the law for at least 35 years. So I fully agree with with the professor here that there are other things to do. One of the things I would really like to see, and when I talk with other people, we would like to see our Prime Minister go down and talk with the president of the United States and say, stop the flow of illegal handguns into Canada. Do all you can that that's what's created this epidemic of handgun violence. The statistics on Toronto are that 96% of the the crime guns that they recover have been smuggled. And and that that has to be stopped.

Edward Burlew: All right. Now, the province last week in their budget announced some money towards securing the the border dealing with sort of gaps in enforcement there to the tune of about 32 million for next year. That would part of that would be going to that. Is that a good sign?

Irvin Waller: It's a very good sign. But, you know, CBSA is federal. Yeah. Here's an interesting fact. The Bureau of Alcohol, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is down in the United States. They they are the gun control people in the United States. They know everything about them. They have offices in Toronto, in headquarters in Toronto and at Pearson Airport. And we work our our people in Canada who are in, in, in enforcement. They work with them as one unit. Okay. And that's very good. And I'm glad to see that. And that's existed for decades.

Edward Burlew: Irvin. Well, both of you had mentioned Public Safety Canada. So I'm going to want to put you guys in their shoes. If you were in charge of Public Safety Canada. Irvin, what's the first thing that you would do to prevent a tragedy from happening in the future when it comes to using guns?

Irvin Waller: I would appoint a deputy minister to lead violence reduction strategies across Canada, and that person would have a team of a small team of people who are knowledgeable on how you tackle the risk factors, what sorts of programs that have worked, and they would help cities and regional government and indigenous groups across the country do the planning that is necessary to get effective programs implemented. And that is basically what the UK did on a national basis, and it's what the US did on a national basis. Today, there are over 100 cities in the US that have a planning group like that, and we effectively don't have one. And then you have to inject, invest the funds. It's maybe the equivalent of 5% of what was spending federally on reaction to, to crime in getting those programs implemented. We are today all in Ontario. In 2019, the Ontario government changed their police act to call it the Community Safety and Police Act, section 251. And around there, talk about the the type of planning group that is now spread across the UK and as spread across many cities in, in, in the US. But legislation is not enough. You have to actually do the things that bring this legislation to life. The Mass Casualty Commission, the largest mass casualty in recent Canadian history. Yes, it recommended some measures relating to safer safety in relation to guns, but also recommended exactly what I'm talking about. The community safety strategies that are the secret to actually getting significant reductions in homicides in across Canada.

Edward Burlew: All right. Just very quickly, you get the last word here, Edward. But looking forward, what's the most realistic path to reducing firearm violence while respecting legal ownership?

Irvin Waller: I would say this, I'd say that the the federal government needs to appoint the 50 plus judges into the Superior Court of the Ontario of Ontario, which has been in a deficit, having only about 150 judges and 200 are needed to then give us the judicial resources and to create a fast track court to deal with gun violence, with weapons violence offenses so that they don't take two years, three years to get through court, so that they can be brought to court within months. And that as well, the judges would respect the grounds for release right now, which is the tertiary ground, which is that the release of a person after violence, after gun violence, weapons violence, if they're released, that brings justice into dispute because certainly people are feeling that the press is saying that. Police are saying that. Politicians are saying that. That tertiary ground needs to have more respect, and we need to once the the the gangsters, those people who are prone to this type of violence, whether gangs or individuals, realise that they will be dealt with quickly, that will be another deterrence as well as what Professor Waller has said, which is tremendously useful.

Edward Burlew: All right. We are going to have to leave it there. Edward, Irvin, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for your insights.

Irvin Waller: Thank you.