Automatic weapons are already illegal in both Canada and the US. In the US it has been, iirc, illegal to buy automatic weapons for about 3 decades. Pre-existing weapons were grandfathered.

Some handguns are described as automatics because of the way they load rounds but they do not fire automatically the way, e.g. machine guns do.

I note the new buzz phrase "rapid fire weapons" - so the ante has been upped, now the Globe is not just against automatic weapons but anything that allows you to pull the trigger repeatedly with no other intervening action on the shooter's part.