With the petition e-2341 calling for the Liberals to debate their proposed gun legislation and various bans ticking closer to 160,000 signatures, it seems that the gun lobby organizations like the National Firearms Association (NFA) have already won the debate.

Not only has a petition become the most signed parliamentary petition in Canadian history, which the Liberals have grown “concerned” over, and the location signatures are coming from demonstrates why this petition could be bad news for their minority government.

Out of the nearly 160 thousand signatures, 52,103 were collected from residents of Ontario, the a province that the Liberals can never afford to underperform in if they hope to win even a minority government.

Online petitions tend to be challenging to get people to notice and sign. Out of the total Canadian population the signatures may seem low, but it merely represents a fraction of the people who are furious with the Liberal’s anti-gun agenda.

What the Liberals should have burned into their memories is the absolute collapse their government faced electorally after pushing for the long-gun registry in the early 2000s.

Like the gun ban and strict legislation being proposed by the Trudeau government, Paul Martin’s Liberals went forward with their gun registry, as well as proposed a complete ban on handguns.

Predictably it turned into a multi-billion dollar boondoggle with little upside to show for all the spending. Scandals eventially emerged due to the Liberals attempting to hide overspending on the program.

Despite the popularity of Jean Chrétien’s government and the initial demand of Paul Martin, the registry after 2004 saw the Liberals slowly lose more and more rural ridings to the Conservatives under Steven Harper.