Cii Radio|Ayesha Ismail|31 May 2018| 15 Ramadaan 1439
Boufeldja Benabdallah knows the shooting at his mosque could have been much worse.
When a gunman entered the largest mosque in Quebec City on January 29, 2017, with an assault weapon and a handgun, he intended to kill as many people as possible, said Benabdallah, president of the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre.
But Alexandre Bissonnette’s assault weapon jammed.
“It’s a weapon of war; it wasn’t a toy or a hunting rifle,” said Benabdallah. “If it hadn’t jammed, he would have created a carnage 10 times worse because he would have killed everyone inside [the mosque].”
Bissonnette began his attack with a .223-calibre VZ58, a semi-automatic, Czech rifle that is legal in Canada and can be equipped with large-capacity magazines.
He also had two 30-cartridge magazines in his possession, which are illegal.
Canadian laws currently limit magazines to five or 10 bullets, depending on the firearm.
When the weapon jammed on the first shot, Bissonnette switched to a nine-millimetre handgun, which he reloaded four times with 10-bullet magazines.
Bissonnette ultimately killed six men, seriously injured five others, and left the Muslim community in Quebec and Canada in shock.
Bissonnette pleaded guilty to six first-degree murder charges and six attempted murder charges in March.
The shooting lasted less than two minutes.
“He fired 48 [bullets],” said Benabdallah, who, along with the Muslim community in Quebec City, is now calling on the Canadian government to pass a law banning assault weapons outright across the country.
In a letter sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this month, the community also demanded a prohibition on the sale of large-capacity magazines, which can be easily modified to allow a shooter to discharge them in their entirety.
“As a community, we experienced this tragedy. We don’t want our society – Canadian and Quebec society – to experience the same thing with these weapons of war,” Benabdallah told Al Jazeera.
New gun law proposed
Last week, Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, told reporters the federal government would look into the mosque attack survivors’ proposal.
However, Goodale said including an outright ban on assault rifles in the federal government’s new gun-control legislation, proposed in March, would mean “a complete change” to the firearms classification system in Canada’s Criminal Code.
All guns are currently classified as either non-restricted, restricted or prohibited in Canada.
“What they would be proposing is a fourth category, which would be … not just a prohibition or a restriction, but an outright ban. That would take a complete revision of that whole approach in the Criminal Code,” Goodale said.
“I’m prepared to hear out their argument, and obviously, we’re interested in improving public safety in every way we can, but that would restructure the whole system.”
Currently, Canadian residents must obtain a licence to buy any type of gun or ammunition.
Most long guns are categorised as non-restricted, while handguns and semi-automatic firearms that have a barrel less than 470mm long are restricted. Automatic weapons, as well as rifles and shotguns that have had their barrels sawed off, or are otherwise modified, are prohibited.
Restricted and prohibited firearms must be registered separately, under what is called a firearm possession and acquisition license (PAL), which is valid for five years.
These licenses are only issued for specific purposes, including target practice, shooting competitions, or as part of a collection. Applicants must be over 18 and have passed additional firearms safety courses and background checks carried out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
Earlier this year, Trudeau’s Liberal government introduced new legislation that would mandate stricter background checks for people seeking to purchase guns in Canada and force vendors to keep proper records of gun inventory and sales.
The government said Bill C-71 would help stem an increase in gun crimes, which it said jumped by 30 percent between 2013 and 2016.
“With this legislation and our other measures, we are taking concrete steps to make our country less vulnerable to the scourge of gun violence, while being fair to responsible, law-abiding firearms owners and businesses,” Goodale said at the time.
Source – Al Jazeera
