Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:32:01 -0600 Message-Id: <200001081432.IAA11808@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 V3 #248 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 Cdn-Firearms Digest Saturday, January 8 2000 Volume 03 : Number 248 In this issue: Doran's Rebuttal Re: Subject: Banning replicas ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL FIREARMS ACT STORY !!! Why are Justice Department Bureaucrats Playing Politics? Saskatchewan shooting 10 April '98 "Taxman Coming" 20's something and guns A response to E.J. Therien Re: Imporation of an Airsoft gun Re: Rick Kokiw-- Firearm registration CFC web site is very out of date !! shooting ranges Repaired homepage LES DEBTS LEVS_DU_REGISTRE_DES_ARMES TOUJOURS_UN_SECRET? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 09:15:41 -0600 From: "Quigley, Jim" Subject: Doran's Rebuttal I just read Professor Doran's rebuttal to Chief Brian Ford's ( probably soon to be Senator Ford ) ridiculous assertions around gun control. Given his opinions he must support the disarming of the police and the return to the billy club. After all if C-68 works why would the police need guns? Maybe Wendy should ask him that question. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 09:15:49 -0600 From: "Albert Chambers" Subject: Re: Subject: Banning replicas I suppose that the next step is the banning of materials that can be made to look like replicas: wood, soap, plastic, etc. After that, anything that can be confused (under adverse conditions) with replicas: flashlights, remote controls, tools, hamburgers, rocks, etc. Welcome to the void of over-reaction! -Knowledge is power - be powerful -Al in Texas ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 09:15:55 -0600 From: "BOB LICKACZ" Subject: ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL FIREARMS ACT STORY !!! Last night in the west part of Edmonton Edmonton police shot at and seriously wounded yet another armed Asian drug gang member. Apparently the misguided youth shot at Edmonton's finest first. The return fire resulted in wounds that may prove to be fatal, as the youth is currently battling for his life in hospital. The part that REALLY annoys me about this whole incident is that in addition to the behaviour punks like this exhibit, causing Annie and her ninnies to write even MORE Draconian firearms law, I as a taxpayer have to foot the hospital bill for the little bastard as he recovers, if indeed he will. I wonder why this shooting wasn't prevented by the Edmonton Police Service, by simply attending the young lad's house and confiscating his handgun. Hey Jean, can you answer that one? Bob Lickacz NFA Edmonton ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 09:15:38 -0600 From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: Why are Justice Department Bureaucrats Playing Politics? January 6, 2000 The Editor The Star Phoenix Note: 2 pages sent by fax to: (306) 664-0437 Re: Why are Justice Department Bureaucrats Playing Politics? How sad it is when bureaucrats in the Department of Justice are compelled by their masters to play politics ("Gun registry not hurting RCMP" by Louis Cormier, Page A11, The Star Phoenix, December 23, 1999). I wish his Minister had the courage to debate me in public instead of sending one of her bureaucrats to try and hide her most embarrassing political failure. If Mr. Cormier's arguments seem weak and his logic flawed, you have to understand that when the gun registry dies, so will his job. No wonder desperation is setting in at the Canadian Firearms Centre. Mr. Cormier was assigned the impossible task of convincing your readers that the RCMP's hiring of 391 employees to work in the gun registry (up from 40 employees in 1995) is not hurting the RCMP's law enforcement activities. Does he really expect anyone to believe that this has nothing to do with the 500 vacant RCMP positions in B.C. alone? Mr. Cormier blindly states that "all RCMP costs related to implementing the firearms legislation, including salaries, are recovered from the Department of Justice." I can hear taxpayers across Canada screaming, "Where does he think the money comes from in the first place?" The Minister is responsible for making decisions about her government's criminal justice priorities. The $300+ million spent so far on the registry by the "Department of Justice" are our tax dollars. The Liberals are hoping to convince Canadians that the gun registry is more cost-effective at fighting crime than putting more police on the street or locking up real criminals and keeping them there. Fortunately, the people know better than that. Without thinking, Mr. Cormier spouts the mantra of his political masters. He says the police are using "the system 1,600 times a day." Inquiring minds want to know, why would police use, much less rely on, a gun registry that has less than 7% of the guns registered in it and sporting an 80% error rate? I don't know of one police officer on the street that relies on the gun registry for information. What is far more likely is that routine police computer background checks have been automatically routed through the registration system to generate another false statistic. Just like Mr. Cormier's false claim that "long guns are associated to many firearm-related crimes." If Mr. Cormier would read Statistics Canada reports about firearms crime instead of his own department's distorted statistics, he would know that long guns were used in 9.2% of all homicides (in 1998) and in only 0.15% of all violent criminal incidents (in 1996). The sad fact, that Mr. Cormier also ignores, is that in 1998 (after 65 years of registering handguns) 46% of all firearms homicides were committed with handguns and 17% were committed with firearms that have been totally banned by government decree. So much for the Liberal contention that registering and banning guns will contribute to their so-called "culture of safety." Mr. Cormier also claims that I am ignoring "the public safety dividends that have helped keep guns out of the hands of individuals who should not have them." What planet does he live on? Criminals who need a gun will always be able to get a gun. It's called the black-market. Justice Minister Anne McLellan's own handpicked User Group on Firearms warned her last June: "The current transfer and registration process is permitting an unchecked growth in the most unwanted elements of the firearms trade, specifically the black market. Dysfunction in the process is epidemic." Mr. Cormier sounds just like the Minister in Question Period when he crows about blocked gun sales and all the firearms licences they have refused and revoked in the past year. But how many of these were blocked, refused and revoked based on rumors and hearsay instead of real evidence? How many of these will be reversed on appeal? How many of these individuals will turn to the black-market that her own firearms experts warned the Minister about? The truth is out there but apparently the Justice Department bureaucrats would rather keep their blinders on. The fact is, the government didn't need to waste three hundred million dollars implementing a firearms registration system to block legal gun sales. Firearms licences have been a requirement in Canadian law since 1979. If the government's real objective was to block legal gun sales, all they had to do was revoke each violent person's Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC). The government's recent statistics for revoking and refusing firearms licences are an indicator of the government's failure to properly administer the FAC program over the last twenty years. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the government's half-baked scheme to register the 20 million legally owned guns in Canada. As if I needed more proof, last month the Regina Leader-Post reported that in the United States 160,000 people were prevented from buying firearms in the last year using computerized instant background checks. Don't the Liberals and their minions find it amazing that the U.S. blocked all these legal gun sales without a firearms registry? I know Canadian taxpayers will. The key questions average citizens ask are: (1) What's to stop a person from using a registered gun to commit a crime? and, (2) How does the gun registry stop a person from acquiring a firearm illegally? Gun registration defies all logic, especially for Liberals pushing a political pet project and for bureaucrats desperately trying to save their own jobs. Welcome to the world of politics Mr. Cormier. Maybe before you write another goofy article, you should suggest to your Minister that she get involved in the debate she foolishly decreed was over during the FED-UP II Rally on September 22, 1998. Is she waiting for FED-UP III? Sincerely, Garry Breitkreuz, MP Yorkton-Melville ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 07:59:01 -0600 From: "Jason Hayes" Subject: Saskatchewan shooting 10 April '98 A Canadian Press article in the Calgary Herald (7 Jan 2000 pg A-20) titled Saskatchewan - "Man Sentenced to 4 1/2 Years for Killing Wife" perfectly demonstrates that the actual purpose of firearms control in Canada has nothing to do with crime control. If our Liberal government was seriously concerned with protecting the victims of crime from the illegal use of firearms, this guy would be rotting in jail for the rest of his life. The article notes that after drinking "at least 26 ounces of rum and seven beers the day before the shooting", Murray Jenkins shot his wife, Dorothy Hodgins, with a 16-gauge shotgun, held 15 - 40 cm away from her face. (For scale, an average Bic pen is about 15 cm long). To be fair to Jenkins; he did think his wife was cheating on him, his lawyer did note that "(he) did not return home that night with the intent to inflict (harm)...he doesn't remember the incident", he did try to shoot himself afterward, he did say he was "very sorry", and to top it off he "broke down in tears" in court. Well why didn't we just let him go free? I mean, he cried in public - no easy task for a real man like Jenkins. Justice McDonald was obviously constrained by those nasty minimum sentencing laws otherwise; she could have let him free. She did basically give him the minimum sentence for contravening sections 85 and 236 of the Criminal Code, which call for minimum sentences of one year and four years respectively, when a firearm is used in the commission of manslaughter. Section 85 was added to the Criminal Code as part of our new firearms law (C-68). Do any women feel safer with this one being enforced? The article notes that Justice MacDonald "took many factors into consideration (during sentencing) including...lack of a prior...record, his age and the more than 16 months he spent on remand and electronic monitoring...she also listed alcohol as an aggravating factor..." So let me see if I understand, if a senior citizen with a clean record goes out and gets real drunk, he can kill his wife. Then claim she was cheating, shed a few tears, say he is sorry, wear an anklet for a few months, spend four years in jail, and then he's good to go - right? Is this a fair trade for a human life? I guess Canadian women will have to be satisfied with the notion that if their spouse ever gets drunk and decides to kill them, he will get at least a good four years in prison to "think about what he has done". Jason Hayes B.Sc., Tech Graduate Studies Student, U of Calgary ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 07:59:02 -0600 From: "gary.baker" Subject: "Taxman Coming" If you have received this years income tax form you will note that the sender is "Canada Customs and Revenue Agency" (Revenue Canada). With this association Customs should have no problem with obtaining funding for border crossing computers for firearms control. In the interests of "cost savings" will the CFC be on next year ?? Your Tax $$$ at Work ???? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:20 -0600 From: EW Subject: 20's something and guns I have been on this list for a couple of months already. As an NFA and OHA member, I've also received news and a variety of information on a regular basis. First of all, I am in my mid twenties and I lived in one of the biggest east coast city. Guess what? Guns are alien items among the people I know. Lots of my friends are interested in shooting but they either do not know where to start or find the process overly intimediating. Simply put it, I have met so few gunowners/shooters under 25 that I can count them all with one hand. If my experience is a representative sample of the general population, we are in big trouble. In my opinion, we are not doing enough to promote gun ownership, especially among the generation Xers and Yers. Many young people in the city and suburb are not part of the hunting culture. They don't care about sitting in the bush for hours to put meat in the freezer. After taking more than a dozen of my friends from a variety of backgrounds to shooting,I found that poeple generally prefer semi-automatic and plastic firearms, such as AR15s and Glocks, over rimfire 22s and bolt action rifles. As un-PC as it sounds, everyone enjoys punching holes on humanoid IPSC targets more than anything else. We liked to load our mags full and dump all the leads downrange as fast as we can pull the trigger. Sorry, as much as I hate to tell everybody, the majority of the twenty-something people I know simply do not follow the traditional "shooting" pattern. Personally, I've pasted that stage and have since settled down for more precision work. However, sitting and squeezing rounds out at a little black dot is too static for most of the novices to maintain interest. For gun ownership to survive in Canada, pro-gun organizations must be able to cater the desire of young adults for speed and action. What we need is aggressive promotion of action shooting games like IPSC, IDPA and 3-guns match to people in their twenties. We have to build an image that is appealing!! I don't see why Action shooting should not be at the same rank as snowboarding and downhill biking. And most important of all, we need to tempt them with the "cool" toys early in the game. A .22 rifle or handgun is just not simulating enough for most young adults Give them a tricked-out race gun or riot shotgun will more likely crack a smile and get people to apply for a liscence and a gun. Once they get interested, there will be ample of time to attract them to the more traditional sides of the shooting sports. I still could not forget the smile on this young guy's face when he was caressing my AR15. "Cool!".....and I know I've just bought one more soul. Enoch ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:27 -0600 From: rmcreat@istar.ca (Michelle Traver) Subject: A response to E.J. Therien I can only conclude that Mr. Therien has changed his mind regarding rifles and shotguns. I would be so pleased if our Federal Government and Canada's National Safety Council ceased looking for scape-goats and address the cause that created this tragic event and others that may happen; whether firearms exist or not. It is all to easy for our government to blame an inanimate object of any sort instead of correcting the cause of the problem in the first place. Canada still has a great deal of potential and a multitude of wealth in a variety of areas. It has been allowed to be abused by those who we have elected. Until "WE", the citizens of Canada, say enough is enough, "WE" will continue to see the distruction of our economy. Does Mr. Therien understand that "no right to private property" applies to him, or anyone else's name he may put that private property under? Do Canadian citizens understand that ALL Canadian laws are interconnected? When these citizens do understand this fact, will Mr. Therien agree that HE must give up his basic human rights for the good of an intangible entity known as society? Privacy is a sacred thing, Michelle Traver (owner) SSAC NCBCS Pres. & Spokesperson HACS member, PPLC Assoc. http://www.home.istar.ca/~mac_sog/ 604-253-3311 fax 604-255-2202 1708 E. 1st Ave. Vancouver, BC V5N 1B1 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:31 -0600 From: Andy Krywonizka Subject: Re: Imporation of an Airsoft gun Marcel Boudreau did knowingly scribble: >What hoops must I go through to import a single shot airsoft gun? It is a >pellet firing (little round plastic bb) gun with a muzzle velocity less >than 500 FPS. What should I tell the US shipper to mark on the package? Go for a full auto electric one from http://www.air-soft.com They are based in Vancouver and thus no import/export hassles for you. Andy K. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:34 -0600 From: Joe Subject: Re: Rick Kokiw-- Firearm registration > The life and liberty crap is US-bs. > Love having a gun but seldom use them. This is a description of most = > recreational hunters, myself included. On deep woods fishing trips I = > always have a gun...I'm not afraid of black bears but they can be = > dangerous with cubs. If it means me or a bear..no contest....bear down = > and I'm shaken up but still fishing. I'd feel bad about the bear but my = > wife and children would feel one hell of a lot worse. The goodie people = > would rather see me down. > > rkokiww@cancom.net After reading Rick Kokiw in the digest I was curious how he seperates the two quotes from his article. While I agree with much of what he says I have a hard time seeing that big a difference between putting down a life threating bear to having the means and availabity to quell any serious threat to yourself or for that matter any innocent human being in harms way. >From Bear Country ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:38 -0600 From: "Tom Zinck" Subject: CFC web site is very out of date !! CFC Webmaster : After looking at the CFC WWW site I noticed that some very important sections are extremely out of date. For example : http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/legal/phasing/Default.html If anyone used the contents of this site as legal advice, they could get themselves into trouble, and expose the CFC WWW site and its administrators to legal actions. Please keep this site up to date !!! Regards, Tom Zinck ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:42 -0600 From: "T. Bryant" Subject: shooting ranges Had an interesting conversation yesterday with the owner of a shooting range here in Alberta. It seems that the Chief Provincial Firearms Officer has determined that all shooting ranges in the Province became "Unapproved" as of December 1, 1999. He then quotes a section of the new firearms act that covers range approvals. Now here is the tricky bit. That section of the act covering ranges has not yet been made law. Can anyone tell me how a range could be found to be unapproved by a non-existent law? Given that the range regulations have no force in law how can the CPFO even use it as a basis for administration? If there are no new laws then wouldn't the old law remain in affect and all ranges previously approved would stay that way? As usual the firearms bureaucrats appear to be speaking with forked tongues. As an aside the so called "unapproved" status means that the CPFO has determined that the Authorization to Transport permits owned by all the club members will have to have special treatment with limitations and conditions applied. There is more but I just get madder the more I think about it. Anybody else in any other provinces getting this treatment? Remind me again how this new law will not inconvenience firearm owners. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:46 -0600 From: "Jules Sobrian" Subject: Repaired homepage To all those who sent me e-mails about the errors in the RFO of Ontario home page, thank you. The error has been found and repaired. Please revisit at: http://www,pipcom.com/~jsobrian/index.html Good reading. Jules Sobrian ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2000 08:31:55 -0600 From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" Subject: LES DEBTS LEVS_DU_REGISTRE_DES_ARMES TOUJOURS_UN_SECRET? COMMUNIQUE Le 7 janvier 2000 Pour publication immediate LES COUTS ELEVES DU REGISTRE DES ARMES, TOUJOURS UN SECRET < Les liberaux utilisent la Loi sur l'acces a l'information pour masquer les sommes dans leur budget. > Yorkton - Garry Breitkreuz, depute de Yorton-Melville et critique de l'opposition officielle concernant les armes a feu, est outre par la derniere reponse du gouvernement a l'une de ses demandes d'acces a l'information. < En septembre, j'ai demande de connaitre l'affection budgetaire proposee pour le programme gouvernemental d'enregistrement des armes a feu. Trois mois plus tard, je recois un document budgetaire dont toutes les sommes d'argent ont ete noircies! Combien de temps le ministere de la Justice peut-il se servir de la Loi sur l'acces a l'information pour cacher aux Canadiens les donnees budgetaires sur le Centre et le Registre canadien des armes a feu? Ce sont des renseignements que le ministere aurait du rendre publics le 1er avril 1999 apres le depot au Parlement de son Budget des depenses. > M. Breitkreuz a demande au commissaire a l'information, John Reid, d'enqueter. < En juin, le ministere de la Justice a utilise la mention 'document confidentiel du Cabinet' pour dissimuler au public 172 pages de documents budgetaires et maintenant il recidive. Au train ou vont les choses, nous aurons peut-etre les vraies depenses pour l'exercice en cours avant d'apprendre ce qui avait ete propose. J'ai demande au commissaire a l'information de bien vouloir mettre un terme a cette 'culture du secret' au sujet des couts du programme gouvernemental d'enregistrement des armes a feu. > < Le gouvernement, d'expliquer M. Breitkreuz, se doit de cacher les couts veritables pour maintenir l'illusion que le public appuie son programme d'enregistrement. > Afin de prouver ses dires, il se refere aux resultats du sondage publies par le Mackenzie Institute en janvier 1997 sous le titre Canadian Attitudes Toward Gun Control: The Real Story. A la question : Etes-vous pour ou contre l'enregistrement de toutes les armes a feu?, 75,7 % des repondants ont repondu etre tout a fait d'accord. Lorsqu'on leur a demande : S'il en coutait 500 millions de dollars au cours des cinq prochaines annees pour etablir et maintenir un registre d'armes a feu, seriez-vous encore d'accord?, seulement 32,4 % se sont dits tout a fait d'accord. < Nous avons pu etablir, a conclu M. Breitkreuz, que les liberaux ont depense plus de 300 millions de dollars depuis 1995 pour leur mauvais programme d'enregistrement, ce qui est loin de leur evaluation initiale de 85 millions sur cinq ans. Le public a droit a la verite. Il est temps de lever le voile pour que les Canadiens puissent faire des choix eclaires concernant des solutions plus economiques de combattre l'utilisation criminelle des armes a feu. > - -30- Pour de plus amples renseignements : Yorkton : (306) 782-3309 Ottawa : (613) 992-4394 Courriel : breitg0@parl.gc.ca ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V3 #248 **********************************