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Did the Conservatives just dodge a bullet on Bill C-51? That’s the question I’m asking myself after the National Firearms Association announced that it would not present its views at committee hearings on the government’s proposed anti-terror legislation.

Scheduled to testify on Monday, the NFA canceled its appearance and has not, as of this writing, rescheduled — or provided reasons for its withdrawal.

Here’s what we do know: Had the NFA testified, it would not have supported the law. This organization, which represents 75,000 firearms owners, is a member of the Protect our Privacy Coalition, which decries the bill’s potential to increase state surveillance. The president of the NFA, Sheldon Clare, even described C-51 as being “a sort of creeping police state bill”.

So why back out of the hearings? Steve Anderson, lawyer for Openmedia, an Internet privacy group scheduled to testify alongside the NFA, said in an email to CBC News that he hopes “the government will clarify whether it played a role in pressuring the NFA to withdraw.”

“Legitimate firearms owners,” Anderson added, “are one of many groups concerned about how Bill C-51 will undermine privacy and our basic democratic rights. These are crucial parliamentary hearings and the voices of all Canadians deserve to be heard.”

So was it pressure — or promises? Of greater direct concern to firearms owners is another piece of legislation: Bill C-42, the Common Sense Firearms Registration Act. The bill would roll two types of firearms licences into one, extend a grace period for gun licence renewals, ease restrictions on transporting guns and ban anyone convicted of domestic assault from getting a firearms licence for life. C-42 was scheduled to be debated on October 22, 2014, but that same morning terrorist Michael Zehaf-Bibeau mounted his deadly assault in the nation’s capital. Debate was postponed until November 26, and the bill has languished at second reading ever since.

Was the NFA feeling the heat? Or was it the other way around? Could amendments to C-42 be in the offing, and was the NFA’s decision to abstain from embarrassing the government by tearing into its terrorism law the quid pro quo? Was the NFA feeling the heat? Or was it the other way around? Could amendments to C-42 be in the offing, and was the NFA’s decision to abstain from embarrassing the government by tearing into its terrorism law the quid pro quo?

Despite some of these measures, the NFA does not like C-42. In November 2014, Clare said that the bill “is neither about common sense, nor even really much about firearms licensing. It’s more about giving the appearance of doing something when, in fact, nothing much is being done.”

The FRA wants amendments, among them a further easing of restrictions on the transport of firearms and on allowing those whose permit applications are denied to challenge those tests. The organization also is petitioning the government to repeal Criminal Code restrictions on magazine capacity for semi-automatic weapons, which currently are limited to ten cartridges per magazine.

Firearms owners are, as a group, supposed to be safely in the Tories’ back pockets. They are, after all, the party that abolished the hated Liberal gun registry. Public opinion research shows that gun owners are more likely to be Conservative than Liberal in both their ideological and political preferences: In the U.S., they are twice as likely to vote Republican as Democrat.

But like a lot of other groups who thought the Tories had their back (veterans, social conservatives, fans of smaller government), gun owners feel let down. And that could be a problem in the next election — unless the government responds to their concerns.

“There’s been a lot of lip service paid,” said Clare. “But this part of the base — and they certainly seem to think we are part of their base and that we have no other place to go — I’d really like to remind them how firearms owners stayed home in droves after Kim Campbell brought in Bill C-17. There was a penalty to be paid by Conservatives for turning their back on firearms owners.”

Will the Tories duck that penalty this time around? Coincidentally — or not — Prime Minister Stephen Harper opined on the importance of firearms to rural residents on March 12. “My wife’s from a rural area, gun ownership wasn’t just for the farm, it was also for a certain level of security when you’re ways away from police, immediate police assistance,” he said to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.

When Harper came under fire for promoting “vigilantism”, he shot back: “Gun owners in Canada are not allowed to take the law into their own hands. Nobody here is suggesting they should be able to do that. In fact we have had, in many parts of this country, widespread gun ownership for many years, for various reasons including security, without people taking the law into their own hands. So that’s just not the reality of the situation.”

Just five days later, Clare told the Ottawa Citizen that while C-42 is “not good firearms legislation,” he is optimistic “that we’ll see some true changes.” Fast forward another five days and we see the NFA mysteriously backing out of its presentation on C-51.

Was the NFA feeling the heat? Or was it the other way around? Could amendments to C-42 be in the offing, and was the NFA’s decision to abstain from embarrassing the government by tearing into its terrorism law the quid pro quo?

If that was the case, it would show just how much this government is depending on C-51 to keep it competitive in an election year — and just how much horsetrading Canadians can expect to see over the next few months.

Tasha Kheiriddin is a political writer and broadcaster who frequently comments in both English and French. After practising law and a stint in the government of Mike Harris, Tasha became the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and co-wrote the 2005 bestseller, Rescuing Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution. Tasha moved back to Montreal in 2006 and served as vice-president of the Montreal Economic Institute, and later director for Quebec of the Fraser Institute, while also lecturing on conservative politics at McGill University. Tasha now lives in Whitby, Ontario with her daughter Zara, born in 2009.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.