October 1st, 2022 | grant johnson

now is the time to buy a gun

Police and governments won't protect you from their own inadequacies and the growing insanity of progressivism.

“This gun is liberty; hold for certain that the day when you no more have it, you will be returned to slavery.”

—Toussaint Louverture

If you’re a conservative, you need to buy a gun. In 2020, Trudeau began arbitrarily banning guns he deemed “assault weapons”, and in May of 2022 he implemented a de facto handgun ban by decree. If you think that this isn’t building toward a total gun ban, then you’re very naïve.

We’ve been here before of course. Back in the 90’s, the Liberals brought in a gun registry program that was highly contentious and vigorously fought. Ultimately, Harper’s Conservatives half-heartedly ended that program (half-heartedly because it was a great fundraising tool that riled people up and made them part with their money), but when Trudeau’s Liberals returned to power the gun registry in spirit returned.

I’ve never been much of a gun guy. I enjoyed shooting a .22 rifle when I was a kid and I’ve been to a shooting range to try out handguns. I went skeet shooting with shotguns once. But hunting always seemed like an expensive hassle and the hoops you have to jump through to acquire and maintain firearms was enough for me not to bother pursuing that interest.

But now I’m doing it. Why now?

1. Justin Trudeau’s handgun ban

No debate. No parliament. Just a decree from the Liberal power centre that handguns are banned. (Don’t get pedantic, I know they aren’t “banned”, but when you can’t import them for sale until you pass a real ban, they are effectively banned.)

This is a frightening leap forward in progressive flexing. The increasing cascade of progressive policy should be a wake-up call for complacent conservatives. Just hoping Pierre Poilievre wins the next election or slapping a F*ck Trudeau sticker on your car isn’t preparative enough. These are not normal times and banning handguns is a big deal.

How much of a stretch is it going to be to ban all guns?

2. The progressive hegemony is going insane

The religion of woke progressivism that is embraced by our elites and forced upon nations in the West is getting extremely muscular and increasingly insane. The World Economic Forum mantras of “eat the bugs, live in the pod, own nothing and be happy” aren’t just memes and conservative complaints anymore.

Liberals in the 90’s were annoying, but they didn’t reside on another planet. They still had pragmatism and reality on their side. Today, in our post-woke progressive world these people are a danger to civilization. Our leadership is not on our side, they are against us and they fear us, especially those of us interested in guns, which is all the more reason you need one.

3. Covid madness

Never forgot the collective insanity of the world between March of 2020 and March of 2022. People are already beginning to forget how quickly and thoroughly people turned against each other. How quickly and thoroughly our rights and freedoms were dismissed as trivial. How devastating our hyper-overreaction to this event has been.

I’ll never forget what took place and it will guide a lot of my decision making going forward. Our institutions can’t be trusted. Our civilization rests on a razor’s edge. People are one bad cold away from losing their minds.

Prepare accordingly.

4. Law enforcement in Canada is not reliable

It’s taken me a long time to accept this, because as a conservative I am inclined to be a “support the police” type of guy. Not because I mindlessly defer to authority, but because I recognize the truth about humanity and the need for good guys to protect people from bad guys.

The problem is that our law enforcement is nothing of the sort. We exist in a state of anarcho-tyranny. Police are bureaucrats mindlessly enforcing a now suspect system. Drive through an empty street and come to a rolling stop at an intersection and they’ll be right on you with a $300 ticket. Get your car stolen and they will barely be bothered to look for it.

The policing antics during Covid severely undermined my trust and respect for law. The constant Keystone Kops displays during big events over time (I need not outline them all here) has dropped any pretense of a highly efficient and dutiful force. The list of scandals and controversies is long and listen, I get that over time any organization is going to have deficits and mistakes, but I think reasonable people among us need to have a realistic assessment of what our police are able and willing to offer us. I’m not anti-cop, I’m just pro-reality.

If you’re in trouble don’t count on the cops to solve anything for you or save you in a pinch. Self-reliance is more important than ever, and this includes having access to firepower if needed.

5. My Venezuelan neighbours

My neighbours moved to Alberta from Venezuela before the collapse. As South Americans they are used to volatile political situations. The one lady I talk with is originally from Chile and was there during the Allende years when the country was heading towards communism. We talked about Venezuela and the Maduro regime, and her assessment is this… “They’re Communists. If you don’t kill them, they won’t leave.”

Unfortunately, this has yet come to pass, but in the meantime, Venezuelans are dealing with “civilizational collapse” levels of crime.

If crime gets to the point in which marauders are breaking into homes with the owners inside and murdering them for whatever they have left in the fridge, you’d benefit from having a firearm.

Do average people in Venezuela have firearms? No, because they were banned in 2012. Then the country collapsed and crime soared.

“BuT ThAt WilL NeVer HapPeN iN CANAdAAAA!!!”

Yeah sure. Of course not. Now excuse me while I go buy a gun.

6. The U.S. failure in Afghanistan

People used to make jokes, Joe Biden included, about how silly the notion was that citizens needed guns in order to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. “You seriously think your AR-15 is enough to stop a nuclear armed government with a professional military!?!? Grow up!”

Then the Taliban took back Afghanistan after twenty years of struggle. Bunch of greasy guys in robes with AK-47’s living in caves and herding yaks took down the greatest military power the world has ever seen. This is only thirty years after having already done it to the Soviet Union… the second-greatest military power the world has ever seen.

Don’t underestimate the power of a determined man with a tool. A simple rifle is power.

Afghanistan 2021 proved it.

“No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.”

- James Burgh

So where did I begin?

I got on the internet and searched for PAL (Possession and Acquisition License) classes. These classes are commonly held and readily available. It should cost roughly $200 and will take one eight-hour day of in-class instruction. I signed up and they gave me a thick book to pre-study for the class.

On the day of the class there were eleven people attending. The demographics were wildly disparate. From a little Asian woman to rural bubbas to a couple of young Sikh brothers, guns appeal to everyone.

We had an ex-RCMP guy teaching us the class and he peppered his instruction with Dirty Harry references and funny videos of dudes with guns doing things incorrectly and paying the price. At the lunch break we got to play around with a variety of rifles and shotguns and practice the process of safety checking them and getting a feel for the different models.

You then do a practical exam in which you must safety proof and load and unload a bolt action rifle, a hinge-style double barrel shotgun and a pump-action shotgun. You identify some ammunition and then write a multiple-choice test.

It’s not hard, but I am pretty sure not everyone passed. The people doing the class want you to succeed because then you can spend money at their store of course, so they try really hard to ensure that you are ready for the tests. If you’re of normal intelligence most of this is common sense, which is why they test, do you have common sense?

Then you fill out a package of paperwork and get your picture taken and send it all to the government… and wait. (I mailed my package in early July and still haven’t received my PAL license.)

Aside from the general philosophy of gun ownership and the worst-case scenario hypotheticals, the culture of firearms ownership is very much in line with our side of politics. I don’t necessarily mean every gun enthusiast is a Conservative in the partisan sense, but the mentality of our side, self-sufficiency, tradition, conservation (not environmentalism), outdoor living, grit, and responsibility… it’s all a hallmark of people who take up arms.

However far you want to go with firearms activity…you can…from massive fancy collections, to hunting tournaments to sport shooting and gun clubs…it all starts with your license and your purchase. With the trajectory of woke-progressive Liberals in Ottawa, your opportunity to do all of this may be coming to an end. At least if you start now, you may be able to stay ahead of the coming bans and confiscations or be grandfathered in should a ban take place.

If we’re lucky and the worst-case scenarios of crime, collapse or tyranny don’t come to pass, well, you’ve got yourself an insurance policy, a collector’s item, and an opportunity to cultivate some community and enjoy a new hobby.

Happy shooting!