Mayor Brown not considering immediate action on handgun ban

Last week the Federal Government introduced legislation that if passed would allow individual municipalities to ban the possession, storage, and transportation of handguns.

Mayors in Surrey and Vancouver have been quick to announce they will table bylaws as soon as possible, however, Mayor Linda Brown is preparing to take a measured approach to the possibility.

“The whole federal program is not mandatory, so I’m not sure how it will affect the municipality in general. We have a team that we need to talk through this with. It looks at the moment that I won’t be recommending it, but if the team says we need it here, we’ll look at it in the future,” said Brown.

The team that Mayor Brown refers to includes various stakeholders in the community including the Merritt RCMP.

“There are a lot of different factors to consider including the current risk to the community, how do we enforce such action if we did legislate it, and whether or not it’s a potential benefit to the community as a whole,” said Brown.

“What we need to look at is how much work and how much effort is this for our local RCMP, is it going to make their jobs easier and our community safer. Those are the things we’re going to have to look at,” added Brown.