Nearly 90% of Canadian gun owners reportedly refused to comply with the government’s so-called gun buyback program

Gun rights commentator Colion Noir is giving Canadian gun owners a rare kind of praise, and in his view, they earned it the hard way.

In a recent video, Noir said that when the Canadian government came around demanding banned firearms be turned in, nearly nine out of ten gun owners reportedly refused. He framed that number not as a small protest or a passing act of frustration, but as something much bigger: a warning sign for any government that thinks it can rebrand forced surrender as public cooperation.

What caught Noir’s attention most was not just the number itself. It was the country where it happened. These were not American gun owners standing behind the Second Amendment. These were Canadians, living without that kind of constitutional backstop, still telling the government no.

That is what makes this story hit harder than it might seem at first glance. It is not only about firearms. It is about what happens when a large group of ordinary people decide the state has crossed a line, even after the law has already been written against them.

Why Colion Noir Says This Deserves Attention

Noir opened his argument by saying he wanted to “give some people their flowers,” and the people he had in mind were Canadian gun owners. In his telling, their refusal to comply with the government’s firearm program deserves attention well beyond Canada’s borders.

He pointed to a news clip from a Montreal shooting club, where the buyback program was being discussed with open frustration. In that report, a gun shop owner said 90% of local gun owners had basically told the government to “go kick rocks” and were not returning anything.

Noir’s reaction was immediate and approving. He said he genuinely loved it, not because he was rooting for chaos, but because he saw principle behind it. Canada, he stressed, does not have a Second Amendment. There is no constitutional language there clearly protecting the right to own these firearms.

And yet, according to Noir, the government still came forward with federal law, a deadline, and a formal program, and the overwhelming majority still refused. To him, that was not casual resistance. That was a large-scale statement.

There is something fascinating about that kind of non-compliance because it reveals a truth politicians often try to avoid. Laws can exist on paper, but enforcement still depends on public willingness, at least to a point. When that willingness dries up in huge numbers, the law suddenly looks a lot less tidy than it did at the press conference.

The “Voluntary” Label Falls Apart Under Scrutiny

Noir then walked through the backstory as he sees it. After the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Justin Trudeau’s government banned more than 1,500 firearms, labeling them “assault style” weapons, and later expanded that list to roughly 2,500 models.

From there came the so-called buyback program, where owners of banned guns could turn them in and receive compensation. On the surface, that sounds voluntary. But Colion Noir argued that the label breaks down the second you look at what happens to those who refuse.

He played another news clip laying out the legal reality. Owners who do not participate now, the report said, have until the end of October to dispose of any banned firearm. After that, those still in possession could lose their gun license and face criminal liability.

One government advocate, Hattie Rathor in the clip, said it plainly: gun owners can opt in or out of the program, but they cannot opt in or out of the law.

Noir seized on that distinction because, in his view, it exposes the real nature of the program. He argued that the government’s message was essentially this: cooperate and get paid, or refuse and eventually be treated like a criminal. That, he said, is not voluntary in any honest sense. It is forced compliance with softer branding.

That criticism is hard to dismiss. A program does not become truly voluntary just because the first phase includes a check. If the backup plan is punishment, then the choice is mostly cosmetic.

The Gun Ban Debate Does Not Stop With Black Rifles

Noir also warned that the Canadian story matters because of what it says about how gun bans tend to grow once the process begins. In his view, this is not just about modern black rifles or politically loaded labels.

He said once a government begins classifying broad categories of firearms as dangerous “assault style” weapons, the list almost never stays narrow. The transcript and video description both point to the inclusion of guns like the M1 Garand and concerns around firearms such as the SKS, which Noir treated as proof that these definitions can stretch much further than many people expect.

That point lands because the argument often begins with one image in the public mind and ends somewhere much broader. Once lawmakers discover that style-based language is flexible, flexibility tends to become the whole strategy.

From Noir’s point of view, that is why Americans should not brush this off as somebody else’s problem. He sees Canada not as a distant outlier, but as a preview of how the same language could be used elsewhere once cultural resistance weakens enough.

Trauma, Policy, And The Fight Over Moral Authority

One of the more pointed parts of Noir’s argument had less to do with mechanics and more to do with emotion. He turned to Hattie Rathor, who the news clip identified as someone who had lived through both the Polytechnique and Dawson College shootings and had spent years advocating for stronger gun laws.

Noir made clear that he was not mocking that experience. He said directly that he has real compassion for someone who has lived through that level of trauma. He called it a level of pain most people will never experience.

But then he made a distinction that sits at the center of his broader message. In his words, people who survive horrific violence do not all come away wanting the same thing. Some want every gun gone. Others decide they never want to be helpless again and choose to arm themselves.

To Noir, both reactions are real. Both come from fear. Both come from a search for safety. The problem, as he sees it, comes when one person’s emotional conclusion gets turned into policy for millions of other people who never shared that experience and do not agree with that answer.

That is a sharp argument, but it is also one of the more important ones in this whole debate. Grief can be genuine and still not settle a constitutional or moral question on its own. Compassion matters. So does the right of other people to reject somebody else’s preferred solution.

The Other Voice The Media Barely Wants To Hear

Noir also highlighted another voice from the same report: the gun shop owner who said criminals do not care about the laws, the buyback, or the regulations. According to the shop owner, criminals simply want to get a gun.

Colion treated that comment as more than a throwaway line. He argued that this perspective, rooted in self-protection and practical realism, is every bit as valid as the emotional appeal for more restrictions. Yet, he said, that side rarely gets the same kind of sustained media attention.

In his telling, one type of survivor or witness gets put in front of cameras, while the person who responds to danger by wanting the means to resist it often gets sidelined. That imbalance, he suggested, helps explain why coverage of gun politics so often feels tilted before the debate even starts.

There is truth in that frustration. Public discussion around gun policy often turns into a contest over which voice gets treated as morally untouchable. Once that happens, serious disagreement becomes harder, because one side is made to look compassionate while the other is made to look cold before the argument even begins.

Why This Is Bigger Than Canada

By the end of the video, Noir said the reported 90% non-compliance gives him hope. In his view, it shows that when enough ordinary people decide the government is wrong, the government cannot simply polish over that resistance with nicer wording and expect the problem to disappear.

He also made the American comparison explicit. Canada’s gun owners, he said, are in this position because they had “nothing in writing” protecting them. Americans do, and he warned that the only way the United States ends up in a similar fight is if people let those protections get chipped away slowly, one measure at a time.

That may be the most important takeaway from Noir’s commentary. He is not treating Canada as a strange foreign story. He is treating it as an early warning.

Whether someone agrees with his broader politics or not, the central point is easy to understand. When a government says surrender is optional, but punishment is waiting for those who refuse, people are going to notice the contradiction. And when nearly 90% reportedly refuse anyway, that says something no slogan or official label can hide.