Here Are Some of the Historic Heavy Weapons Canada Just Banned
You may have recently heard that Canada has chosen to ban a selection of so-called ‘assault weapons’. Earlier this week Luke gave us a great run through some of the unusual things that made it onto the banned list including AR15.com and Stinger MANPADs. Well if you examine the list closely enough you also start to notice just how many historic weapons have been included.
By any stretch of the imagination you have to admit that it would be difficult to describe a World War Two Soviet crew-served anti-tank gun as an ‘assault weapon’ in the same vein as some of the other small arms that made it onto the list.
So let’s take a brief look at what Prime Minister Trudeau’s list considers to be ‘assault weapons’:Japanese Type 97 20mm Anti-Tank Auto-cannon
Firing a 20×125mm round which weighs in at nearly 6oz the Type 97 can fire over 10 rounds per minute with a good crew. Not much good against a Sherman but certainly a match for early war light tanks.
80mm Granatenwerfer
One of a whole plethora of mortars that made it onto the list. How else would you werf your granaten?
Panzerbüchse 39
The Panzerbüchse 39 is one of a range of German WW2 light anti-tank weapons that made it onto the list, here are a few others:
Soviet M1942 Anti-Tank gun
Perfect for taking on a Panzer III, albeit as close range, but not exactly an ‘assault weapon’.
RL-100 Blindicide
Some good news and bad news if you’re a Blindicide fan. The RL-100 Blindicide is now banned – BUT – the RL-83 Blindicide and its Swiss copy, the Raketenrohr 80, are not! So at least you can uphold your neutrality…
M1A1 Bazooka
Don’t bother ordering any more batteries for your M1A1 Bazooka either because it’s now sadly banned.
M20 Recoilless Rifle
The M20 Recoilless is just one of a whole slew of recoilless rifles which have made it onto the list, check to see if yours is listed:
Soviet RPG-2
The infamous RPG-7 made it onto the list and so did it’s lesser known older brother, the RPG-2 and all these other rocket launchers:
So there you go, some of the more obscure, outlandish historic weapons to make it onto a list which has all the hallmarks of a staffer panic browsing Wikipedia. Check out the whole list here.
Managing Editor: TheFirearmBlog.com & Overt Defense.com. Matt is a British historian specialising in small arms development and military history. He has written several books and for a variety of publications in both the US and UK. Matt is also runs The Armourer's Bench, a video series on historically significant small arms. Here on TFB he covers product and current military small arms news. Reach Matt at: matt@thefirearmblog.com
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I think I can still buy one of these banned weapons from some of the punk gang-bangers down on Yonge St. in Toronto, Canada.
Adding things like that to the list show just how absurd the whole thing is.
Unless you are expecting them to be used against you.