{"id":506278,"date":"2026-03-01T00:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T00:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/506278\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T00:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T00:21:17","slug":"our-weapons-are-not-for-sale-protesters-target-ottawas-gun-buyback-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/506278\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Our weapons are not for sale!\u2019 Protesters target Ottawa\u2019s gun buyback program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>QU\u00c9BEC \u2014 Several thousand protesters in Quebec City are demanding the provincial government withdraw from a federal gun buyback program.<\/p>\n<p>Chanting a message that their &#8220;guns are not for sale,&#8221; the demonstrators accuse Ottawa of unfairly targeting law-abiding firearms owners.<\/p>\n<p>Sophie B\u00e9land, who heads the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, says the province is the only one to agree to the buyback.<\/p>\n<p>St\u00e9phane Bacon, who travelled with his wife to the provincial capital from Montreal to demonstrate at the National Assembly, says mental health is the problem, not firearms themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Owners of banned firearms have until the end of March to declare interest in a federal program offering compensation for turning in or permanently deactivating their guns.<\/p>\n<p>Since May 2020, Ottawa has outlawed about 2,500 types of guns, including the AR-15, on the basis they belong only on the battlefield.<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QU\u00c9BEC \u2014 Several thousand protesters in Quebec City are demanding the provincial government withdraw from a federal gun&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-506278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}