From owner-cdn-firearms-digest@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Tue Mar 24 08:33:03 1998 Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 08:18:37 -0600 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 V2 #280 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Content-Length: 23004 X-Lines: 539 Status: RO Cdn-Firearms Digest Tuesday, March 24 1998 Volume 02 : Number 280 In this issue: Take A Long Look At This (Part 2 of 2) Is the petition in Kamloops yet? Re: Take A Long Look At This sabateurs Re: Take A Long Look At This Re: Hunting CD game NFA-BC News Release No weapons charge in 4.3 M$ dope smuggling case; DoJ figure Take a Long Look At This (by Rick Lowe) Digest Notices Re: Take A Long Look At This ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 15:27:02 -0600 From: Rick Lowe Subject: Take A Long Look At This (Part 2 of 2) ROUND TWO The second part of a "register 'em all as fast as possible" strategy is a wonderful little piece of legislation called the Privacy Act. You have the unfettered right to demand to see just about any document the government has pertaining to you. In English or in French. Or the original documents themselves. The government agency you request these documents from has thirty days to reply to your request. They can ask for reasonable extensions, but they DO have to give you the information you requested. If you are unhappy with how they are servicing your requests, then you can complain to the Privacy Commissioner - and that eats up more government time and money. Imagine if privacy requests were sent in for only one million of those twenty million firearms, say, six months after the registration started. Every one of those one million requests must be personally acknowledged by the Privacy Coordinator for the Department of Justice. Each one must be personally staffed, the material inspected to ensure it doesn't contain information about OTHER people, etc. Photocopies must be made, interoffice memos sent, letters written, material mailed, etc. All done manually by real live federal government employees, not generated by computers. Assume it costs as little as $100 to staff each of these requests - and I can assure you it is a lot more than that. Now the program has cost the Department of Justice and Canadian taxpayers another $100 million dollars - it doesn't cost the gunowner who made the Privacy Act request a dime. Of course, whoever is advising you may only be fluent in the official language other than the one you registered your firearms in. So no doubt you may have to ask for the information all over again in that other official language. And the cost this time with interpreters involved is going to be even greater. If worst comes to worst, you might even demand to inspect the documents at your local federal government office... Now they have to be pulled, compiled together, inspected, couriered to, returned, checked for missing documents, redistributed, refiled, etc. How inconvenient. How expensive... Get everyone involved, and the costs will be horrendous for the government. And who's to say that firearms owners may end up feeling so uneasy that they ask for income tax records, UIC records, CPP records, military/police service records, etc. Sometimes getting too enmeshed with citizens' lives becomes a trap not unlike the Tar Baby... The government can go to court and argue that your personal request is harassing and frivolous, but that of course takes time - and money. The fact that your request just happens to be one of several million does not make it harassing by itself - you DO have the right to see firearm registration information concerning you or any other federal information with your name on it. And you do have the right to demand they correct any erroneous information you find. With the threat of errors in registration and the penalties for such errors, it is rational and reasonable to expect that every owner of a registered firearm would ensure that the registration of each firearm was correct and that any errors were corrected. The fact that he asks to see those registrations one by one, with a few weeks between requests for each successive firearm is immaterial. While Department of Justice employees, local police, etc are running around extracting records from data banks, photocopying, forwarding to the privacy coordinator, etc, what is happening to all the "normal" work? Who's doing it? Is there a cost there? You betcha! None of this even touches on provincial right to information legislation which can be used where a province is silly enough to become involved in this... And there's the general taxpaying public, getting it in the neck yet again because of the existence of C-68. Are there risks to this? Well, sure there is; nothing is without risk. Registration can be used for confiscation. But that in itself is another legal battle that can become prohibitively expensive and the government has no guarantee of winning. Furthermore, a firearm buried in the ground or unable to be taken out of the house for fear of being caught without a registration certificate is of no more use to the owner than if the feds got it outright. Can the government revoke the Privacy Act? Hardly. For one thing, our old friends the media wouldn't stand for it. Can they send us backdated bills once the price comes due? Hardly. They can increase future registration costs but that won't make up for the debt Canadian taxpayers incurred during round one. And where does the staff and money for this sheer informational overload come from? Where will this fit into Paul Martin's financial planning? Where will the political payoff with the media and the non gun owning public come from when the crime rates don't go down and the tax bills shoot up? Registration is not necessarily permanent once the battle is won but it IS permanent if the battle is lost. It can be wiped out by a court challenge, dumping the law, or whatever. Even if the government is allowed to keep the database, once there is no legal obligation to register, update registrations, etc as per C-68, there is no legal proof that you still own any firearm that you once may have had or where that firearm has gone. And the Privacy Act is always there and available to us, waiting in the wings... An existing database is one that can be accessed. If I decide to sell a firearm - even for a day before buying it back - I can certainly demand that any record showing my ownership of that firearm be destroyed. Then of course check using the good ol' Privacy Act again... It is such a bore and so expensive to the government, but it is part of our civic duty to keep any errors out of existing government records. There are risks. But I think the biggest risk is if firearms owners once again act in a fragmented manner and allow the government to pick us off one at a time, getting the time they require to do the job over a period of time, debug the system, raise fees, and hope the public's memory will fade. I would like to see this government thrown out and the replacement government repeal all existing firearms legislation and bring in common sense legislation. But I don't think that is going to happen. I would like to think the Supreme Court would rule this violates the Charter and chuck it out with so strong a ruling that a new version wouldn't be written to get around the ruling. But I don't think that is going to happen. I would like to think that common sense would eventually come to play and this legislation would be chucked out and we would start all over again. But I don't think that is going to happen. I might, even in my wildest dreams, like to see the overwhelming majority of Canadians begin to appreciate the basic unfairness and irrationality of this and overwhelmingly demand that this legislation be dumped. But again, I don't think this is going to happen. I believe we should proceed with every possible strategy, large or small, but I believe that the government has been stupid enough to plant a lethal weapon within their system with this legislation and we should use their own bureaucracy to crush this legislation and the people who put it forward and supported it. I have seen the impact of Privacy Act requests on government departments I was working for. One is disruptive and expensive; hundreds of thousands would invariably lead to utter chaos in a very short period of time. A million or more would be terminal. The government in this instance has bitten off more than it may well be able to chew, no matter what laws they can make stick to enforce C-68. I believe that if we have the will, we can cheerfully use C-68 and the Privacy Act to strangle them with what they decided to chew on. They demanded it - let's give it to them in spades. Remember the quote of Dave's that I started with right at the beginning of this. There is no doubt that Allan Rock and the Liberals "what if'd" every scenario right from the beginning, including non compliance, court challenges, etc. I am very certain, however, that the one scenario they did not war game to death in preparing for this is the scenario where gun owners would promptly register EVERYTHING and dump the whole mess right back in their laps practically overnight to be dealt with. FOCUS: Military truism: "Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 19:59:56 -0600 From: "Clinton D. Coates" Subject: Is the petition in Kamloops yet? I was just wondering if the petition has been circulated around Kamloops yet. If not, I guess I will download the adobe program... BTW, it would be useful if it could be in a more universal format (PCX, BMP, JPG etc) as well as adobe for the rest of us... Clinton Coates [Moderator: I will send the petition in MS Word 2 (a very old program which any Word program shouls be able to read) to anyone who requests it from me. HTB] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 07:01:54 -0600 From: Thomas Dirks Subject: Re: Take A Long Look At This Rick Lowe wrote: > I am about to suggest a strategy.... >I don't believe for a minute that Rock,Chretien, Annie, or any of that bunch believe >for a minute that registration will have the slightest effect. Nor do they care,..it sounds good to the great unwashed. > Finally, a gun not registered is one that doesn't cost the government money to > register - remember how we are always harping at how much it costs to register > a firearm. So it keeps their costs down. Sorry Rick, but let's just establish 'who's money' this is....it's ours. Your tax dollar, my tax dollar.. > 1. Gun owners can only be seen as scrupulously law abiding citizens and the > tar and feathers approach of Wendy, Heidi, and company is largely negated. You're going to change their minds? I think not. > 2. A shaky system with a small amount of staff gets no startup grace period, > no learning period, no debugging period. It has to work RIGHT NOW. Why? It hasn't worked yet, (check the CFC) >How much does it cost? When do the normal duties get done? Who pays for the overtime >or temporary staff? How many manhours from start to finish will those twenty million >registrations immediately consume (or demand be consumed) within a month or two? They don't care, and 'we' the taxpayers will pay, and pay, and ..... Consider the fact that, by legislation, we are required to FILE the documents to register. There is NO comparable legislation to force them to issue at all, let alone in a timely fashion. ("We're so swamped, it will take us years to clear the backlog") > What do you think Paul Martin is going to say when Annie comes calling saying > she needs nearly an additional billion dollars to cover Al's cool plan? "Put it down as 'office supplies'" > What do you think the Canadian public (who to this point largely don't give a damn > if they don't own firearms as it supposedly isn't costing them a dime) is > going to think when they learn they are going to have to pay this kind of > money right off the bat for a program that was supposed to cost only $87 > million and that paid primarily by gun owners? Absolutely nothing. The government will hide it, and the media won't report it. And the public still won't give a damn. > Will Canadians accept or forgive a government spending hundreds of millions of >their dollars on a system that has no effect whatsoever on reducing crimes which >are a pittance to begin with while health care and other social programs are bleeding to > death? Probably not. Probably, they've never listened to a rational case yet, in the odd circumstance where the media report the truth( and that's been a long time) >... wonderful little piece of legislation called the Privacy Act. You have the > unfettered right to demand to see just about any document the government has > pertaining to you. In English or in French. ..or Swahili, 'cause it doesn't make any difference when they're through with the 'white out' You can 'demand' anything you want, the question is; will you live long enough to see the results. > If you are unhappy with how they are servicing your requests, then you can complain to the > Privacy Commissioner - and that eats up more government time and money. I could complain to the Almighty and get the same results faster.., and it would cost less of MY tax dollars. > Get everyone involved, and the costs will be horrendous for the government. There you go again. I can believe that you've spent a lot of time working for the Government. You really don't have a handle on where that money comes from. > Can the government revoke the Privacy Act? Hardly. For one thing, our old > friends the media wouldn't stand for it. They don't have to. All they have to do, as usual, is ignore those they don't like. Have a problem with that? Take them to court, that's what they count on. That way, you get to spend twice as much money: for the defence (taxdollars) and your own. Again. And at what point did the 'media' become our 'friends'? Certainly not in the last paper I read. > Can they send us backdated bills once the price comes due? Hardly. They can > increase future registration costs but that won't make up for the debt > Canadian taxpayers incurred during round one. > > And where does the staff and money for this sheer informational overload come > from? Same place as always, YOUR pocket, and mine. > Registration is not necessarily permanent once the battle is won but it IS > permanent if the battle is lost. It can be wiped out by a court challenge, > dumping the law, or whatever. Laws are seldom, if ever, removed from the books and legislation is rarely overturned for any reason. Check any SCC decision in the last 10 years. > I have seen the impact of Privacy Act requests on government departments I was > working for. Only matters if it happened to be 'Justice'. Remember, they're the ones who make the rules and change them on a whim, particularly with their 'OIC's'? No faith? Ya.. I guess not. See, I've worked around the government too. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 07:02:05 -0600 From: mtoma Subject: sabateurs Regarding Rick Lowe's idea of clogging up the registration system, overwhelming it in fact. It has merit to a degree. We must remember that the system planned, postcard registration, is not to identify guns but to identify who has guns. It matters not what they are. I would suggest a variation of the idea. There is nothing stopping Simon Jesters from filling out registration forms using names and addresses of anti gun politicians, anti gun crusaders, cartoon characters etc. These of course would be eventually seen as bogus. What comes to mind next is fictional names, addresses, number of firearms what have you. These will be harder for the gestapo mentality to detect and divert from the system and costly. Computers love dealing with the garbage in, garbage out syndrome. Cheers, Mike Toma ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 07:02:17 -0600 From: John Fowler Subject: Re: Take A Long Look At This >I am about to suggest a strategy that will have some of you screaming Well, I'm not screaming, but I don't think this approach is likely to do much for us but waste a lot of time and energy and possibly result in a lot more bad media attention. I believe there is only one solution - change the government - and that's where I'm putting most of my effort. The little that is left will go to help others understand what they're up against, counter abusive charges and generally take some control of their own lives. But, thanks for the hard thought and effort. John T. Fowler Fine photography from Canada http://www.magma.ca/~jfowler ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 07:02:23 -0600 From: "Ian Dummigan" Subject: Re: Hunting CD game For those who are interested, Wholesale Sports sells this game too. The mail order number is: 1-800-696-0253 Ian Dummigan Beaumont, Alberta ICQ # 2788869 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 07:02:28 -0600 From: rmcreat@istar.ca (BC NFA) Subject: NFA-BC News Release Many thanks to Donna Ferolie for her diligence in getting the commissioner's letter and making sure it got to everyone. As a result, Rod's press release was a success here in the lower mainland. It did get time on CKWX1130 all through yesterday on a repeating basis. They (the news media) are finally starting to pay attention. The result of that was to have two RCMP cruisers park in front of the house - one hour after the release. On another note, I understand that some of you had some problem with HOW Rod's release was written. For those people - please REWRITE however you think is necessary for your area to get the information out. YOU live there so YOU know how something should be written for YOUR area. DON'T SIT ON IT - GET IT OUT THERE. DON'T WAIT FOR SOMEONE ELSE. I need YOU to contact me if there is something that YOU need as far as information is concerned. I WON'T KNOW UNLESS YOU TELL ME. Again, many thanks to Donna who made certain we had this and to Rod who has started the media recognition. Your efforts are appreciated. Michelle Traver NFA-BC SSAC rmcreat@istar.ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 08:18:04 -0600 From: Jean Hogue Subject: No weapons charge in 4.3 M$ dope smuggling case; DoJ figure Source: La Presse, Montreal, March 24, p. A1 "Raymond Boulanger n'est plus taulard" (no longer in jail) Andre Cedilot The mule who transported 4323 kilos of cocaine is free after 5 years in jail. He was the pilot of the Columbia Convair plane which landed in Casey, Quebec on Nov. 17, 1992. He had been sentenced to 23 years in jail. Thanks to the new law which allows non violent, first-time convicts in a federal institution to automatically regain their freedom after 1/6 th of their sentence. Other drug traffickers got a similar deal. A Quebec Superior Court (judge not identified) decided on March 17 that Boulanger presented an acceptable risk to society, since the National Parole Board has no reasonnable motives to think that once out of jail, Boulanger might commit a violent crime. The presence of a machine gun and two grenades on-board the plane, weapons which only Boulanger had access to, did not qualify for violent intent. No weapons charges were brought against Boulanger at the time. - ---------- The RCMP has documented in writing how the Department of Justice multiplied the number of RCMP-investigated gun crimes by a factor of 9. And a recent posting to the cfd sugested this misleading information was presented to the judges in the constitutional challenge against C-68 brought by 4 provinces and 2 territories. But this is not what Heidi was referring to in the recent debate at Concordia U., when she said "look who these statistics are coming from". She was talking about facts disclosed by gun owners, admonishing the audience not to believe anything gun owners said. The only valid facts came from police and government officials. (So, after laborious calculations, we come to the figure of 0.08 % of gun misuse -- even multiplied by 9 as DoJ did, it still remains at about 0.7 %, still trivial, not even 1 %). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 08:18:28 -0600 From: "a.warner" Subject: Take a Long Look At This (by Rick Lowe) Digest Notices I am very impressed by the article written bt Rick Lowe and which appeared in the Digest Notices. He makes particular sense when he points out that those of us who do not register their guns will not be able to use them on a range or in the field unless they do so. I support the all-at-once registration, and the follow-up policy re the Privacy Act to further confuse the enemy (for that is exactly what the anti-gun forces are). The post card registry system is going to be a flop. To make this clear, I showed a number of friends the above noted copy, and all agreed that a swamping of the registration system is going to put such a strain on the system that it would be more than it could handle. All indicated they would register their guns at the first oportunity. Knowing my friends I thought their zeal was somewhat overblown for only a few of them owned guns. I can only guess at their intentions, but it sure would cause a lot of confusion and more trouble. For those of use not familar with requesting information under the Privacy Act it might be helpful for a short informational on the subject. My hats off to Rick. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 08:18:32 -0600 From: mred@icom.ca (iCOM Subscriber) Subject: Re: Take A Long Look At This >Dave Tomlinson said: > >> FOCUS: Never hit the enemy where he EXPECTS to be hit. > >Exactly. > >I am about to suggest a strategy that will have some of you screaming I am an >agent of the government, others that I am an appeaser, and perhaps some will >even claim I am the anti-Christ or something similar. All I can ask you to do >is read it, take a deep breath, read it again, and then think a bit before >starting the flaming and cries of outrage.? Sounds plausible to me.The only problem here is to convince every gun-owner in Kanada that it is the way to go.Therein lies the problem. Any other comments would be appreciated. Ed Machel [Moderator: In the Mauser-Buckner survey about 70% of gun owners said they would register all their guns. Some people, of course, will not register either as a matter of conscience or because they won't get around to it, or won't learn about the program. If that 70% registered sooner rather than later Rick Lowes scenario would take place. You can find the Mauser-Buckner study on my web site HTB] ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V2 #280 **********************************