An AR-15 sits on the counter top at Canadian Gun Hub. (CHAT News photo)

By Alex McCuaig

Sales were up, says owner

Rifle ban takes a bite out of local business, access to range

May 4, 2020 | 4:33 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A ban on 1,500 types of rifles last week will have an impact on a local gun dealer and range operator. But Canadian Gun Hub owner Rocky Rutledge doubts it will do anything to keep guns out of the hand of the criminal element.

“What they are doing is not going to do anything for fighting crime or getting criminals. They are getting the guns they want anyway,” said Rutledge. “They should at least buy these guns back from the dealers as well as all the accessories and buy them back from the customers.”

Rutledge estimates gun sales at his Dunmore-based range rose 300 per cent since the pandemic began in March. But in an anticipated but quickly executed move last week, the federal government made rifles such as the AR-15 – sold at Gun Hub – prohibited.

“For our business, it really cut back on our retail sales. We’re stuck with a lot of AR-15s that we can’t move now and we have no idea what to do with them so we just have them locked up,” said Rutledge. “And it also hurts our members because they can’t bring out the guns that they used to, to come out to target practice and sight them in.”

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Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz has been a vocal opponent of the move to restrict “military-style assault rifles,” seeing his parliamentary petition against the move by the federal government receive more than 175,000 signatures.

But according to an Angus Reid poll released last week, nearly 80 per cent of Canadian respondents support the move to ban civilian ownership of such rifles – 65 per cent of which strongly support the move.

In Alberta, which has the lowest rate of support for the ban, a majority of respondents also supported the move with 65 per cent approval.

The poll involved more than 1,500 Canadians and took place between April 28 and 30.