Alberta pushes back against federal gun buyback effort

Albertans who use a gun to protect their families could be spared legal action under a new motion by the Alberta government.

The Alberta government is urging Crown prosecutors to think twice about charging someone who acts to defend themselves or others in their own homes.

Justice Minister Mickey Amery issued guidance effective last week to Crown prosecutors, saying that prosecuting for those offences will not be in the public interest.

Amery says Albertans should feel confident that they won’t be thrown in jail for defending themselves and their loved ones.

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“In the context of somebody coming into somebody’s home in Alberta, the guidelines to the prosecution will make it absolutely clear, that we have no public interest in prosecuting individual home owners from protecting their homes, their loved ones and themselves from the threat of somebody coming into that home,” Amery told media on Tuesday afternoon.

“The direction, advice and guidelines that will be issued to the prosecution, at least in my capacity as attorney general ... is that we want them to focus on priorities of serious and violent criminals.”

As part of a motion to be introduced in the legislature on Tuesday, Smith’s government is also directing provincial authorities not to enforce Ottawa’s gun buyback program or prosecute people under the federal rules.

The federal initiative aims to buy back more than 2,500 models of guns from their owners.

Amery’s motion argues the program is unconstitutional, and that the province has jurisdiction over property and civil rights.

Amery said that Alberta and other provinces, though, “are not buying into” the federal “scheme.”

“We know that Ontario and Saskatchewan, along with Alberta, have been very vocal and their intention to not cooperate with the federal government’s decision to implement this gun buyback program,” he said, adding he believes the $750-million federal effort “disproportionately impacts law-abiding, honest Canadians.”

Calgarian Robert Stewart owns a collection of firearms, along with one for long range competitions which he will have to give back. He is a happy the province is stepping to try and prevent him from having to give his firearm back.

“At least we live in a province where something is trying to be done,” said Stewart.

He also operates Shooting Warehouse Sport Optics, which accessories for firearms including scopes, optics, rifle optics and binoculars across Canada and the U.S. He says since the federal government announced the buyback program his sales are down 40-60 per cent for certain products.

“A lot of people are scared buying new products just because they don’t know whether more guns are going to be confiscated,” he said.

In a statement to CTV News Edmonton, federal public safety spokesperson Louis-Carl Brissette Lesage said Ottawa’s moves to remove “assault-style firearms from Canadian communities is one of the key ways to prevent gun violence and crime.”

Lesage said anyone possessing a prohibited firearm after Oct. 30 next year “will be breaking the law and could face criminal prosecution.”

“Should provincial laws put in place by the Alberta government impede or limit the collection process for compensation in the (federal program), those who participated in the declaration would not be directed to the next step of submitting a claim and scheduling an appointment,” he said. “They would have to export, deactivate or turn prohibited weapon in to police without compensation before the end of the amnesty periods or risk criminal liability, including for illegal possession.”

Over the weekend, Smith had told the ruling United Conservative Party’s annual convention her government would table the motion.

It will come under Smith’s flagship Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, which purports to allow the province to sidestep federal laws.

Smith said Albertans shouldn’t be prosecuted for defending their homes and families, and that the law needs to focus on going after criminals.

With files from CTV News Calgary’s Tyler Barrow and The Canadian Press