From owner-cdn-firearms-digest@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Wed Aug 13 21:33:25 1997 From: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V1 #946 Content-Length: 23560 X-Lines: 575 Status: RO Cdn-Firearms Digest Wednesday, August 13 1997 Volume 01 : Number 946 In this issue: Re: How to register ANY firearm under C-68 Re: Follow Through With Promised Exemptions gun control, not criminal control CC s. 337 application B.C. Firearms Laws re: unsafe storage Metro and York Police Gun Collectors Re: Swat Teams used for Inspections? Humour ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 11:07:00 -0600 From: "David A. Tomlinson" Subject: Re: How to register ANY firearm under C-68 If you have a copy of Bill C-68, dig it out and read Firearms Act sections 106(1) and (3) plus section 109 CAREFULLY, while referring to this posting. In the NFA's view, the precise wording of FA s.106(1) defines the offence as "knowingly makes a statement." The clause, "makes a statement" is then amplified by the phrase, "orally or in writing." >In our view, the modifier "orally or in writing" modifies the sense of the sentence to indicate that the "statement" may be either verbal or in writing, and the next clause, "that is false or misleading," indicates only that the "statement" must be "false or misleading." In other words, the modifying adjective "knowingly" has no connection to the clause "that is false or misleading." It only modifies "makes a statement." >In our view, and in the rules of good English, the adjective "knowingly" modifies ONLY the phrase, "makes a statement." In the position that it appears in the sentence, it cannot and does not have the effect of modifying the words "that is false or misleading" by somehow changing the meaning of that clause to "that the applicant KNOWS is false or misleading." >That interpretation is supported by FA s. 106(3), where "statement" is defined as "an assertion of fact, belief, opinion, or knowledge, WHETHER MATERIAL OR NOT AND WHETHER ADMISSIBLE OR NOT." Why is that emphasized clause in there, if not to broaden the interpretation AGAINST the accused's interests? >Try substituting the words "assertion of fact", "assertion of belief", "assertion of opinion", and "assertion of knowledge" from (3) for "statement" in (1). It helps to clarify the point that I am making, because if the applicant "makes a[n] assertion of belief," for example, he is apparently TRYING to tell the truth. That does not save him, because it is the FACT the "statement" IS "false or misleading" that is important -- NOT whether the applicant KNEW it was "false or misleading." >The CFC/Registrar proposal to use "postcard registration" followed by "verification" the NEXT time the firearm comes to the attention of the firearms control bureaucracy creates a unique situation that must be followed through step by step. >1. Jane applies to register her shotgun, and fills in the application form with: "Make: J C Higgins; Model: Unknown; Manufacturer: J C Higgins; Calibre: .721; Type, Shotgun; Action: Bolt action; Shots, 6; Barrel length, 762mm; Serial number, 126." >2. Jane, not a firearms expert, has many errors there. Her firearm is actually a semi-automatic shotgun, not "Bolt action;" but she knows that she has to pull the bolt back, so she thinks "Bolt action" is the right choice. "J C Higgins" is neither a "Make" nor a "Manufacturer;" it is only a "house name" for guns sold by Sears Roebuck in the US or Sears in Canada. The "Calibre" should be "12 gauge," but she entered what she measured at the muzzle. The gun takes 5 cartridges, not 6 -- but she once got 6 into it by loading it with 12-gauge 2-1/2" cartridges instead of the usual 2-3/4" cartridges. The barrel length is wrong -- she wrongly included the added screw-on choke device at the muzzle. She found the number "126" stamped into the butt -- but that is not the Serial number; it is a property number stamped into it by a previous corporate owner. She did her best -- not good enough. >3. The registration certificate is issued -- with all Jane's erroneous information on it. (It is highly unlikely that a FRAS/Registrar clerk would question ANY of those entries. The clerk would simply type it all in, and send an bad certificate.) >4. Two years later, Jane sells the firearm to Joe, and it must be taken in for "verification" at that time. >5. The "verifier," fairly knowledgeable about guns, finds the registration certificate to be in error in several ways. A sullen, curmudgeonly type, he elects to charge Jane for not learning more before applying for registration. >6. The judge, a person who believes strongly in "backing up the police" and who is strongly (personally) anti-firearms, and who strongly believes that women are flightly creatures who should not be trusted to possess firearms, is biased toward punishing Jane for her honest errors. >7. Jane protests that she did not "knowingly" make a false "assertion of belief," but the judge rules that she "knowingly made a statement" for the purpose of getting a registration certificate, and that, based on the fact that what was issued to her was what she had given, the "assertion of belief" was clearly "false or misleading." >8. The judge can choose whether to take the CFC interpretation of the law - -- or mine. This judge takes mine, fines Jane, and issues a prohibition order against her. She is stripped of all her firearms, her FAC/license is revoked, and she cannot afford either a lawyer or an appeal. >Under current law, there is NO provision for registration by the "postcard" method. The applicant is NEVER solely responsible for what appears on the registration certificate. Therefore, any such charge runs head on into the fact that the Local Registrar is at least equally to blame for any error. >Under C-68, we LOSE that protection. We become SOLELY responsible, and that opens us to vulnerability. Some anti-firearms officers WILL take advantage of that. >Alternatively -- If Jane had followed NFA advice, and refused to give any information on the basis that she does not KNOW what the CORRECT entries are, the CFC/Registrar offficials would have to "identify" the firearm. They might well get it just as wrong as Jane did -- they have few genuine experts -- BUT JANE WOULD NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ERRORS, and could not be charged. >Given the choice between SAFETY for Jane and putting Jane through the nightmare and expense of criminal charges, legal fees, and a prohibition hearing, is it any wonder that the NFA is erring on the side of SAFETY for Jane? Dave Tomlinson, NFA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 11:06:57 -0600 From: "John E. Stevens" Subject: Re: Follow Through With Promised Exemptions At 01:27 PM 8/12/97 -0600, Geoffrey E. Stokes wrote: > >It's apparent that past mentions of exemptions regarding the licensing of >long-time firearms users and the legitimate uses for high-capacity >magazines has been disregarded after proclamations of new gun control >schemes. Honestly, it's time government entities verified the participation >of all the agencies involved in the firearms bureaucracy; hence, making >these exemptions available to legitimate firearms owners. > >All long time firearm owners (lets say, continuous ownership for five >years) should be exempt from any further training. As well, the >legitimate, law abiding gun owner should have his/her exemption to possess >large capacity magazines reinstated as Bill C-17 promised. This would >certainly be a positive step toward support for Chapter 39 of the Criminal >Code. Well put Geoffrey. And valid if the purpose of the legislation was control rather than elimination. Sadly, everything emanating from our government screams ELIMINATE. Even sadder is the fact that the women Wendy professes to protect have a greater chance of dying of breast cancer than by a firearm. Too bad the feds can't put some of that money into research. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:18:13 -0600 From: Jim Davies Subject: gun control, not criminal control > > Tell me again what registration has done for anyone. > Well, there are 100+ happy new bureaucrats in Ottawa who depend on it for paychecks, pensions and careers :-( - -------------------------------------------- > > Yes Damian in the province of BC to legally transport unrestricted > > firearms you require a valid hunting license or a provincial firearms > > license, which incidentally cost $20.00 and there is not check other > > than a currrent drivers license. This is a provincial statue. > > Sounds like another stupid, regulatory tax grab to me! Does this mean > one must have this "extra" permit in order to take their gun to/from > range/hunting/gunshop/home? > What can they do to someone who doesn't have it? (I'm assuming most > criminals who are out to kill people aren't busy getting such permits!) > What was the stated reason for this law? This little licence has been around BC for a long time. I have heard reliable reports that some police demand both this permit AND a valid hunting licence, otherwise, in their opinion, gun possession is illegal. Not true. Jim Davies ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:18:17 -0600 From: "David A. Tomlinson" Subject: CC s. 337 application Letter composed for an NFA member: On ________________, you seized my M1A1 Thompson upper receiver, under threat of getting a search warrant. That threat led me to fear that you would trash my home in such a search, so I turned the receiver over to you. That was not a voluntary surrender of property; it was a seizure, made by you, and I was coerced by you to deliver my property against my will. It is your position, as I understand it, is that my receiver is a "firearm" and either a "restricted weapon" or a "prohibited weapon" as defined by CC s. 84(1). You claim -- again -- to be "testing" the receiver to see which it is. As you know, that claim is sheer nonsense; conversions of Thompson firearms are done by alterations to the LOWER receiver, not the UPPER receiver, and I do not own a LOWER receiver. It is my position that my receiver is a "firearm" as so defined, but is neither a "restricted weapon" nor a "prohibited weapon," as it does not fit any definition of the several given in s. 84(1) of those terms. The fact that my receiver is registered does not make it a "restricted weapon." It is what it is, and paperwork does not alter the definitions in the Criminal Code. It is to the definitions that you must look for the status of my "firearm." I am aware of the Hasselwander decision, in which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a "firearm" is a full automatic, and therefore a "prohibited weapon" IF it can be converted to full automatic fire "with relative ease and in a relatively short period of time." My "firearm" does not fit that precedent, because it is lacking many parts -- parts which are not commercially available, and not available to a private citizen like myself. Without access to such parts, I cannot convert my receiver at all, let alone "with relative ease and in a realitively short period of time." I am aware that parts are available to the police that are not available to private citizens, but you should be aware that you cannot use such police-available parts as "evidence" of easy conversion to full automatic capability. You should also be aware that if you take such parts and create a full automatic firearm where none existed before, you have exceeded the exemption provided to the police by CC s. 92(1). Such creation of a full automatic firearm does not come under CC s. 92(1), because it is not part of your duties to create a "prohibited weapon" where none existed before. That would be no legitimate part of your "duties or employment." It would simply be criminal activity, and the moment that you sucseed in creating a "prohibited weapon" you are in criminal possession of a "prohibited weapon." The penalty for that is up to ten years imprisonment. It is also an indictable offence -- for which anyone could arrest you, under the provisions of CC s. 494(1)(a). I draw your attention to the Rogan case, in which the judge ruled that a Sten Mark V receiver was not a "prohibited weapon," although the police successfully added parts from a gun in the police collection and made it fire full automatic -- because those parts were NOT available to the owner, and therefore could not be used as evidence of easy conversion. That receiver was also registered, but he ruled that the registration did not make it a "restricted weapon." That decision was upheld on appeal. In the light of the above comments, I hereby demand, in accordance with the provisions of Cc s. 337, that you deliver to me my property, to wit, the M1A1 Thompson receiver taken by you on _________________. I am the legal owner of that piece of property, and you clearly have no justification for seizing or holding it. I draw your attention to the fact that if you refuse to deliver my property to me, under the terms of CC s. 337 you are guilty of an indictable offence, may be imprisoned for up to 14 years, and may be arrested by anyone if you persist in holding my property illegally. Yours truly, ______________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 14:18:14 -0600 From: Thomas Dirks Subject: B.C. Firearms Laws There has been some discussion lately concerning the need or lack thereof for additional licencing in BC. For the record the BC Wildlife act reads as follows: Hunting and firearm licences: 11(1) A person commits an offence if the person hunts wildlife or carries a firearm unless (a) the person holds (i) a hunting licence issued to him or her under this Act, if the person hunts, (ii) any limited entry hunting authorization requires by regulation, if the person hunts, (iii) a firearm licence issued to him or her under this act, if the person carries a firearm, or (b) the person, if he or she is under 19 years of age, complies with subsection (5) and (i) holds a hunting licence, or (ii) his or her parent or guardian holds a hunting licence on his or her behalf. (2) A person must not issue a hunting licence for a person under 10 years of age. (3) A person must not issue a firearm licence to a person under 19 years of age. .... 11 (6) Despite subsections (1) and (4), a person may possess a firearm without a hunting licence or firearm licence in any of the following circumstances: (a) aboard a boat used as his or her home; (b) on property owned or occupied by the person or by his parent or guardian; (c) while transporting a firearm as part of a move of household effects; (d) if he or she is not a resident of British Columbia, while travelling in British Columbia in a motor vehicle on a highway as defined in the Highway Act. Definitions: "carry" includes the storing of or having in possession of, in a boat, aircraft, motor vehicle, trailer or all terrain vehicle, even though the boat, aircraft, motor vehicle, trailer or all terrain vehicle is used as temporary living quarters. As a side note, in 1994 we were having interaction with the NCO I/c Firearms Control Section (their self developed title) of E-Division in Vancouver regarding conditions being imposed on carry permits for restricted firearms. One of them just happened to be that the holder, while transporting a restricted firearm to the range must possess and produce on demand, a BC Firearms Licence or BC Hunting licence. It was pointed out that aside from the fact that hunting with handguns was not allowed (though legal) the BC Wildlife Act SPECIFICALLY allowed an exemption to possession of a Firearms Licence while transporting ANY firearm to: an approved range a gunshow a repair facility basically any non-hunting purpose. Strangely enough (?) the last revision to BC Wildlife Act, s.11 was 1994. Those exemptions no longer exist. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 15:43:59 -0600 From: "Barry Glasgow" Subject: re: unsafe storage In message "Cdn-Firearms Digest V1 #945", From: jean hogue >Subject: Unsafe storage > > >I was referring to any file you deem confidential, such as income tax >filings, a personal address book, etc. that I do not believe C-68 >"administrative inspectors" have any legitimate business snooping at. Maybe >in your list of friends there is one that has guns and all names in the list >should be targeted for an "administrative inspection" too ? That's definitely the way C-68 was designed; " ... any place in which the inspector believes on reasonable grounds there is a gun collection or a record in relation to a gun collection or ..." and "... require any person to produce for examination or copying any records, books of account or other documents that the inspector believes on reasonable grounds contain information that is relevant to the enforcement of this Act or the regulations." and finally "(a) use or cause to be used any data processing system at the place to examine any data contained in or available to the system; (b) reproduce any record or cause it to be reproduced from the data in the form of a print-out or other intelligible output and remove the print-out or other output for examination or copying;" The CFC's casual reassurances that these inspections have limitations as to where they can look are all BS since all the restrictions are covered by "...the inspector believes on reasonable grounds..." What court in the world could ever successfully argue against what someone believes ?! I may or may not have a gun with no trigger lock in my bedroom closet and the inspector might say "I believe you have an improperly stored gun in your closet" - the reason being that many people have done this in the past. What is the argument against that ? Filing cabinets are a good place to keep records of firearms. How could anyone argue that an inspector might believe that this is the case for you ? We have seen how Toronto Inspectors who pass themselves off as police officers are more than capable of interpreting and enforcing the law the way they like - when they're not busy breaking it outright. I would like the good folks at the CFC to explain to me how the wording in Chapter 39 is supposed to comfort me. Actually, I'm getting very agitated contemplating how these officials are actually given more opportunity to broaden their scope of abusive harassment. > >During the course of the "administrative inspection", the gun carrying >police officer acting as the inspector will not be able to find his way >through the operating system anymore than the owner of the computer. The >systematic search for hidden files would take hours and can only be >conducted on a seized computer, by specialized personnel, at a police >location. First of all, the inspector may not be a beat cop - it can be; "inspector" means a firearms officer and includes, in respect of a province, a member of a class of individuals designated by the provincial minister." In other words, any public servant designated for that purpose. Imagine this, your inspector turns out to be the gun-hating pencil pusher who you got into trouble last time you got a permit because of his/her negative attitude and generally arrogant demeanor. Secondly, they can print off anything they like at your place or take copies. Given (b) above, there's nothing stopping them from bring a truckload of floppies (or a tape backup) and downloading all your directories. Of course, you could probably fight the fact that they took a bunch of unrelated stuff but do you really have a few thousand dollars to fight their unlimited resources ? Bottom line is this, if you're really worried about what they might find on your computer then you shouldn't have it there (and probably should be in jail anyway). Barry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 20:54:45 -0600 From: jean hogue Subject: Metro and York Police Gun Collectors Source: Toronto Star, July 8, p. A6 Six accused in weapons case appear in court John Duncansson & Jim Rankin This one seems to have escaped the attention of the cfd contributors. So here are the most interesting excerpts: "Six people charged in the widening probe into the mis-handling of weapons and a guns-for-profit scheme at Metro police's firearms unit made a brief court appearance in court yesterday". The case has been put over to August 13. "The majority of charges ... are against Paul Mullin a retired Metro police officer who managed the registration unit in the Yors Mills - Don Mills area." "Mullins' York Region counterpart, Constable Douglas Hunt, is also facing breach of trust charges". Comment: - -------- This apparently was going on for months. How does the government guarantee that the National Firearms Registry records will not fall in the wrong hands ? ____________________________________________________________ "A firearm is a firearm, even a replica" Heidi Rathjen, Coalition for Gun Control The Montreal Gazette, August 6, 1997, p. A7 ____________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 20:54:44 -0600 From: John Fowler Subject: Re: Swat Teams used for Inspections? At 11:07 AM 13-08-97 -0600, you wrote: > >Cdn-Firearms Digest Wednesday, August 13 1997 Volume 01 : Number 945 > > >I've heard from a few people about SWAT teams being used for standard >"safe storage" inspections in Toronto.. Often BEFORE the first gun >arrives home from the cop shop. > IS THIS TRUE???? Walk softly and join Reform Canada can be strong. John Fowler http://www2.magma.ca/~jfowler/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:16:25 -0600 From: "H. Taylor Buckner" Subject: Humour Not related to firearms, but my wife received this from her chat group, and I thought you-all might enjoy it. There have been a lot of jokes circulating on why women prefer dogs, this offers a different perspective ;-). The top 15 reasons why dogs rather than females are man's best friend. 15. Dogs love it when your friends come over. 14. Dogs don't care if you use their shampoo. 13. Dogs love long car trips. 12. Dogs are excited by rough play. 11. Dogs think you sing well. 10. Dogs don't notice if you call them by other dogs' names. 9. Dogs understand that instincts are better than asking directions. 8. Dogs appreciate excessive body hair. 7. Dogs like it when you leave lots of things on the floor. 6. A dog's disposition stays the same all month long. 5. Anybody can get a good looking dog. 4. Dogs will forgive you for playing with other dogs. 3. Dogs don't mind if you give their offspring away. 2. A dog's time in the bathroom is confined to a quick drink, and they would PREFER it if you left the seat up. And the number one reason is: 1. The later you come home, the happier they are to see you.! Taylor Buckner E-mail Research Papers: ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V1 #946 **********************************