How come when a purported ISIS supporter allegedly attacks an Edmonton city police officer outside a CFL game two weeks ago and later that night allegedly runs down a handful of bar-goers in the city’s downtown, the first instinct of the prime minister, the Alberta premier and the mayor is to warn the rest of us not to hate on all Muslims?

Yet after some nutjob with an arsenal of guns shoots up an open-air concert in Vegas, many of these same leaders and their supporters think it is perfectly acceptable to lump all gun owners together and call for legislation to punish everyone with a firearm?

“Progressives” have the subtlety of mind to distinguish between the radical Islamists who fly planes into skyscrapers and the innocent halal butcher from the suburban strip mall who just wants to get on with his life and worship in peace. Yet, they can’t tell the difference between the worst mass murderer in U.S. history and the duck hunter, rancher, gun collector or sport shooter who lives down the block.

If someone were urging mass roundups at radical mosques to send a message to the jihadis who would destroy our way of life, “progressives” would (rightly) rush to the police lines to make sure authorities were not blanketing every Muslim inside under the same suspicion.

And they are quick to reject any suggestion of a travel ban on visitors or immigrants from terror-incubating countries, lest the West unfairly inconvenience non-violent Muslims. But they have no similar concerns for the rights and freedoms of ordinary, law-abiding Canadians who want to stalk deer a couple of weekends in the fall or go ping some targets at a range after work.

When one murderer with guns kills with impunity, “progressives” act as if all gun owners are guilty by association and deserving of punishment for their choice of recreation.

Following Stephen Paddock’s killing rampage in Nevada on Oct. 1, both Heidi Rathjen and Wendy Cukier, the co-founders of Canada’s Coalition for Gun Control, demanded the federal Liberals make good on their 2015 campaign promised to toughen Canada’s gun laws.

“The Las Vegas massacre is a reminder, once again, of what is at stake when one individual with malicious intent has access to guns,” Rathjen told the online news site iPolitics.

The operative phrase in what Rathjen said is “one individual with malicious intent,” not “access to guns.” But because it is easier (and more politically correct) for lib-leftists to restrict guns than it is for them to involuntarily commit mentally unstable people who are at a high risk of killing, their first choice becomes to restrict guns for millions of Canadians because of the actions of a few.

Then there’s the fact that the Vegas murders didn’t even occur in this country. And very likely could not have occurred with the gun laws we already have.

No matter, those killings are a convenient excuse to push the gun control agenda here, too.

Still, this is the intellectual equivalent of someone in favour of taking a harder line against radical Muslims arguing that because of the Nice truck attack in 2016 or the rammings at the Berlin Christmas market, we should ban the Koran in Canada and impose truck-rental controls on all Muslims.

In the aftermath of the Vegas murders, federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale responded to pressure from the anti-gunners by repeating earlier promises he haf made to introduce new gun control legislation before the end of the year.

Expect a backdoor gun registry under the guise of “marking” and “tracking” firearms, whether or not that will make Canada any safer from gun crime.