From owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mon Dec 9 22:07:02 1996 From: "David A. Tomlinson" Subject: Presentations on Regulations If you or your group are planning a presentation to the House subcommittee on the Nov 96 Regulations, to be held in Jan 97, feel free to download, print, use and plagiarize the following. If you know of any such group, givve it a copy. There will be a series of these papers, each covering one Regulation set. The numbers are the numbers of the regulations as they appear in the set. INTERPRETATION INDIVIDUALS: 3(b) and (c) require signatures of people who have known the applicant for at least three years. In today's mobile society, such a requirement is often impossible or very difficult to satisfy. These requirements apparently arise from the more settled nature of service in a government bureaucracy, where the bureaucrats assume that the rest of the society is as fixed as their own. 3(c)(ii) and 11(c)(ii) set an impossible standard: "there is _no_ reason why it would be desirable, in the interests of the safety of the applicant or any other person, that the applicant not possess a firearm." Only a lunatic, a mindless person or a person who just does not care could possibly certify such a broad and sweeping coverage for a friend or acquaintance. As an exercise in covering the butt of the bureaucrat by shifting blame to the certifying acquaintance, it makes a certain amount of sordid sense; in the real world, it does not. 3(d) requires notification of former spouses/cohabitors prior to license issuance. They assume that a substantial percentage of ex-spouses/-cohabitors wish to acquire firearms to kill their former mates, that everyone knows where the former mate is to be found, and that all breakups are criminally hostile. One wonders what sort ov worldview the author enjoys. This area is wide opent to abuse, particularly by vindictive ex-mates who make false and unsubtantiated accusations, or simple decarations of unwarranted fears. It is particularly appalling that a battered wife who has left her abuser can be prevented, by this, from acquiring any firearm -- by her abuser. 4(3)(ii) and Firearms Act section [FA s.] 55(2) authorize the Chief Firearms Officer [CFO] to conduct complex investigations, but set no time limits, offer no money to cover the heavy expenses, and fail to justify the expense. 5 imposes a quite dangerous 28-day delay prior to issuance. The utility of a delay period is highly questionable. If a potential murderer has the patience to go through the Canadian Firearms Safety Course [CFSC], fill out all the paperwork, and jump through all the other hoops, what on earth makes anyone think that an additional 28-day delay will shatter his will to murder? On the other hand, the 28-day delay after taking the CFSC will guarantee loss of most of what the applicant learned, through an inability to put the new information to use. That is a fundamental principle of education; training MUST be followed by practice, or most os it is lost within two weeks. The 28-day delay largely eliminates the benefits of the CFSC, and the deaths by accidents _caused_ by that delay will almost certainly outnumber the murders prevented. On balance, the 28-day delay will do far more harm than good. 7. This regulation, as written, taken in conjunction with FA s. 6, precludes issuance of any license to any individual who does not already have a license by 31 Dec 2000. FA s. 6 is very broad. Is that the intent, or is 7 simply a display of incompetence? 8(b) again runs into the problems of living in a mobile society and not having access to someone who has known the applicant "for at least three years." 10(3) is sadly defective. Firearms Instructors -- the best qualified people available for giving such signatures -- are excluded from the list. 10(3)(e) and (f) require signatures from "organizations" -- a trifle difficult, as organizations as such cannot wield pens. One does wish the government would run their regulations past an English teacher before issuing them! 15 says that the CFO "_shall_ consider revoking" any license that he has issued if he "becomes aware" that the holder "has been involved in an act of domestic violence." The mandatory requirement to consider revoking does not fit well with the idea that the CFO should only do this if he (accidentally?) "becomes aware" of the act of "domestic violence." The definition of "domestic violence" is missing, but crucial. Is a police call to a late-night noisy argument "domestic violence?" What criteria are applied? Any? Or is the definition of "domestic violence" left up to the police, or to the CFO, or to the courts? What standards apply for proof that the holder has been "involved" in the forbidden behavior? Can this be used to revoke the license of the _victim_ of "domestic violence?" To revoke the license of a neighbor who intervened (with his bare hands) to _stop_ a wife-beater while waiting for police arrival? As written, it clearly can be. And that is wrong. 17(a)(i) and (ii) make an erroneous assumption. They assumes that every person in the firearms community owns and uses "common hunting or sporting firearms" and therefore requires a knowledge of their "basic operation." It is a false assumption; many firearms owners are not in that field at all. BUSINESSES: This entire section suffers from the bad FA s. 2 definitions of "business" as "a _person_ who carries on a business...and includes a museum" and "museum" as "a person who operates a museum." It is a remarkable demonstration of stupidity to use the word being defined as part of the definition. Again, one wishes the government had a competent command of the English language. Oddly, FA s. 2's definition of "business" says that the word "business" "includes a museum" but its definition of "museum" does not include a "business." The Firearms Act then goes on to _use_ the _defined_ words "business" and "museum" as if they had been defined _twice_, by frequently ignoring its own definitions. It uses both the word "business" and the word "museum" as it they had been defined _twice_, as follows: "business" means a person who operates a commercial venture that involves firearms, and "business" also means a corporation that involves firearms. "museum" means a person who operates an exhibition that includes firearms, and "museum" also means a corporation that exhibits firearms. Such a duality of definition is a source of endless legal problems. For example, FA s. 108 and 109 combine to send a "business" (or a "museum," as it is included in the definition of "business") to prison for up to five years. 18 authorizes the CFO to issue licenses to businesses and museums, but does not specify who or what he should issue it to: the person who operates the corporation or to the corporation itself. Yet that is quite important. 19, again, does not specify whether the "museum" is the corporation or the person. 19 outlaws many police, military, reference and other specialist museums, for no readily discernible reason. Is that the intent, or is this another display of incompetence? 20 further complicates the "business" = "person" versus "business" = "corporation" confusion. For example, the FA s. 2 definition of "business" clearly defines "business," for the purpose of the Act, a meaning "a person." Then 20 says that "every person who is related to a business...[by being] an owner of...the business." Decidedly odd. I had thought that ownership of a person had been outlawed many years ago. Has slavery returned? 21(e)(i) perpetuates an ancient problem. Carriage of a handgun "to protect life" has nothing whatever to do with "businesses...whose employees require require handguns to protect life." It assumes an ancient idiocy, that an employee's life is worth protection but that of another citizen in substantially the same circumstances is not. And that is wrong. 21(1), (2), (3) and (4), plus 23(1), (2), (3) and (4) are dealt with separately in my earlier CFD paper, "CFC Regulations of Nov 96." The issues there are complex and quite dangerous, but a sound knowedge of law and the Constitution are required to understand just how, and how badly, the writer of 21 erred. Dave Tomlinson, NFA "For a brief message from Jean Chretien, push the button." Sign seen on hot-air hand driers across Canada.