WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Liberal government has tabled new gun-control measures it believes will improve public safety.

"No more tragedies. No more ‘wrong place, wrong time’. The right place to act is here and the right time is now," says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The legislation sets its sights on a number of measures, including prohibiting assault rifles as well as an optional assault-rifle buy-back program.

The legislation calls for additional funding for the RCMP and Canada Border Services agency to better track guns and stop the flow of illegal weapons across the border.

It would also allow municipalities the ability to ban handguns through bylaws restricting their possession, storage and transportation.

“Our choice is to help where people want help,” says Liberal public safety minister Bill Blair. “And where a municipality wants to do more, and where they have the support of their provincial to do more, we’re prepared to support those initiatives.”

But it’s a ban some believe goes a step too far.

“If they’re trying to fight gun crime, I don’t think they’re picking on the right people,” says Ray Soucie, a gunsmith and manager at General Gun and Supply in Windsor.

Soucie says his customers are typically target shooters and hunters — law-abiding citizens who are vetted for gun ownership.

“If they’re trying to fight gun crime, I don’t think the criminals are going to get mad about this, it’s just not going to affect them,” he says.

Chris Lewis, the MP for Essex, says he will stand up for the rights of lawful gun owners and calls the proposed legislation “horrible and deplorable.”

“It’s going to do nobody any good at all,” says Lewis. “It will not stop one crime, it will not stop one smuggled gun coming across the border.”

“To turn around and dump it on the municipalities is quite frankly ludacris and wrong on so many fronts. And all that really tells me is that JT and the Liberals don’t really have an answer for this,” he says.

Mayors in Toronto and Vancouver have said the municipal handgun ban is something they would consider. Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens — who also chairs Windsor Police Services Board says anecdotally, “in the vast majority of crimes in which handguns are used, that those guns are illegal.”

Dilkens says he needs to know more about the proposed legislation to take a full opinion, but any decision made would happen with the consultation of both council and the community.

He’s concerned some municipalities will opt-in for the law and others will opt-out, creating a patchwork of guns laws without the proper tools to enforce them.

He also worries that leaving it up to bylaw officers takes the teeth out of any gun control measure because it’s not typically something they would enforce.

“If this is truly a serious federal issue, then the federal government needs to pass legislation that applies to all municipalities equally,” Dilkens says.