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The owner of a Regina gun shop believes gun owners earned a small victory Friday.
The federal Liberal government announced Friday that a proposed amendment to its gun bill has been withdrawn.
Ottawa has been under fire from provinces, hunters and First Nations about the proposed ban, which would have banned dozens more semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, many of which are primarily used for hunting.
Opponents said the measure unfairly targeted many commonly used rifles and shotguns.
Darryl Schemenauer, the owner of TnT Gunworks in Regina, said the change was huge for gun owners.
“We hope there’s going to be more pushback on the other bills that are going through,” he said.
Schemenauer added while the news was welcome, no one was told by the federal government that the amendment was being removed.
He said nobody wanted the amendment or the ban in the first place.
“There wasn’t many provinces for this. I mean, the big cities that have issues with firearms that are normally illegally brought in and (have seen) crime done with those firearms, those are the people that don’t understand,” he said.
Schemenauer believes the lists are put together by people that do not know anything about firearms.
“The biggest issues are in the bigger cities down east where these guns are coming across the border; they’re being smuggled,” he said. “That’s where (federal officials) should put their time and effort and money into.
“Leave the hunting community alone. They’re not a problem within society with firearms.”
He added in the hunting community he has not heard of one person in favour of the bills.
“It’s going after their personal property, even Bill C-71. There’s still lots of firearms that have been banned that customers and people are holding until government comes up with a buyback program, which I still don’t think there will ever be one,” Schemenauer explained.
He also said hunters and sports shooters are law-abiding gun owners.
“They’re just being picked on because of something that is out of our control down east,” Schemenauer said.
He added all of the bans have impacted his store’s sales with Bill C-71 taking away the handguns, which was 30 per cent of sales.
“(Federal officials) are dealing with 20 to 30 per cent. Pretty soon we’ll have nothing to sell as a gun sporting good store,” Schemenauer said.
He believes the whole ban is punishing anyone in the gun or sporting goods world.
Meanwhile, a customer at TnT Gunworks, Brittany Knoll, is welcoming the news of the amendment being withdrawn.
“It’s super, super-awesome. (I’m) super-excited. I love it. It’s good news,” she said.
Knoll is a frequent shooter who participates in ski shooting and hunting.
“It would’ve been devastating. A lot of our pastimes include rifles, shotguns — all of that stuff. So it would’ve really sucked for our family for sure,” she said.
Schemenauer said while he does welcome the change, he feels something else is coming.
“I think the Liberals will come back and put a new list together and they’re going to take some hunting rifles. But they will put a new list out and I don’t think they ever will give up,” he said.
