Ep. 185: 37 Dead at the Bluebird Cafe: Why Canada Won't Talk About It with Dr. Noah Schwartz

Dr. Noah Schwartz is the political scientist who decided he could not write honestly about Canada's gun community without going through the licensing system himself. He took the PAL. He took the RPAL. He sat at 84 kitchen tables across this country. What he found is a story most Canadians have never heard.

In this episode we cover the largest deliberate mass casualty event in Canadian history that almost nobody remembers, why the handgun freeze was announced after a shooting in Texas, the policy framework Czechia used after a university massacre that did the opposite of what Canada did, and what it means that single-shot black powder pistols were banned alongside Glocks.

Get Targeted: https://amzn.to/4wbl61w

More from Noah: https://noahschwartz.ca and @NoahSchwartzy on X

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Timestamps

00:00:00  Cold open and Silvercore Club

00:01:16  Welcome and meeting at the NFA event

00:02:01  What political science is and how Schwartz fell into firearms research

00:05:18  Breaking suburban-Ottawa preconceptions, his first time shooting in rural Alberta

00:08:51  American gun rights vs Canadian citizenship, the load-bearing distinction

00:11:27  What being treated fairly looks like, the handgun freeze and inheritance

00:13:55  Teaching gun politics at university, viewpoint diversity in the classroom

00:17:54  Storytelling, evolution, and why narrative beats statistics

00:23:00  Mass shootings, mental health framing, and why fear overrides evidence

00:25:46  Why Targeted exists, and who it is actually written for

00:27:30  The two factions of Canadian gun advocacy, hunters and sport shooters

00:31:23  Civilian-military reconnection, rifle shooting as the first federally funded sport

00:33:18  The aesthetics theory, what black rifles communicate to both sides

00:36:14  Canadian identity, the CBC, the National Film Board, and the gunless cowboy

00:39:20  Finland and the Nordic security model

00:41:11  The case for a Canadian firearms museum

00:43:41  Making the gun the object instead of the person

00:45:00  The largest deliberate mass casualty events in Canadian history, including Bluebird Cafe

00:48:13  Why cars and alcohol kill more people but face less regulation

00:51:13  The 6 percent problem, gun owners as a political minority

00:53:01  Interest group capture and why the community loses 70 percent of the time

00:55:30  Reconnecting firearms to national defence, Carney's civil-servant proposal

01:01:30  The OIC, executive overreach, and why parliament matters

01:04:35  Black powder pistols banned alongside Glocks

01:05:15  Why the handgun freeze was announced after Uvalde, Texas

01:08:19  The Czech Republic, Charles University, and a different policy response

01:10:30  The real causes of crime, mental health, and harm reduction

01:12:30  How current laws stop gun owners from seeking mental health help

01:17:51  Blake Brown and the Angry White Men question

01:22:32  Why treating the media as the enemy is a losing strategy

01:25:23  Personal agency and not outsourcing your voice to organizations

01:28:04  RCMP variant reclassifications and the case for objective criteria

01:33:00  The Bader 2020 OIC affidavit, prohibited weapons absurdities, charge stacking

01:37:15  What he would tell a PhD student starting on Canadian firearms policy

01:39:00  Suppressors and the next policy fight

01:40:29  Closing message to young Canadian hunters and sport shooters

01:42:34  Wrap