From owner-cdn-firearms-digest@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Tue Sep 9 19:33:22 1997 Received: from broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca [198.169.128.1]) by skatter.USask.Ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA07677; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:33:19 -0600 (CST) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (8.7.6/8.7.3) id TAA12538 for cdn-firearms-digest-out; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:36 -0600 Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:36 -0600 Message-Id: <199709100120.TAA12538@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca> X-Authentication-Warning: broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca: majordomo set sender to owner-cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca using -f 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 #983 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Status: RO Content-Length: 26975 X-Lines: 621 Cdn-Firearms Digest Tuesday, September 9 1997 Volume 01 : Number 983 In this issue: Pro-gun column by Lorne Gunter Pro-gun column by Lorne Gunter re: Reloading Flash Fire Boycott of Gun Shows allowing CFC to attend Re: Bismuth Shot Alberta Challenge Re: Cookier and Cookier Re: Alberta Challenge CCAF Bulletin #9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 16:35:47 -0600 (CST) From: "Skeeter Abell-Smith" Subject: Pro-gun column by Lorne Gunter MYTHS BEHIND GUN CONTROLS Push for registration fuelled by misinformation and emotionalism BY LORNE GUNTER appeared in the Edmonton Journal 29 August 1997 "It's not so much that liberals are ignorant," Ronald Reagan once said. "It just that so much of what they know isn't so." On no other issue in Canada is this more apparent than gun control. Its proponents are possessed by all sorts of myths about guns. Here are some of the most common, and why they are fictions: WE REGISTER VEHCLES, SO WHY NOT GUNS? This reasoning actually bolsters the argument against C-68. Registration of vehicles is a provincial matter because under our constitution the regulation of private property is outside Ottawa's jurisdiction. This is the basis of the legal challenge by Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the territories to Ottawa's gun law. Most gun owners might accept provincial gun control. But there's more. Failing to register a car is not considered a criminal offense. Under the new federal law, failure of an otherwise law-abiding citizen to register his or her hunting rifle will be punishable by the same jail time given to criminals who steal guns. If Ottawa handled vehicle licensing, failure to renew license plates would be as serious a crime as stealing a car. Also, the registered owners of vehicles are not subject to police "inspections" of their homes to see how many cars they have or whether they have them safely stored. Owners of registered guns will be. Nor has registration of vehicles reduced the incidence of auto theft, which is germane to the gun control debate because gun control advocates insist that by registering firearms they will be less likely to be stolen for use by criminals. Finally, under existing firearms law, Canadian gun owners must already take a safety course, pass a test of their competence, and wait 28 days while police determine their mental stability and lack of a criminal record -- much more than is required of vehicle owners. LOTS OF OTHER DANGEROUS GOODS MUST BE REGISTERED--DYNAMITE FOR INSTANCE And lots don't. Purchases of fuel oil and fertilizer need not be registered, and yet that combination killed 167 innocent people in Oklahoma City. Most years there are as many stabbing murders as firearm murders in Canada, and yet there is no movement to register knives. What gets registered seems to depend on what frightens our decision-makers rather than on what is truly dangerous, or whether registration of it will do any good. The triumph of emotion over reason. THE RIGHT OF CANADIANS TO BEAR ARMS IS "PATENT NONSENSE IMPARTED FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER." Hardly. Like the Americans, we inherited the right from English common law; it's just that the Yanks decided to elevate the right by adding it to their constitution. We chose to leave it in our common law, where nonetheless it was clearly part of the 800-year-old compact between the governors and the governed that symbolized the faith the governors had in the good sense of the common people. Like it or not, private gun ownership has always been a powerful symbol of the limits the common law placed on the prerogatives of the governors. OPPOSITION TO GUN CONTROL COMES FROM MACHISMO, MINDLESS INDIVIDUALISM AND A WILD-WEST MENTALITY Yea. And support for it comes out of radical feminism, collectivism and an unquestioning faith in big government's ability to make the world safe. CANADIAN SUPPORT GUN CONTROL If all pollsters ask is "Are you in favour of gun control?" about two-thirds of Canadians say they are. But if pollsters explain existing controls or inform Canadians that extending them will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, support slips to around 40 per cent. NO ONE IS GOING TO TAKE AWAY GUNS Maybe not right away, although police seizures are way up. But I understand gun owners who think registration equals confiscation. They reason that since no other attempt at universal registration has ever reduced crime, and the authors of our gun controls surely know that, seizure must be the goal. The truth is, our gun control planners are like Reagan's liberals. They are so sure of their own intelligence that they plow ahead with what seems reasonable to them, no matter how often it has been tried and failed. Besides, staff at Ottawa's Canadian Firearm Centre recently admitted to representatives of the National Firearms Association that one of the goals of C-68 all along was to reduce the number of guns in Canada. That may not be confiscation, but it's certainly attrition. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 16:38:51 -0600 (CST) From: "Skeeter Abell-Smith" Subject: Pro-gun column by Lorne Gunter GUN LAW APPEAL WILL FAIL Case needs to be judged by court of public opinion BY LORNE GUNTER appeared in the Edmonton Journal September 9, 1997 The Alberta government's court challenge of the federal gun-control act will likely fail; if not at the Alberta Court of Appeal, where this week a five-judge panel is hearing arguments for and against universal registration of firearms, then at the Supreme Court of Canada. The cause will not be the lack of sound arguments. The opponents of registration have most or all of the facts on their side. Compelling law-abiding citizens to register their guns -- which has been tried and abandoned in Australia, Britain and New Zealand -- does little or nothing to prevent murders, armed robberies, muggings and suicides. Criminals, refuse to play along. Those scoundrels keep using unregistered weapons, making registration ineffective as a tool for tracking down bad guys. And while controlling access to guns marginally reduces gun suicides and gun homicides in domestic disputes, it does nothing to reduce suicides or domestic homicides. It merely encourages those who commit such acts to use other means. Supporters of controls, such as the Coalition for Gun Control (CGC), have been reduced to contemptuousness, wishful thinking and agrumentum ad hominum to push their case. If only we had universal registration, supporters argue, we're sure it would work. Previous attempts in other countries just weren't done properly. (This is a cousin of the arguments devotees of big government have been making for years. If only we had another billion, we could wipe out poverty. If only we had another regulation, we could save the environment. If only we had one more program, we could eliminate the root causes of crime.) In a press release issued on the eve of the court challenge, the CGC passed off the speculations of notoriously anti-gun police chiefs and professors as evidence that registration will work. "It is my opinion," says Gwyn Thomas of the Association of Chief Police Officers of Great Britain, in a typical example, "that the licensing and registration of firearms and shotguns is core to policing in Great Britain." No proof, just a string of assertions by pro-control chiefs and academics. Concurrently, the CGC tried to discredit the major Canadian studies of gun use. It did not assert that the studies' author erred in his findings, but rather that Prof. Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University has in the past taken money from the National Rifle Association. That might call his motives into question (although his findings appear solid). However, the CGC makes no mention of the $50,000 it took earlier this summer from Toronto city council to finance its participation in the court battle, or the support it has from Montreal's civic leaders. If the Alberta challenge to the federal law fails, it will not be a indication that the anti-registry side is wrong and the pro-registry side correct. Nor will it be an indication of bias on the part of the three-woman, two-man panel of judges. Nor an indictment of our constitution, which gives jurisdiction over property to the provinces and criminal law to Ottawa. It might be an indictment of the weakness of the opening arguments of lead Alberta lawyer Rod McLennan, who was unable to convinclingly explain why the intrusive, expensive new law would be no better than the old one at preventing criminals and mentally unstable people from acquiring guns. (Canadian law already mandates a 28-day waiting period prior to the purchase of a gun during which time police do a background check of the applicant.) Moreover, the main argument was weak -- that the new law makes possession of firearms a crime on par with criminal misuse, and therefore constitutes an obstacle to property ownership that cannot be justified in the absence of proof of a greater public good, such as an appreciable reduction of crime. He conceded guns are inherently more dangerous than other forms of property. Courts have long ruled that Ottawa has a right to legislate concerning dangerous goods without infringing the provinces' authority. However, if the challenge fails it will mostly be because the courts have little jurisdiction to decide whether Ottawa's registry will be effective. Chief Justice Catherine Fraser, who is sitting in on this case herself, explained during proceedings that she and her colleagues could not rule on "whether (Ottawa's) means are wise," but only on whether the federal government has the right to try them. Ultimately opponents of the registry will have to convince their fellow citizens, not judges, to have it repealed, which is as it should be. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:18 -0600 From: "Barry Glasgow" Subject: re: Reloading Flash Fire > >The Sunday edition of the Ottawa Citizen reports that Const Barry >Hanniman, an OPP firearms specialist, while reloading on Witton Road, >Horton Township, at 1100 hours, Saturday, was injured when ammo "exploded >in a flash fire". >Does anyone have any more details. I keep assuring my wife that reloading >is safer than driving to church. I had her convinced; but this article is >liable to get me into trouble. >Kingsley Beattie. Using normal reloading prectices, it is pretty well impossible for that sort of thing to happen. The can of powder is usually open for a short period of time when filling the hopper and should definitely be closed during the actual reloading process. Even if by some bizarre chance a spark should find its way into the hopper, at most a half-pound of relatively slow burning powder would ignite causing very little in the way of damage. On the other hand, I once asked the guy behind the gun counter at the now defunct Laurention Trading Post here in Ottawa why his face was blackened and missing facial hair. He said that a spark had ignited a can of black powder in front of him. What he didn't say was exactly where that spark came from. Now, he was one of those guys who does everything with a cigarette butt hanging from his lip - the long ash clinging precariously to the end. A person would be somewhat reluctant to admit to this questionable reloading practice so I doubt that, unless some act of God was involved, we'll ever know the real truth. Barry Glasgow Woodlawn, Ont. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:20 -0600 From: Larry Going Subject: Boycott of Gun Shows allowing CFC to attend Jon Taylor, President of the Western Canada Firearms Collectors' and Dealers' Association, informed me this morning that they will be asking their members to boycott any gun show that allows the Canadian Firearms Centre to have a table. I have been asked for the cooperation of the Sask. Branch of the NFA. Since these same dealers have backed firearms owners in the fight against Bill C-68, and are putting their own livelihood on the line, I have agreed to back them fully. I will be contacting all gun show organizers in the Province of Saskatchewan, and will state that we too will boycott any show that allows the CFC's presence. I request that other provincial branches of the NFA and their members support this initiative. Larry Going Sask. President, NFA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:24 -0600 From: John Fowler Subject: Re: Bismuth Shot > >>All them dealers were gonna have bismuth shot. Yeah, right. >> >>Anyone know a Canadian source of bismuth for reloading? >> > > >Stittsville gun range (Benny's Pro shop) >They deal with Ballistic Products who supply reloading supplies for lead, >steel >and bismuth. I quote Mark Conley (Benny's Pro Shop), Sunday; "I haven't the faintest idea when any bismuth shot will be here." Any other dealers in Canada got it? Walk softly and join the NFA John Fowler http://www2.magma.ca/~jfowler/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:30 -0600 From: BChow2or81@aol.com Subject: Alberta Challenge >From: "Marauder (D. Kratky)" >Subject: Alberta Challenge >Ohh boy... Looks bad already from what the media here is reporting..... >The Judges apparently decided..... The Vanc. Sun today made it sound, to me at least, as though the Chief Justice had made up her mind before things had even started! Ohh boy, is right. Bud. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:29 -0600 From: griffith@comnet.ca Subject: Re: Cookier and Cookier For some reason, newspapers don't seem to like publishing my opinions. However, anyone who does reply may, of course, feel free to quote or adapt any of the following comments. > Core to Policing > > The Alberta government has relied on "studies" more than a decade old to > argue that registration does not work in Great Britain and Australia. > > However, we have filed a sworn affidavit of J.Gwyn Thomas of the > Association of Chief Police Officers of Great Britain stating that, "It is > my opinion that the licencing and registration of firearms and shotguns is > core to policing in Great Britain and the information held on this system > about who owns these firearms and shotguns assists the British police in > promoting safer comm- unities." > Okay. So we get to choose "it doesn't work", which is based an an actual study of the situation, or "it works" which is apparently based on his wishful thinking. > We also filed a sworn affidavit of Supt. Stephan John Robbins of the > Western Australian Police Service, stating that, "All of Australia's > states and territories currently register rifles and shotguns" and "the > system has assisted the police in criminal investigations and in enhancing > public safety." > As above , except that "it works" is based on the fact that the CPA gave him a free trip to Canada. > While it is true that in 1983 New Zealand discontinued its paper-based > registration system, the New Zealand Police are actively lobbying for the > return of registration. In fact, New Zealand has just completed an > extensive, nine-month review of its firearms regulations commissioned by > New Zealand's minister of police. > That's a good way to get an impartial opinion. > The review, which was overseen by retired judge Sir Thomas Thorp, > recommends among other things, a return to registering rifles and > shotguns. > > Your editoral implies that registration has been tried and failed in other > countries when in fact registration of firearms and licensing are the > rule, not the exception in most industrialized countries. > The fact that registration exists does not imply that it is successful, even in capturing the data, let alone in preventing crime. Prime examples are Britain, where the firearms crime rate has risen with every further restriction applied, and Washington, DC, where handgun ownership is virtually illegal. > Canada's new law simply brings us in > line with the standards in most other industrialized countries. > Not according to the government. They are on record as stating that this is the most restrictive gun law in the civilized world. > The editorial also ignores Canada's experience with handgun registration. > In fact, most experts north and south of the border have drawn the > opposite conclusion: that the registration of handguns in Canada has been > one of the key factors in helping us avoid the handgun violence epidemic > rampant in the USA. > And, of course, anyone who disagrees with that conclusion is by definition not an expert. These non-experts have mistakenly concluded that there are other variables which affect this discrepancy, such as cultural differences and urban poverty. They allow their judgement to be clouded by the experience of those states which have recently relaxed the rules on issuing of permits to carry concealed weapons, and which have invariably experienced a concurrent reduction in the violent crime rate. They do not realize that this is a merely a coincidence. Not being experts, they have to base their opinions solely on the facts, since their preconceived ideas count for nothing. > Handguns in Crime > > One need only compare Canadian and US statistics on the use of handguns in > crime. In 1995, the rate of murders with handguns totalled 0.3 per cent > per 100,000 in Canada compared to 4.5 per cent per 100,000 in the USA. At > the same time, the rate of murder by other means was only slightly lower > in Canada (1.4 per cent per 100,000) compared to the US (2.2 percent per > 100,000) > One is given to suspect that Ms. Cukier's statistics are rather like her bikini, in that what they reveal may be interesting, but what they conceal is vital. For instance, what are the murder rates in each jurisdiction with unregistered long arms? What percentage of murderers in each case had acquired the handgun in violation of the law? Was the same definition of "murder" used in collecting statistics in both jurisdictions? Given that firearms are one of the quikeest and most painless ways of killing something, are Canadians simply culturally disposed to the use of more vulgar methods of dispatching their victims? > The editorial does not comment on Alberta's logical gymnastics as they do > not challenge the right of the federal government to register handguns, > "which serve no useful purpose," only its right to register rifles and > shotguns or "ordinary firearms." > > While it is true that rifles and shotguns are used for legitimate purposes > such as hunting and pest control, it is also true that these so-called > "ordinary firearms" that, according to the affidavit sworn by Brian Ford > on behalf of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, are most often > recovered in crime. They are also the guns most often used to kill and > injure Canadians. Without information about who owns what guns there is > simply no control. > Which seems to imply that this information will provide some sort of control over the use of firearms in crime. How it will accomplish this has remained a mystery to us since this legislation was first announced. If any of the advocates of registration are in possession of this information, they are apparently not prepared to reveal it to the public. One wonders why. As to Mr. Ford's affidavit, it would be charitable to describe the survey offered in support of it as ambiguous. A careful examination reveals that it simply counts firearms acquired by the police at crime scenes, without specifying either whether the firearms were used in the commission of the crime, or what in fact constituted the crimes which led to those locations being considered to be crime scenes. > While Alberta's case rests largely on its claim that there is no empirical > "proof" that gun control in general or gun registration works, the > standard of "proof" it is demanding goes far beyond what is normal in > justice reforms. > Looks like she's got us there, all right. One need only examine the track record of the Department of Justice to realize that their standards of proof are not just minimal, they are effectively non-existent. Of course, one might be forgiven for wondering whether this is a good thing..... > This debate has dragged on for more than 20 years - the federal government > first tried to register long guns in 1977 No, actually they did it in the early 1940's. > but was forced to back off by > the gun lobby. Our new law was seven years in the making By whom? Allan Rock took credit for it, yet he wasn't elected seven years ago. In fact, the Liberals weren't the government then. > and will take seven more before it is implemented. > > The issue has been debated in the House of Commons and the Senate and it > was a theme in the last federal election. Three separate inquests - one > into the death of Jonathan Yeo, who murdered Nina DeVillier and Karen > Marquis, one into the Vernon massacre and one into the murder of two small > children in Ottawa - have recommended registration of firearms. > That would be three out of how many inquests into murders? > It is not time for a second look. It is time for action. > > Gerald Griffith " The easiest thing in the world to achieve is the effective disapproval of any sort of uncritically vested authority. " < Alexander King > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:31 -0600 From: Hugh Jenkins Subject: Re: Alberta Challenge Bows & arrows only have one purpose, the javalin only has one purpose;, the discus only has one purpose, the shot(put) only has one purpose, the hammer(throw) has only one purpose; they were all "designed to kill and maim people". They are all now used for sport. At 06:36 AM 9/9/97 -0600, you wrote: >Ohh boy... Looks bad already from what the media here is reporting..... >The Judges apparently decided the "Guns are not inherently dangerous", >and "Cars kill more people" argument is invalid... On the grounds that >guns are designed to kill people, while cars have a "Legitimate" use... >I REALLY don't like the way that was worded.... >-- >Dave Kratky >O/O VAM Computers: (519) 925-3583 >Ontario NFA Member >Sysop, AOU BBS: (519) 928-2369 > > > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:20:34 -0600 From: Canadian.Firearms@Justice.X400.GC.CA Subject: CCAF Bulletin #9 Department of Justice Ministère de la Justice Canada Canada Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8 CFC Bulletin #9 September 9, 1997 About the Bulletin This is the ninth of a series of bulletins that the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC) will be publishing approximately every two weeks until January 1, 2003. The CFC is the group of federal and provincial partners charged with implementing the Firearms Act. The purpose of this bulletin is to provide basic information on specific areas of the Act and on the implementation process. The Firearms Act and regulations are not yet in force. They are expected to come into force by mid-1998. About the Firearms Act and Regulations Acquiring A Cross-bow Small, hand-held cross-bows, with a stock of 400 mm. (about 15.75 inches) or less, have been banned since 1994. (Order in Council No. 3, as amended). To buy or inherit other types of cross-bows, or to receive them as gifts or in trade, you will need either a licence to acquire cross-bows only, a possession and acquisition licence for any type of firearm, or a valid Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC), when the Firearms Act comes into force. (You will not need a licence to acquire any other type of bow.) A licence under the Firearms Act will be valid for five years. An FAC will be valid until its expiry date or until January 1, 2001, whichever comes first. You will not need a licence to possess cross-bows you already own. If your licence is for cross-bows only, you will not have to renew it unless you want to acquire more cross-bows. (You will have to keep your firearms licence current to acquire or possess firearms.) You will not have to take safety training to acquire a cross-bow. Cross-bows will not be registered. Plans for Implementation Licence application forms will be available in convenient public places in your community, and through the Canadian Firearm Centre's 1-800 line. (See below.) When you apply for a licence to acquire cross-bows, you will have to undergo a screening process similar to the one for people who apply for a licence to acquire firearms. If you have lived with a spouse or common-law partner within the past two years, the Chief Firearms Officer of your province or territory must attempt to notify that person of your application for a licence to acquire a cross-bow. This will give spouses or common-law partners a chance to express any concerns they might have about their safety. There will also be a check of police and court order records for any indications that you would be ineligible to acquire cross-bows under Section 5 or 6 of the Firearms Act. (See Bulletin #7 for more information on eligibility requirements.) If the record checks raise any public safety concerns, there will be a further investigation into the matter. If no concerns are raised, your licence will be issued as quickly as possible once the mandatory 28-day waiting period has passed. If you are refused a licence, you will have the right to appeal to a provincial court judge. How to receive future copies of the CFC Bulletin If you would like to be added to our distribution list for this and other CFC publications, or if you have any questions about the Firearms Act and Regulations, you may call our toll-free telephone number, 1-800-731- 4000, send us an e-mail at canadian.firearms@justice.x400.gc.ca , fax us at 613-941-1991, or write to us at Communications Group, Canadian Firearms Centre, 239 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0H8. Where possible, we would prefer to send this electronically, so please indicate if you have access to e-mail or a fax machine. Also please indicate your language of preference for documents that are published separately in French and English. Information on the Firearms Act and Regulations is also available on our Website at http://canada.justice.gc.ca. This bulletin is designed as a general information tool only. For legal references, please use the actual legislative provisions. ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V1 #983 **********************************