Published Monday, May 4, 2020

Canada bans assault-style weapons

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday a ban on assault-style weapons following the slaying of 22 people in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history, reported Voice of America Journal.

In his announcement broadcast on Canadian television, Trudeau said the ban applied to 11 categories of assault rifles and other weapons, saying they “were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada.”

The ban would take effect immediately, said VOA in its report.

The action followed last month's shooting rampage in Nova Scotia. While government officials said the move had been planned for some time and was not a direct response to that incident, Trudeau mentioned the victims, who included a police officer, in his remarks.

“Their families deserve more than thoughts and prayers,” he said, “Canadians deserve more than thoughts and prayers."

Officials said the ban would apply to about 125,000 weapons.

On April 24, Police officials in Canada revealed more details about last weekend’s shooting rampage in rural Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead, the worst mass killing in the nation’s history.

At a news briefing in Dartmouth, near Halifax, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Darren Campbell said the shooting rampage started on the evening of Saturday, April 18, with an assault by the suspect — identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman — on his girlfriend, said VOA report.

Campbell said the woman managed to escape Wortman and survived by hiding overnight in the woods. He suggested her escape may have set off the events that followed, though he is not discounting the possibility Wortman may have planned some of the murders that followed.

Campbell said police found 13 deceased victims in the rural community of Portapique, where the suspect lived part-time.

There were several homes on fire, including the suspect's, when police arrived in the community. Campbell said the suspect had a pistol and several long-barreled guns. They found several dead in and outside homes.

Campbell said at about 6:30 a.m. that Sunday, Wortman's girlfriend emerged from hiding in the woods, called 911 and gave police detailed information about the suspect, including that he was driving a mock police car and was in police uniform.

More than an hour later, police started receiving 911 calls more than 35 miles away. Campbell said the suspect killed three people he knew and set the house on fire. 

After shooting and killing a number of other people over the next several hours, including a female police officer, the suspect was shot to death at 11:26 on April 19, about 13 hours after the attacks began.

Police have said Wortman carried out much of the attack disguised as a police officer in a vehicle marked to seem like a patrol car. Campbell said he had a few cars that police believe were former police vehicles. His home was destroyed by fire.

Residents who knew him say Wortman, who owned a denture practice in Dartmouth, lived part-time in Portapique. His Atlantic Denture Clinic had been closed the past month because of the coronavirus pandemic.


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