Interesting Article on Gun Control
I ran across this article today while surfing at lunch. It portrays a very interesting angle on the gun control actions of the Chretien era liberals. It basically says that after the Montreal Massacre, Kim Campbell brought in some ’sensible’ restrictions (I would argue that point. Some were sensible, others were dumb). However, the Liberals were so anxious to be ‘better’ on the issue that they brought in the universal long gun registry. But, here’s the really interesting statement:
If the object of the policy exercise was to appear to be “tougher” on guns than Kim Campbell, they had to find a policy that would provoke legitimate gun-owners to outrage. Nothing would better convince the Liberals’ urban constituency that Jean Chrétien and Allan Rock were taking a tough line on guns than the spectacle of angry old men spouting fury on Parliament Hill.
The supreme irony of the gun registry battle is that the policy was selected because it would goad people who knew something about guns to public outrage. That is, it had a purely political purpose in the special context of a hard-fought election. The fact that it was bad policy was crucial to the specific political effect it was supposed to deliver.
In other words, they deliberately created a policy which would be objectionable to the stakeholders, in order to make the stakeholders upset, so that they would give the appearance to those with no stake that it was good policy.
That, dear friends, is the essence of everything that is wrong with Canada’s gun control laws.
Now, before you condemn me as some kind of redneck gunlover, here are some changes I would make to the gun laws:
1) Scrap the Registry – not because its an affront to constitutional rights or is an unfair intrusion into a person property ownership, but simply and pragmatically, because it costs too much. Its money that could be more effectively spent in other areas on this file (chiefly, screening procedures).
2) Eliminate C-68’s provisions allowing for what amounts to an end around play on the charter protections against unreasonable search and seizure. In a little known section of C-68 it allows for an inspector to basically come at any time and demand to inspect your firearms collection (if you legally own any, they aren’t knocking on crack houses, just us law abiding types). This is a violation of the owners charter rights, on its face, even if the courts have not yet ruled it so, and it allows police a fishing expedition for searching a house that they cannot obtain a legal warrant to search. There are very good reasons why we proscribe unreasonable searches, and what a person owns, legally, should not provide a means to circumvent it.
3) We should toughen up the screening methods to keep out people who are unstable or unsuitable. People convicted of an offense who have spent a minimum of 2 months in jail should be restricted from owning firearms for 5years, and anyone sentenced to a period of 5 years or more in jail should have a permanent restriction, with an application process available to overturn it after 5 years. In addition to the current screening mechanisms (Which are mostly very reasonable: references from people who have known you 5 years, spouses or common law partners, and other requirements. For example, I had to write a letter to add to my PAL application since I had lost my job within 90 days before I began the application for my PAL), they should also add a ‘mental health’ screen by requiring a physicians note be added to the process. This note should be easy to obtain for a person, but it would ensure that people with a history of mental illness could be denied on that basis alone should their doctor be unwilling to sign it. Also, the test should be much more difficult. It took me about 5 minutes and I got perfect, the handling test was just as easy. The written test should include a section on the legal obligations, and make sure that people understand the laws involved, because it really is confusing, and this would allow people to be sure they know their legal obligations.
4) Pass a mandatory – ’show me’ law for the sale and importation of all ammunition. Certain provinces already have such laws, but because there is no federal law, there are loopholes big enough to drive a truck through. You should have to show your license to buy ammo. They should not have to take down or record your license number (as the government has no business in knowing how much you have), but there should be a requirement to show it. Right now we have the ludicrous situation in which I have to show two forms of ID to buy a box of shells at Walmart, but if I drive into the US, buy the same ammo at a Walmart there, and then drive it back into Canada, I can legally declare it, pay my GST on it, and then go on without ever having proven I am a licensed firearm owner. Or, alternately I could order ammo by phone from another province without that requirement, and have them send it by mail without any requirement either.
5) Eliminate the ‘restricted’ status of certain long arms. Right now, we have the ludicrous situation in which an M-16 variant is a ‘restricted’ firearm and can only be used at a range, by a person with a restricted permit, but you can purchase a swiss made rifle of similar lineage (I hesitate to speak its name for fear the gun grabbers will target it), or a Ruger Mini-14, without restriction. An M-16 variant is no more dangerous than any other long arm in the wrong hands. They just look scarier. Cosmetic appeal has nothing to do with public safety.
6) Make home defense a legitimate use under the criminal code. Sometimes there are unfortunate circumstances in which a person may find themselves in need of a firearm to defend themselves from an intruder. In that moment, a firearm should be used without fear of malicious prosecution. A person acting in reasonable defense of themselves or others should be permitted to do so. As the Ann Coulter adage goes: “The Supreme Court made women people, Colonel Colt made them equal”.
7) Storage laws should remain basically the same, although it should be permissible to leave a firearm unlocked at home as long as the only person with access to the home or room it is locked in has a valid license. If you have kids, your firearms should be locked, you should have all the keys on your person at all times, and you should not use a combination lock. Ditto if you have boarders or roommates or spouses. Only the licensed individual should have access, but if you are the only one who owns the house, and you lock the doors, that should be sufficient under the law to count as safe storage. This may seem a small point, but in reference to #6, it will be easier to defend myself if I only have to run into the next room, retrieve a magazine of ammunition from its hiding place (you cannot store ammo and firearms together under law unless it is locked in a gun cabinet), and load it. If I have to fumble with keys, that could result in me being killed… The ammo storage requirement should stay the same, in my opinion.
There should be a ‘may issue’ law for concealed carrying of handguns by ordinary citizens. They should have to undertake the existing requirements for a restricted firearm, plus a long course of proper safe use and the legalities operated by the local police. It should have extensive background checking and psychological profiling (similar to what police recruits are required to endure. The police should emphasize when the use is appropriate and when it is not, and it should involve shooting drills to demonstrate proficiency. When completed, this special license would essentially deputize a small number of the public to carry in any public place except an airport, jail or courthouse. This would allow a person in the midst of a mass shooting event or similar public safety incident to neutralize the situation without harm to others. There are many American examples of this, but no Canadian ones, since concealed carry laws are virtually unknown in Canada. If you are interested in US incidents, I would cite the examples of a shooting at the Appalachian School of Law and the recent shooting at the Colorado Church in which a churchgoer stopped a lunatic who had already shot 5 people by shooting him before he could shoot any more people.
9) We should not have a castle law.
10) For the purposes of compliance with the transporting requirements, having a firearm in a case should be considered ‘concealed’. The law requires you conceal a firearm by putting it in the trunk or covering it with something, but it is not clear in law that a case is considered a ‘covering’.
And there you have it, my basic opinion on the gun laws.
Hear, hear. They should also open up the other categories of firearms to new owners, so those of us that were born after a certain date aren’t locked out for no good reason.
—SDCCareful, your common sense approach may be catchy.
—B Elson11) I am not in favour of widening the number of people able to purchase ‘automatic’ firearms. They should remain prohibited to all except those with existing grandfathered licenses, law enforcement, the military and specialized entertainment industry personnel (and of course legitimate firearms dealers).
12) Any semi-automatic long rifle that is classed as ‘prohibited’ on the basis of looks alone, including but not limited to: The benelli Super 90, AK47 (and all variants), FAMAS, FN FAL, HK 91/g3 or etc… should be reclassed as ‘unrestricted’ as long as they are manufactured in a manner which will not allow them to operate in a full automatic manner, even with modification, and rifle magazine size restrictions will remain in place. If they cannot be purchased with legal, 5 round magazines, then they should remain prohibited until such time as those magazines are available.
I mean, what the hell is the benelli super 90 doing on that list?!
—admin“I am not in favour of widening the number of people able to purchase ‘automatic’ firearms.”
Is there any sort of a reason for this, other than a vague “uneasiness” about them? If we look at countries around the world, these firearms have some of the best safety records; Canadians were trusted with them up until the 1970s, with absolutely NO incidents involving legally-owned full-autos. In the US, with something around 250,000 legally-owned FAs, there have only been 3 incidents of a legally-owned FA being used in a crime. If Canadians ARE too stupid and dangerous to be trusted with these things, then they are also too stupid and dangerous to be trusted with any other firearm. When Turdeau prohibited them, it was for the same reasons that Chretien and his band of thieves introduced the registry. Even those politicians who knew FIRST-HAND what full-autos can do in the wrong hands (vets from WW1 and WW2) didn’t see anything wrong with Canadians safely owning and using these things, but when that weasel Turdeau used his cult of personality to shove his ideas of right and wrong down our throats, Canadians suddenly could no longer be trusted with them.
—SDCThe only reasons are:
a) Its a political non-starter. I’d rather have meaningful changes to other portions of the law, than risk all of them by shooting for the moon on this point.
b) The public wouldn’t support it, in general, which means that such a change wouldn’t be democratic.
c) We live in a different world from the 50’s and 60’s. Even with more stringent screening procedures, some whack jobs are going to get their hands on guns. Allowing them to get autos is a bad idea. Also, terrorism, same problem. I want the police to have better arms, not equal ones, to potential suspects. Let’s face it, a Lee Enfield no. 3 in the hands of a skilled and determined person with malice of intent is every bit as dangerous as one with a semi-auto M4, perhaps moreso. But that same person is significantly more dangerous with an automatic one.
—adminPS. All versions of the Benelli M1S90 were originally going to be prohibited, but after it was pointed out that a large number of Italian waterfowlers in Quebec (people who have historically been “good” Liberal donors and voters) would not take too kindly to having their shotguns declared prohibited, the Department of “Justice” lawyers weasel-worded an exemption for the version that they decided “looked sporting”. So, if you buy a perfectly-legal “sporting” M1 Super 90, you can add all of the factory-original Benelli accessories you want to make it look IDENTICAL to the prohibited versions. No, it doesn’t make sense, but it WAS NEVER INTENDED TO MAKE SENSE. How about the Valmet Hunter? It is every bit as much of an “AK variant” as every OTHER prohibited “AK variant” on the list, but the LIEberals exempted it specifically because they had handed out truckloads of those rifles to Inuit communities for hunting and bear defence, and they knew that if they went back and asked for those now-prohibited rifles, they would be told that they could go f&*k themselves with a crooked broomstick. So, they decided to seep it under the rug and hope no-one noticed that one’s RACE determined how these laws were passed.
—SDC“But that same person is significantly more dangerous with an automatic one.”
One might believe that, if the only exposure that person had to full autos was the nonsense they see on TV and in the movies. Real life is quite different, but expecting voters to make an INFORMED decision is a bit much to ask, I admit.
—SDCAn automatic is significantly more dangerous in the wrong hands. There is a reason why the military uses automatics as a basic infantry weapon.
I was not aware of the Valmet story. Do you know anywhere in Canada one can be purchased?! I wouldn’t mind having one. I’ve been saving up for one of the swiss firearms whose name I dare not speak. 3k$ is a lot of money!
—adminI sure am glad they didn’t ban everything benelli makes, because I love my Nova Pump. Best shotgun out there as far as I can tell. I want to buy a Supernova Tactical for my collection as well.
—admin“An automatic is significantly more dangerous in the wrong hands. There is a reason why the military uses automatics as a basic infantry weapon.”
The reason the military use automatics is because the military use “volume of fire” as a suppressive technique; while part of the squad is firing at the enemy, that lets the rest of the squad leapfrog up to positions where they can do the same, then they do the same thing again. Even THAT is now out of favour, because they realize that firing 100,000 rounds PLUS per enemy soldier dead is pretty pointless, and more and more militaries are mandating “burst” fire on their rifles as a substitute for training (both the US M16A2 and the Russian AK-74M now have 3-round burst, instead of full-auto). If you can find an Indian with a Valmet Hunter for sale, you’re free to buy it (assuming they registered it), but the reason the Liberals were giving out those rifles in the first place was because they were going out of production and they could get them cheap.
—SDCRegardless the fact is, legalizing automatics is a political non-starter, and I’d rather be able to choose a wider assortment of semi-autos than go for the whole cake.
I did some research on the Valmets last night, they were actually banned originally, and were taken off the banned list by Landslide Annie a few years back.
Burst fire does scare me more than full auto, but the fact is the public doesn’t know the difference.
—adminPlease correct me if I’m wrong, but I think one cannot even use their M-16 variant as a target gun in Canada anymore. I received a letter from Landslide Annie in 2005 informing me that c-300 transport permits would no longer be issued for the purpose of transporting “prohibited” rifles to the range for target shooting. It was deemed by an order-in-council that these guns have no “legimite” sporting purpose and therefore would only be allowed to be transported to gunsmiths or, to the police for “disposal”. I haven’t heard any word from Stockwell Day as to whether this decision was reversed or not.
—AlgjaegerWhich leads me to my next thought. The Liberals we very “liberal” (pun intended) with their use of the orders-in-council provision of C-68 to impliment all sorts of additional restrictions on gun owners, therefore by-passing Parliment. Why are the Conservatives not using it to reverse some (all!) of these decisions? I can’t help but think, from a gun owner’s perspective that Harper has blown us off in order to win votes from Quebec and the UC’s (Upper Canadians).
Sorry, that should read “legitimate”. I get a little emotional whenever I think of the possibility of losing my L1A1.
—AlgjaegerThe M-16 variants were restricted, not prohibited. Only the automatic versions were prohibited.
The M-16 variants were all classed as restricted and can be issued with a permission to transport certificate.
http://www.cfc-cafc.gc.ca/factsheets/r&p_e.asp
—adminThank you for the correction. Not owning an AR-15 variant, I was not aware that they were merely restricted. It just points out the madening inconsistantcies of Canadian gun laws. My AKS 84 is, for all intents and purposes, the same as an AR-15, semi-auto only, .223 caliber, but it is considered prohibited because it’s an AK, ooooh! For that matter, why is the Ruger Mini-14 non-restircted? Laws made by ignorant idiots who have no knowledge or interest in reality.
—Algjaeger