The humourist and frontier philosopher Will Rogers once said, “It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain’t so.”

Rogers died in a plane crash in 1935, 36 years before Justin Trudeau was even born. Still, it’s hard to believe Rogers didn’t have the Liberal leader in mind – or at least politicians like him – because so much of what Trudeau “knows” just ain’t so.

Take gun control for instance.

All week, Trudeau has been railing against the Harper government’s latest firearms act, Bill C-42. The Montreal MP’s complaints are so far off base that either he is utterly clueless or horribly cynical.

The Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act does nothing as bold as ending the national registry of rifles and shotguns. That the Tories did in 2012.

The government insists that, basically, C-42 removes layers of redundant firearms regulations without removing safeguards that protect the public from criminal use of guns.

But that hasn’t stopped the bombastic Liberal leader from predicting mayhem on Canada’s streets if the bill passes.

Wednesday, following the Liberals’ weekly caucus meeting, Trudeau insisted that should C-42 become the law assault rifles, machine guns and high-powered handguns would be commonplace “outside busy places like shopping malls, grocery stores and sports arenas.”

There is no possible interpretation of C-42 that supports Trudeau’s preposterous predictions.

Under the current licensing laws, introduced by the Liberals in 1995 at the same time they created the gun registry, a person who owns a “restricted” weapon must keep it securely locked in his or her home. If he or she wants to transport it, such as to a gun range or gun show, he or she not only needs a licence to possess the gun but also a separate ATT (authorization to transport).

The ATT requires the gun owner to lock his or her gun in the trunk, unloaded, and drive without stopping to an authorized destination using the most direct route possible.

It’s true that C-42 eliminates the need for law-abiding gun owners to have a separate ATT just to drive with their guns down to the nearest range for a little target practice.

Instead, any licensed firearms owner may use his or her licence like at ATT. A gun owner with valid licence to own a restricted weapon may transport it to any one of five types of locations within his or her home province – a registered gunsmith, shooting range, police station, exit point from Canada or licensed gun show.

But the meaningful rules in the old law still pertain: The gun must be in a locked case, unloaded and in a locked trunk. Also, the owner must use the most direct route and make no stops along the way.

So despite Trudeau’s fear-mongering, the parking lots at doughnut shops, supermarkets and minor hockey games will not be full of vehicles bristling with machine guns and automatic handguns. At least they won’t be any more bristling after C-42 is passed than they are now with the old Liberal rules still in place.

I’d give Trudeau credit for simply making this up to fan fears and drive voters to his party. But quite frankly, I don’t think he or his inner circle are that clever.

Instead, I think they are clueless about lawful firearms ownership and the threat it (doesn’t) pose to public safety. They really do believe that only thing standing between peaceful firearms ownership and shoot-ups in the streets are nanny state laws implemented by the enlightened minds of the Liberal Party.

It truly is the great number of things Trudeau thinks he knows, but which just aren’t so, that make him dangerous as a potential PM.

lorne.gunter@sunmedia.ca