Sheila Gunn-Reid kicks off 2024 by criticizing Justin Trudeau’s Liberals for fast-tracking Bill C-21, ignoring 68% support claims and dismissing peer-reviewed reports from the National Firearms Association (NFA). Rick Igersich, NFA’s director, calls 2024 their "finest hour," targeting unenforceable magazine bans and media censorship under C-11/C-18. The NFA avoids endorsing candidates but will engage with any willing to discuss firearms reform, stressing unity among freedom-focused Canadians—gun owners and non-owners alike. Gunn-Reid praises David Menzies’ off-camera charm, comparing him to Ric Flair, while urging viewers to support NFA’s advocacy ahead of the election. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everybody.
Welcome to the first show of 2024.
Now, as a law-abiding Canadian gun owner, I am happy to leave 2023 in the dust.
It was a terrible year for us.
We were the target of scapegoating legislation at the hands of the federal liberals who refuse to address real crime issues.
So they go towards the path of least resistance, the most law-abiding segment of the Canadian population, firearms owners.
And I'm worried about what 2024 will bring for us.
So I thought I'd bring on an expert.
Today's guest is Rick Igersich of Canada's National Firearms Association.
We're talking about the terrible year that was and what we can expect in 2024.
take a listen.
So joining me now is good friend of the rebel, good friend of the show, Rick Igersich of Canada's National Firearms Association.
Rick, I wanted to have you on the show to talk about, you know, what it was like in 2023 for Canadian firearms owners, what we can expect in 2024 from the Liberals, but also from the National Firearms Association.
And I also wanted to talk to you about something that is just, it's so perfectly liberal and it's so perfectly government.
And it's been a story that I've been on since 2018.
And that is how the federal government is paying foreign hunters to shoot nuisance deer from a helicopter, which sounds cool.
Like I would love to do that too, but I don't want to charge the taxpayer for it in BC.
And right now, the first installment of this program is costing the taxpayer $10,000 a deer.
This is something local hunters would have loved to have taken care of.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on your show again, Sheila.
I appreciate it.
Just love being on your show.
Yeah, 2023 was a turbulent year for law-abiding Canadians.
There's no doubt about that.
A lot of stuff happened.
The NFA was busy.
Of course, everybody knows that Bill C-21 got fast-tracked and became law.
We were on it right from the start.
But, you know, it was talking to deaf ears in the Senate mostly.
You know, it was an eye-opener for me because a lot of senators that actually thought they would, that we thought they would, you know, run our way, some of the independent senators, they waffled at the end and voted with the liberals.
The word came down on the last day from Justin Trudeau, I have no doubt, and it was overwhelmingly passed in the Senate.
And as you know, it reached royal assent and became law.
In our opinion, it was nothing more than another wedge issue that Justin Trudeau can definitely use in the looming election.
We don't know when this election is going to happen.
The sooner the better.
I don't know how long you can hold out.
We'll see.
And, you know, the NFA, we were on the ground the whole time.
We did a lot of stuff in 2024 besides that.
The other part of the NFA, we spent a lot of time going across Canada and meeting people and putting some events together so we could meet people.
We could gain some new members and let people know what we're all about.
Because part of the problem in Canada is there's a lot of gun owners in Canada, you know, 2.2 to 2.4 to 3 million.
Nobody knows the actual number of actual gun owners besides licensed gun owners.
And nobody, nobody, a lot of people don't know that there is a gun lobby in Canada and what we do in Ottawa and how we fight for their rights.
So the NFA spends a lot of time traveling.
Well, we did in 2023.
We spent a lot of time traveling across the country, letting people, you know, letting them meet us, letting them, letting them, you know, letting them know that we're just regular people like them.
We're not some entity that sits on the top of this pedestal.
We're just gun owners like everybody else and, you know, hoping that they come aboard and help us in the good fight in Ottawa.
You know, that's the thing about Canadian gun owners is, you know, by the numbers, the shooting sports are our national sport.
More people participate in shooting sports than organized hockey.
But we don't talk about it because we have a history of confiscation in this country.
So we're a quiet majority, I would suggest, when it comes to people participating in organized sports.
And because of that, a lot of people don't realize that they have organizations like the National Firearms Association lobbying on their behalf in Ottawa.
So it's good to get out and meet people in person.
As you say, show people that you aren't the sinister gun lobby as the liberals and the media love to paint you.
I mean, I'm probably repeating myself by distinguishing between those two groups, but they like to paint the gun lobby as just a bunch of root and tootin' gun-totin weirdos when you're just friends, neighbors, colleagues, people you meet at the grocery store, people you meet at work, just severely normal people, as Ralph Klein would say.
Yeah.
You know, it's the thing is, too, you know, when we were at the Senate and senators were saying that 68% of Canadian firearms owners are in favor of this bill, which is the biggest piece of misinformation I've ever heard.
I travel across Canada.
I travel from coast to coast.
I haven't talked to one person that was in favor of this bill.
So the way they got this data, they did a survey and they phoned a real small controlled group of people and they said, are you in favor of getting rid of basically assault machine guns on the street?
Polling Flaws and Gun Laws00:02:49
And that was the question.
Yeah.
So, you know, it was so skewed to start with that there's no, of course they got the results they did.
And, you know, we challenged actually Senator Coucher in the Senate about that.
And, you know, we provided him with three peer-reviewed reports that said the exact opposite, but you know what?
They weren't interested.
You know, and like I say, you know, a lot of people are saying that the firearms lobby had failures in 2023.
We didn't have any failures.
We had a minor setback.
And I'm going to say that 2024 is going to be the NFA's finest hour.
Just sit back and watch.
2024 is going to be the NFA's finest hour.
We're in the fight hard now.
We've got a set direction.
We know which way we're going and we know what to do.
You know, Pierre Polyev has made some bold promises, which I hope he sticks to.
And like I say, we're going to work hard.
We're going to work hard for a government change.
And when we do get a government change, we're going to be talking to these people right off the bat and make some major Firearms Act and the Criminal Code in Canada has to be redone.
There's just, it doesn't make any sense.
It was originally drawn by a bunch of lawyers and bureaucrats, people that never held a firearm in their hands.
And they're making the laws first.
So that's one of our goals in 2024 to definitely make some changes to the, you know, we need a government change.
There's no doubt about that.
I don't know how long Justin Schuder can hold out yet.
It's a coin toss.
We've been hearing all kinds of stories, but we'll see what happens.
But like I say, there's going to be a change in power and it's going to be a positive change in power for us.
And then their work is really going to start.
Well, and what are you supposed to do?
You know, you're up against an NDP liberal coalition that is more radical than ever.
They realize that they are running out of time.
The Canadian public has absolutely turned on them.
The Conservatives are consistently polling like 10 to 13 points higher than the Liberals at every step of the way.
It wasn't an anomaly.
It's consistent polling.
You're up against a stacked Senate.
All you can do is fight and fight and fight and fight and never give up until government is changed.
And I think that's what you guys have done.
Now, I wanted to touch on this last minute change to C21, which has really been the legislation of last-minute shoehorned changes, hasn't it?
But they've decided that the best way to keep Canadians safe is to make something double illegal.
Government Overreach00:15:35
Why don't you tell us about this?
Well, there's a lot of double illegal stuff in C21.
Everybody knows that C21 is a freeze in the movement of handguns and stuff.
And just before I get into it too deep, they said that they're going to make some adjustments and compromise for Olympic shooters and whatnot, but that didn't happen and that's not going to happen.
But there's a lot of amendments added to C21.
And the biggest one is the magazine capacity.
What they're saying is that any firearm, and this is that same old thing, we'll make stuff up after the bill is passed.
This firearms advisory committee, which in my opinion is just a waste of money and time.
But anyway, they basically, it's open-ended to they can make they can make any change to the bill they want after the fact, which is absolutely ridiculous.
But at the end of the day, there's a bunch of things.
There's a bunch of amendments on C21.
And the one that kind of is sitting to the forefront is this magazine capacity thing.
Now, there is probably, nobody has any idea how many magazines are out there that are legal, five-shot magazines that have been blocked from the factory.
And the way they're talking, and you know what?
They don't even know where they're going with this, with this amendment.
They don't even know what direction they're going in.
But the way they're talking is any magazine that's readily convertible back to its original capacity is going to be deemed prohibited.
Now, we get into the little bit of a...
It's already illegal to alter that.
It is.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
It's a law on top of a law.
But where this gets a little iffy is they want to get rid of these things because now they're saying they basically change the law and saying they're illegal because they can be changed back.
But then we get into, you know, and this is your and my pet peeve is the SKSs.
You know, the SKS is a 10-shot capacity firearm that has an actual pin welded in the bottom of the of the of the attached box magazine that prevents it from holding more than five rounds.
Now, is that a readily convertible back to original capacity magazine?
You know, that's the million dollar question.
And, you know, and but then again, you made a very valid point there, Sheila, that it's already against the law to alter magazines.
So why would you make something illegal that has already been changed and made legal?
But then again, we look back to the Ruger 1022, the 25 round magazines, which there was thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of them in Canada, and they made them illegal overnight because they would fit into some Ruger Challenger pistol, which there's probably maybe, I don't know, a few dozen in Canada, but they made that magazine illegal because they considered a high capacity magazine because it'll work at a pistol.
So, you know, the laws, the laws don't make any sense.
The amendments don't make any sense.
And it wasn't well thought out.
It was rushed.
It was definitely rushed at the end.
And the reason it was rushed, because the liberals wanted to get it through before the end of the year.
And, you know, I'm going back on this and I'm repeating myself, but they're going to use it as an election issue, just like they used firearms in the last election.
You know, and unfortunately, Aaron O'Toole did a 180 on us and kind of leaned in their direction, which didn't help anybody at the end of the day.
But we're looking at the same thing happening again.
I just hope that Polyev sticks to his guns and keeps going in the direction he's going.
And it's such a winning issue for conservatives.
I think it's one of their single largest fundraising issues for the party.
And look how popular Stephen Harper was for no other reason than euthanizing the gun registry.
I'll never forget.
I forget.
I think it was Blaine Cawkins.
I could be wrong.
He got in a bunch of trouble when he was voting for the extermination of the gun registry and he did like some finger guns during the voting and the liberals lost their marbles.
That shows you how radical the liberals are on this.
You can't even do a little finger gun celebration when voting on an issue of gun rights.
But Stephen Harper was popular with a whole segment of the Canadian population for no other reason than just getting rid of that.
And even if you don't care about guns, even if you don't care about property rights, are you tired of the government wasting your money on the wrong thing?
There are a whole host of other things that they could do to deal with rising crime in Canada's progressive cities that have nothing to do with hassling law-abiding gun owners.
Yeah.
You know, and, you know, it just, it's guns, it's personal property, it's freedom.
But, you know, at the end of the day, if you get a bunch of people to put, if you get, put a group of people together to do a peaceful protest, are they going to seize your bank accounts?
Are they going to put the, I call it the War Measures Act because I believe it still is back into place.
You know, it just, it's, it's, they've got an agenda and part of their agenda is to scare Canadians.
And they did a really good job at it in Ottawa, you know, with the, with the truckers convoy and stuff.
And, you know, they went way, way beyond their powers.
But, you know, of course, when, when, when you're, when you're governing yourself or, you know, investigating yourself, of course, you're going to come out on top every time.
So nothing became of that.
But, you know, that's where we're at right now with guns.
I'll tell you a story.
I do a lot of gun shows across Canada.
I have people walking up to us that have good government jobs and they want to make a donation to the NFA.
And we write down everybody that wants to make a donation.
We get their information so we can thank them.
A lot of people don't want to give us any information.
They just want to stay out of it because they're worried about their job.
What kind of country do we have here when people are worried about their jobs by making a donation to a gun lobby?
It's ridiculous.
Yeah, to a completely legal organization defending the property rights of other people.
I like how the Americans look at political donations.
They look at it as free speech.
I'm letting my money do the talking for me because I can't do the talking.
I don't have the power, the platform.
I'm going to give it to somebody who does.
And it is a form of self-censorship when you have so frightened people by what this tyrannical government can do to you for disagreeing with them that they just want to remain anonymous.
That's a very Stalinistic way to be.
Yeah.
And then I see on the cake, you know, suppress the media anyway with their, with 11 and 18, right?
You know, you know, don't let the word get out.
Great way to run a country.
You know, don't let the look, don't let the media, don't let the, don't let the free and good media out.
And, you know, they have their, of course, they have their government-controlled mainstream media, which, you know, looks like it's not doing too well in the last few days.
But anyway, just, you know, why not censor, you know, that's their idea.
If there's true information coming out there, let's censor it.
You know, let's put a couple bills in place to censor information.
I know even on our, we've been seeing it on our social media platforms, we've been getting shadow banned like crazy.
We work, we work with Rebel.
We work with Rebel on in other aspects besides your show.
You know, we do a lot of, we do a lot of stuff on the other end of Rebel and it's being shadow banned.
It's being censored.
You know, before 11 and 18, you know, we get thousands and thousands of views and stuff.
And all of a sudden, when those bills came into place, all of a sudden it dropped down to a few hundred.
You know, censorship, along with everything else, you know, and I'm going a little bit out of my alley here, but man, it just, because it's affecting us, it's affecting us directly.
This censorship stuff has got to stop.
It has to stop.
You know, Canadas can't, Canadians can't live in the shadow like they're living right now.
No, it's true.
I mean, and that's the thing.
You exist in a world where you need to be able to speak truth to power in the same way that I do.
That's part of your job is holding powerful people to account.
And you can't do that if the very powerful people you're trying to hold to account are the ones that can silence you, that can make sure that nobody ever hears what you have to say.
People don't have to listen to me.
I don't need people to listen to me.
I need them to have the opportunity to listen to me if they please.
And the government is taking that away from us.
What can we expect in 2024?
Let's start with from the government.
What can we expect from them?
The way it's looking, I'm hoping there's going to be an election soon.
If that happens, it's going to put a lot of stuff into play, especially for us.
We're going to get the word out there for about every politician.
I don't care what color they wear.
We'll put their platforms out there and let the people know what they're about.
The NFA doesn't endorse candidates.
We're going to let people make up their own minds and we'll go from there.
But we'll definitely speak to anybody that wants to speak to us.
If Justin Trudeau wants to come on NFA Talk, I'll be more than happy to have him.
And I would actually love that.
But if anybody wants to come out, if Judd Mead Singh wants to come out and speak to us and give us his position on firearms, and of course they won't because their position isn't friendly to any of our people.
But And as far as the CPC or anybody else, you know, we're definitely going to put their positions out during the election.
We're not going to run behind the scenes.
We're not going to put, we're not going to, we're not going to try to put firearms to the forefront of an election.
That's what we're not going to give the liberals ammunition for their cause, basically.
But we're going to run behind the scenes.
And like I say, we'll get the information out.
Just any politician that wants to get his word out, get a hold of our social media guys and we'll definitely get their word out across our social media.
We have a pretty extensive reach now and we'll get the word out.
We're going to be working hard.
As far as the NFA, we're still going to be out there.
We're going to be out there doing events across Canada again.
We're going to be meeting people from coast to coast.
We will be attending other events too.
A couple of our people attended your event that you had there a few weeks ago.
And, you know, we sure we love going to those events because we get to meet like-minded people.
And that's another thing I wanted to say too.
The NFA just isn't firearms owners.
We have a lot of members that don't own firearms, but they're freedom-loving Canadians that want to join a group to protect their rights and their freedoms.
And that's why they join.
And when we attend Rebel news events and stuff, we meet a lot of people that we don't normally meet.
And I love going to those events.
I would have been at the one in Calgary, but I had another engagement at that time.
But it was a great time for our people to get out and meet some people that are like-minded.
And at the end of the day, these are the people that are going to change this country.
These are the people that are going to get out and vote.
These are the people that are going to tell their MPs what we need to do in Canada to make Canada a decent place again.
Because right now, Sheila, Canada is not a decent place for any freedom-loving individual, firearms owners, or likewise.
Yeah, your people were so well received at our Rebel Live event in Calgary that I couldn't get to their table.
They had a long table, a lineup of people.
They were selling memberships.
They were selling merch.
And by the time that I got done doing what I needed to do and the line had died, the thing that I wanted to buy was gone.
I really wanted an NFA jackknife.
I love a good jackknife.
I'm a farmer.
And it was gone.
I think they had three.
They were all gone.
And a lot, I hear every time that you're on the show, Rick, I hear from regular viewers of the show who say, I just joined the NFA.
I'm not a firearms owner, but I care about freedom.
And I also care about my fellow Canadians not being scapegoated for the crimes of others.
There are a lot of people who care about that, that we're focusing on the wrong people.
We need to be worried about the bad guys, not the good guys in our neighborhood.
And I hear from a ton of regular viewers of the show who are members of the NFA simply because they care about freedom.
And that for sure, for sure was my experience at Rebel Live watching the long lineup of people talking to the folks that you had.
I hope you guys continue.
I hope you guys continue those events because I know I did the one the other side of Toronto there last year, a couple of years ago, and it was a great, it was a full house.
I love attending those events.
I love meeting people.
I love talking to like-minded people.
You know, there's so many of them out there that aren't gun people.
You know, we kind of got our little, you know, our gun, our gun people across Canada.
But when you get outside that box and you start talking to people and they're like-minded, I just, I love that.
You know, like I told our people, we need to attend every one of those events we can just to meet some like-minded people.
Yeah, you guys are more than welcome to attend all of our events.
We love having you guys there.
And I think, too, for like the people in Toronto, like in Alberta, it's a little different.
We will talk guns to everybody.
We'll talk freedom to everybody.
It's a little different, but it must be a wonderful experience to people in places like Toronto and Vancouver to find people who think like you when you're in this progressive hotbed of your politicians and unions and wild-eyed school board educators.
You know what's really funny, though?
Yeah, I live in southern Ontario, but I can look out of my office window at any time and I can see trucks going by with the flags on them.
You know, the flags I'm talking about.
Driving by all the time still to this day.
So people haven't forgotten.
And I think that's the liberals are hoping that people forget what happened in Ottawa, what happened with the firearms, what happened in general with everything, with everything they're all about.
But people haven't forgot.
I can tell you people haven't forgot.
No, not now.
Not now.
I think there were things that people could let slide because Justin Trudeau was, he had nice socks and a fancy face and people liked him.
People Haven't Forgotten00:05:25
So they could, you know, you can get a lot away with a lot of tyranny when, I don't know, some bizarre subset of middle-aged housewives think that you're attractive.
But now, I think when you're, when those same middle-aged housewives are having problems buying groceries because of Justin Trudeau's economic policies, the tides will turn on you pretty quick.
Rick, I want to thank, we're recording this on Tuesday right after New Year's Eve.
So I realize that this is a day off for a lot of people.
I don't want to take up too much of what may or may not be a day off for you, Rick.
But I want to invite you to let people know how they can get involved in Canada's National Firearms Association.
There's a lot of ways to get involved.
The best way is go to NFA.ca and have a look at our website and become a member.
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube.
We're out on all the social media platforms.
Join, become a member.
The money goes towards the good fight in Ottawa.
It's a fight for our rights and freedoms and that's what we do.
Like I say, follow us.
And also, like I say, we work on the other end of Rebel News.
Follow us on the other end of Rebel News too.
Reach out, have a look at some of our stuff on there.
And I hope as many Canadians get into the fight as we can pick up because there's definitely a big fight out there that everybody needs to join.
It's getting, I don't want to use the word, but I'm going to say the resistance is getting stronger every day.
And we're going to keep moving in that direction.
And like I said, 2024 is going to be a banner year for us, I predict.
And we've got a lot of stuff coming.
We're giving a lot of guns away.
We're giving a lot of merch away.
And join us and get into the fight.
Yeah, buy that merch on the merch store.
You guys have a great merch store.
You don't plug it enough.
Get the jackknife.
I didn't.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll talk.
Perfect.
Rick, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Thanks so much for fighting so hard for law-abiding Canadians, gun owners just like me and my kids, my husband, and, well, basically everybody I know.
You're really fighting for fair treatment for us in our democracy because we've been scapegoated for so long.
And Merry Christmas to you, belated Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you and all the National Firearms Association crew.
Yeah, same to you, Sheila.
And thank you.
Thank you for having us on your show again.
Your platform is outstanding.
You know, it's a pleasure being on Rebel News.
It's the only platform I believe in Canada that's getting the truth out there right now.
I appreciate everything you guys do at Rebel and happy belated Christmas and have a really, really good 2024.
I think we both will.
You know, if we get an election, I think the whole country will.
Rick, then thanks so much, Rick.
Thanks, Sheila.
Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show wherein we take your viewer feedback.
I say this every week, and I know this is probably pretty redundant for regular viewers, but I actually do care about what you think about the work that we do here at Rebel News because without you, there is no Rebel News.
You see, we don't rely on Justin Trudeau for anything, well, except news fodder, unlike the mainstream media who have Justin Trudeau reaching into the pockets of Canadians to give them money to produce content Canadians don't want to consume and feel increasingly disconnected from.
So I want to know what you think.
And that's one of the reasons I give you my email address at Sheila at RebelNews.com.
If you have feedback about the show, put gun show letters in the subject line so I know why you're emailing me.
And maybe if you could kindly make reference to the show that you're talking about, because sometimes I don't get to them in the very next week.
But also, wherever you're watching us, so if you're watching the free version of the show on YouTube or on Rumble, thank you for sitting through those ads.
Every little bit helps.
But leave a comment there too.
Sometimes I go looking through there to see what you guys have to say.
Now, today's letter is a little bit different.
It's a leftover from letters to Sheila.
So last week's show was a special Christmas show, and I addressed letters that you had written to me.
You had sent them to letterstorebels.com, I think is what it was.
Anyways, we do it once a year, so don't send anything there right now.
And we do it in the lead up to Christmas.
And you sent your questions to me.
I printed them out.
I didn't look at them.
I sent them to my kids who snipped them up, put them in the Christmas stocking, and then I read them.
And there was one that came in late after that, and I wanted to address it because it's something I get all the time when people see me out in the real world when I'm doing errands at the farm supply store at Costco or whatever.
David Menzies: In Person vs. On Camera00:02:02
This is one of the number one questions that I get.
And I'm sad that I didn't answer it in my Letters to Rebels episode.
But I think it's important that I do answer it.
So here it is.
It comes from Peter Bass, who writes, Hi, Sheila.
My question is about the real David Menzies.
You've known and traveled with David.
Oh, have I ever?
So probably the best to ask.
Ric Flair, by all accounts, is Ric Flair.
Woo!
24-7.
I'm wondering how the menzoid on-camera character we all love so much compares to the real off-camera David.
Many things.
Okay.
Yes, I have traveled with David.
I work with him closely every day.
However, it's mostly remotely.
But David Menzies is one of my favorite people on the entire planet.
Now, sort of being in charge of making sure he doesn't say and do crazy things when he's famous for saying and doing things that are on the edge of crazy can be a little bit difficult and nerve-wracking.
Like, how do you manage somebody like David Menzies?
Well, we have a rule: no costumes unless they're pitched in advance, and He's got a really good reason for the costume.
And you guys would be surprised like how many costumes I say no to.
However, to answer your question about is David Menzies the same in real life as he is on camera, I have to tell you, he's one of those very rare people who is better in person.
That gregarious, kind, passionate, funny, bold person that you see on camera, he's all that and more off camera.
One of the Best People Ever00:01:02
He's just the kindest, most thoughtful man, but also like always pushing the limits, even in conversations.
So yes, if David Menzies were Ric Flair in full feather boa, full woo mode, on camera, he's that and more when you meet him in person.
I had absolutely the best time in Israel with him in September.
Actually, it was one of the reasons I was looking forward to going to Israel besides going to the Holy Land was, oh, I get to spend like 10 days with David Menzies.
Yeah, I just, how you guys know him, I know him like that and more.
He's one of the best people you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting.
And if you count David Menzies as a friend, boy, you're a lucky, lucky person.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.