Philly mayor suggests US should adopt restrictive, Canadian-style gun laws

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney disparaged the Second Amendment and said that the only people who should have guns are police officers, and suggested that the US should adopt Canada-style gun laws.

Kenney made the comments after two police officers were shot during a fireworks display in Philadelphia during Fourth of July festivities on Monday. After this incident, Kenney said he was looking forward to leaving office.

"I was in Canada two weeks ago, I never thought about a gun," he said.

"The only people I knew that had guns in Canada were police officers," he said. "[The United States] is a gun country, it’s crazy. We’re the most armed country in world history and we’re one of the least safest."

"We have the second amendment and we have the Supreme Court of the United States telling people they can carry a gun wherever they want," he added.

Canada's gun laws vary widely from those in the US, as owning a firearm is not a protected right.

The Trudeau Liberals have also banned over 1,500 models of guns that they call "assault-style weapons," and have recently expanded background checks to "keep firearms out of the wrong hands." Gun crime has continued to increase in Canada, with the Trudeau government taking this as a queue that they should do more, despite the fact that most gun crime in Canada is perpetrated by illegal gun owners.

In late May, Trudeau announced that he would put forward legislation that would implement a national freeze on handgun ownership. "What this means is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in Canada."

Yesterday, Trudeau had a slip of the tongue where he said that Canada was "banning firearms," before saying that his government was simply "freezing" sales.

"Whether it's our most recent initiatives on banning—sorry, on freezing the market for firearms, which will start moving us in the right direction over the medium and long term."

Trudeau has also been critical of the United States for its gun laws, and falsely claimed that Canadians cannot use guns for self-defense.

"Two years ago, we banned all military style assault weapons ... and just a few weeks ago ... we moved forward on a total freeze on handguns."

"We will eventually get it passed," he said, "and then it'll be illegal to buy, sell, transfer, import, handguns anywhere in the county."

"There are debates," Trudeau continued, "and we have a culture where the difference is, guns can be used for hunting or for sport-shooting in Canada, and there are lots of gun owners, and they're mostly law-respecting and law abiding, but you can't use a gun for self-protection in Canada. That's not a right that you have in the Constitution or anywhere else."