SEGUIN TWP. — At the Parry Sound Anglers and Hunters’ Pistol Club this week, there was a fresh pot of coffee brewing when a member arrived with a variety pack of muffins, still warm from the oven.

The men were there to relax, focus their minds, challenge themselves and enjoy the pride in a good shoot.

But their hobby, no different to them than golf or fishing to others, may be threatened.

Earlier this month, Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement asked the government to confirm or deny information that he’d been given of “a secret plan to ban legal firearms.” That ban, Clement said in Parliament, would be done through a cabinet directive with no debate by members of Parliament

Bill Blair, minister of border security and organized crime, responded that the “government remains absolutely committed to undertaking all measures that are effective in keeping Canadians safe … and we are prepared to consider whatever measures would be effective in this regard.”

That nondenial, said Clement in a later interview, spoke volumes.

“If he had denied it, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. But he didn’t deny it. He added a lot of fuel to the fire and that’s why it’s become a story … because (of) his response to my question, not my question per se.”

Indigenous people, farmers, and hunters use firearms legally, but they’re also used for sport shooting, he said.

“There was a lot of talk of AR-15s, semi-automatics and handguns — but I do not know. All I know is that it was going to be large,” said Clement.

Clement said that he was told the prime minister would make the announcement with the New Zealand prime minister at his side next month. In New Zealand, military-style semi-automatic weapons were quickly banned after a March 15 mass shooting.