From: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V15 #256 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Sender: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Errors-To: owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Precedence: normal owner-cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Cdn-Firearms Digest Saturday, September 8 2012 Volume 15 : Number 256 In this issue: [none] [none] [none] [none] [none] [none] [none] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: From: Subject: [none] LETTER: All firearms pose danger The Ottawa Citizen - September 8, 2012 9:30 AM http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/firearms+pose+danger/7210024/story.html Re: PQ event suspect charged with murder, Sept. 7. The long gun has been used in previous high-profile Canadian shootings. Once again, an unrestricted long gun was used on Monday in Montreal. While government and gun-lob-by spin may say that long guns are just harmless duck guns, the reality is that these firearms are as dangerous as any other gun. Since the gun registry was eliminated and the provinces were forbid-den to require gun dealers to keep records of their sales, it is impossible for police to trace these guns and to know if someone is stock-piling weapons, as this shooter had been. No records and the removal of the requirement to ensure that a licence is valid before selling a gun also mean that finding a shady dealer could be easier for an unlicensed buyer who wants to acquire a gun. While the gun lobby will say the registry did not prevent this shooting (though neither did the law against murder prevent murder - and we would not propose getting rid of that), the continuous weakening of our gun laws means it will be harder to prevent crimes such as this in the future. Susan Russell, Ottawa --------------------------------- LETTER: Gun registry data no gift The Ottawa Citizen - September 8, 2012 9:25 AM http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/registry+data+gift/7210028/story.html Columnist Susan Riley's advice for Prime Minster Stephen Harper to give the gun registry data to Quebec premier-designate Pauline Marois as a "gift" is a travesty on many levels. Most Canadians know by now that there is no longer a gun registry to preserve for Quebec. The data have always been grossly inaccurate, and the recent Great Canadian Gun Registry Shuffle illustrates that point. Some simple arithmetic: The RC-MP reports that 850,000 firearms change owners in any given year. So, at least 300,000 firearms have changed hands since the registry was scrapped last April. In addition, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association organized the Great Canadian Gun Registry Shuffle to urge responsible firearms owners to exchange guns. In just the first week, more than 45,000 guns changed hands across the country, including Quebec. Why are they doing it? The RCMP admit that criminals have hacked into the registry data more than 300 times. Law-abiding gun owners don't want the bad guys to know where they live. That's why the registry was a very bad idea - so bad, that most gun owners would reject any new registry scheme. We have logically concluded that the data don't enhance public safety, they jeopardize our safety. Tony Bernardo, Executive Director, Canadian Institute for Legislative Action, Oshawa RCMP: 480 CONFIRMED BREACHES OF CPIC SYSTEM - 1995-2010 http://www.nfa.ca/sites/default/files/RCMP-ATI-CPIC-Breaches.pdf --------------------------------- LETTER: Why pander to Quebec? The Ottawa CitizenSeptember 8, 2012 9:24 AM http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/pander+Quebec/7210027/story.html Re: A gun registry gift for Marois, Sept. 7. http://www.canada.com/opinion/columnists/registry+gift+Marois/7201981/story.html Susan Riley makes a very strong case as to why the Conservatives really don't need to jump to un-reasonable demands by Quebec, then at the end of the column she reverses course and states that giving Quebec the gun registry data would be a nice conciliatory gesture. Putting aside the for and against arguments of the gun registry, and you are left with the question as to why the Parti Québécois government needs a conciliatory gesture at all. The facts are very clear when it comes to Quebec and the rest of Canada. The PQ represents 30 per cent of the population, and polls show that the desire for separation sits at about 28 per cent. So why would you pander to such a small percentage, given that the PQ has long said that it didn't matter what they got, they still wanted independence? Quebec has been the beneficiary of countless billions of dollars that other provinces haven't received. It have been granted powers that other provinces haven't received, while at the same time handled very gently by the rest of Canada, for fear that somehow we offend and presto - the separation card gets produced. If there is a conciliatory gesture to be had, perhaps it is time that Quebec made one to the rest of Canada. After over 30 years of putting Quebec first above all over provinces, surely we are owed something. Jeff Spooner, Kinburn ------------------------------ Date: From: Subject: [none] http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/duty+officer+assault+charge+stayed+after+review/7210800/story.html Off-duty officer's assault charge stayed after review The StarPhoenix September 8, 2012 An assault charge laid against a Saskatoon police officer in connection with a domestic incident last month has been stayed. Const. Mark Franklin, 39, had been charged with common assault after officers were called Aug. 5 around 9: 30 p.m. to a residence on the 2200 block of Ewart Avenue following a report of a domestic dispute. A 39-year-old woman had suffered minor injuries but did not require hospitalization. Franklin, who was off-duty at the time, was taken into custody at the scene. The charge against Franklin was reviewed by the Ministry of Justice public prosecution division's Regina office and was stayed, Saskatoon police announced on Friday. Franklin, who has been with the Saskatoon Police Service for 1½ years, had been reassigned to administrative duty while the case made its way through the courts. He is now back on regular duty. ------------------------------ Date: From: Subject: [none] CZ-858 popular for its likeness to the AK-47 Czech-made semi-automatic rifle legal under Canada's gun laws By RENÉ BRUEMMER, The Gazette - September 7, 2012 http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/popular+likeness/7203491/story.html The gun Richard Henry Bain is suspected of using in a brief, deadly rampage at the Parti Québécois victory party Tuesday closely resembles the iconic Soviet AK-47 assault rifle, with its distinctive wooden stock and curved magazine. It's one of about 22 guns Bain is known to have possessed legally, all but one of them registered, crown prosecutor Éliane Perreault said Thursday during Bain's arraignment at the Montreal courthouse. Perreault said Bain brought five of those guns to the Métropolis, where the PQ party was taking place. Court records showed the gun the 61-year-old is believed to have used is in fact a CZ-858, a Czech-made semiautomatic rifle imported into Canada as an alternative to the prohibited automatic AK-47, which can spray bullets with the trigger held down. The CZ-858 only allows one shot per trigger pull, and under Canadian gun laws, its magazine holds a maximum of five bullets. First offered on the Canadian market in 2005, the "tactical" large-calibre rifle with a shooting range of 2.5 kilometres was an immediate hit. It sells for $695 to gun collectors, sport shooters and hunters, and can be obtained in a week, sent to anyone with a valid Possession and Acquisition Licence. "It has proved very popular because it's the nearest anyone is going to get to an AK," John Hipwell, the owner of the Wolverine Supplies gun dealership based in Manitoba, told the Ottawa Citizen in 2007. So popular, a Canadian version is available with a maple leaf engraved into the pistol grip. Employees at Wolverine Supplies would not comment Thursday on how sales are doing. Hipwell was away and unreachable, they said. Sales of the gun used by Kimveer Gill at Dawson College in 2006 surged after his deadly spree. By late 2006, the federal gun registry recorded more than 900 of the CZ-858s legally registered in Canada. Nearly 80 per cent of owners live in urban or suburban areas, the Citizen investigation found. The RCMP was unable to provide more recent statistics Thursday. The Coalition for Gun Control has used the CZ-858 as an example of why the federal government's long-gun registry, abolished in April, should have been maintained. Considered a hunting rifle, the CZ-858 no longer needs to be registered on the firearms registry. Quebec filed a request for an injunction in Superior Court, so residents here still have to register non-restricted weapons. Although the CZ-858 may resemble an AK-47, the two are completely different, said Tony Bernardo, president of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association and critic of the long-gun registry. "It looks pretty racy, but it is a standard, semi-automatic firearm, like the semi-automatic .22 every farm kid grew up with," he said. "It's like saying there's a difference between little cars and big cars." The killing of lighting technician Denis Blanchette was a terrible tragedy, Bernardo said, but forcing people to register unrestricted weapons will not stop similar events from happening. "It's awful when someone misuses something like this, but in terms of the registry, it did not work," he said. "Again and again and again and again, it doesn't work, it never did work, it's never going to work and any government that throws hundreds of millions into (it) is irresponsible. It might make people feel good, but it doesn't work." Those who want to obtain a firearm have to take a weekend safety course and are screened by multiple police forces that keep constant track of them, Bernardo noted. Bain has no criminal record. Friends reported he was seeing a doctor for mental issues of late, but showed no signs of being dangerous. The Coalition for Gun Control said Thursday they preferred not to comment for fear of being accused of using a tragedy to further their cause. But a member did say that Tuesday's events underscore the need for greater gun control. Rémi Landry, an associate professor at the Université de Sherbrooke and a former lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, noted that the CZ-858 is similar to the AK-47, with a few crucial differences: the CZ is more powerful, and it's known among experts for not being as good. "It is not as reliable," he said. Witnesses have reported the gun used Tuesday night jammed suddenly, allowing police and bystanders to lock him outside the Métropolis before anyone else could be harmed. GUN CRIME IN CANADA Explore our data visualizations on crime and registered firearms in Canada at montrealgazette.com/ interactive http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/gun-crimes/index.html rbruemmer@montrealgazette.com ------------------------------ Date: From: Subject: [none] ... to election-night shooting GLOBAL - 427 Quebecers own semi-automatic rifle linked to election-night shooting Patrick Cain, Global News : Friday, September 07, 2012 3:21 PM http://www.globalmontreal.com/3700+quebecers+own+semi-automatic+rifle+linked +to+election-night+shooting/6442710649/story.html Over 7,400 Canadians own a CZ-858, the Czech-made rifle allegedly fired by Richard Henry Bain at the Parti Quebecois victory party at a Montreal nightclub Tuesday night. About 5 per cent of the national total, 427, are registered in Quebec. Denis Blanchette, 48, was shot dead and another man suffered gunshot wounds during the incident. A large TV audience saw Quebec premier-elect Pauline Marois rushed from the stage by alarmed bodyguards. Bain, 62, faces 16 criminal charges related to the incident, including first-degree murder. He legally owned 22 firearms, a Montreal court heard Thursday. The semi-automatic CZ-858 resembles the AK-47, the simple, durable Soviet-designed weapon carried for decades by Communist armies and guerillas around the world. Although the long-curved magazine looks like those designed to hold 30 rounds, those legally sold in Canada can hold only five. In Canada, most CZ-858s have a legal status of "non-restricted weapon," which means that it no longer needs to be registered, and that outside Quebec, ownership records have been deleted along with the rest of the long-gun registry. A bill requiring the deletion of the long gun registry passed into law in April, but in Quebec, a court injunction forbids the destruction of the registry for now. 7,061 of Canada's CZ-858s are non-restricted; the remaining 412 have a "restricted" category because of a shorter barrel length. This means that they are regulated under the stricter system also used for handguns, and that records will be retained in the future. A gun dealership in Prince Albert, Sask. lists the rifle for $700. The data shows that CZ-858s are most popular in Alberta and B.C., followed by Ontario. Albertans have registered over 2,200 of the weapons. Within Quebec, CZ-858s are popular in a sprawling rural postal code covering much of the southeast of the province, J0, where 69 of the weapons are registered. The numbers come from an RCMP database released to Global News under access-to-information laws before the long-gun registry was destroyed. ------------------------------ Date: From: Subject: [none] of Firearms Owners Sender: owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca Precedence: normal Reply-To: cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca Cdn-Firearms Digest V15 #255 Date: From: Subject: [none] ... Firearms Owners? Saturday, 08 September 2012 Dear Mr. Breitkreuz, Re: Mr. Harper's Betrayal and the Conservatives' Sell-out of Firearms Owners I have purchased tickets to your skeet shoot in Yorkton next Saturday, 15 September 2012. I imagine many firearms owners will be there to celebrate the end of the "long-gun registry" with the passage of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act. Rather than celebrating this "victory", we all should be in mourning. Every resource and every argument we had against the Liberals' 1995 Firearms Act (Bill C-68), the Conservatives have squandered in merely ending the registration of long-guns. And, inexplicably Mr. Harper has betrayed us. The Conservatives have sold-out firearms owners and now enthusiastically endorse the Liberals' unjust licencing scheme. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eduardo, "Mr. Harper's Betrayal and the Conservatives' Sell-out of Firearms Owners" "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence." (Carl Sagan) You've certainly served them the "evidence." Yours in Tyranny, Joe Gingrich White Fox ------------------------------ Date: From: Subject: [none] ... on bail, charges TORONTO STAR - SEPTEMBER 8, 2012 Criminals trade illegal guns to Toronto police for breaks on bail, charges By Jim Rankin, feature writer http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/1253179--gun-patch-on-rare-occasions-criminals-trade-illegal-guns-to-toronto-police-for-breaks-on-bail-charges-sentences On a chilly March day, an odd procession made its way to a bridge at a secret location, where enough plastic explosives to take down a building was carefully stashed. A deal had been struck where an accused facing criminal charges unrelated to the explosives offered to surrender them to Toronto police in exchange for no jail time. Toronto lawyer Edward Sapiano led police and a couple of reporters to the stash, in what is known as a patch - a mutually agreeable deal that benefits the accused, police and the Crown. It was 1997, and Sapiano hasn't done a patch since. In the past decade, it has become harder to cut such deals, particularly where illegal firearms are offered up in exchange for bail, reduced charges or lightened sentences. In Toronto, criminal lawyer Reid Rusonik, who has been involved in dozens of gun patches, says it has become impossible to do a patch. It appears Toronto police aren't interested in a gun, unless, he says, it comes with a body" - an arrest. "If you call a cop now - and this has happened at least half a dozen times in the last three years - they won't entertain it." Amid all the fear and politics brought on by recent shootings and gun play in Toronto, including talk of a handgun ban, the use of a deal that could take illegal guns off the streets appears to have become completely unpalatable. Toronto police do not have a specific policy or protocol on such deals, says spokesperson Mark Pugash. "Police officers have considerable discretion, which they exercise in a wide variety of roles, with the ultimate goal of protecting public safety," he says. It's unclear why police in Toronto appear to have shied away from gun patches. Here's a potential rub: While all would agree it would be a good thing if there were fewer guns available on the street, what if minor criminals bought up stashes of guns to be used as bargaining chips in the event of a bust, and actually resulted in more illegal firearms coming into Canada? One paragraph in a 2007 RCMP report on firearm trafficking and smuggling in Canada suggested as much. Handguns and sawed-off long guns, the report states, were "being utilized by criminals as 'get out of jail free' cards, i.e. providing information on the location of firearms or physically turning firearms over to the police in exchange for reduced sentences or other considerations." The report included no numbers, nor was there any reference to anecdotal evidence. Whether accused, non-violent criminals might buy illegal guns specifically to use as bargaining chips is debatable, and possibly stupid. For example, being caught in possession of a loaded handgun is a more serious crime than being caught selling small amounts of crack cocaine. Also questionable is the harm done in a case where an accused who does not have access to an illegal gun takes risks - or, if in custody, has friends take risks - to acquire one or more from the street. "What if they did go on the street and buy one off of the street? Aren't we still ahead?" asks Rusonik. "Even if it takes a gun, a potentially usable gun, off the streets for two or three months until the street is resupplied, that's still a two- or three-month gap of a gun. Especially before a hot summer, that could be life and death." There are ways to ensure an accused is not playing the system and actually is in possession of illegal guns or can direct police to guns, but time is of the essence, says Rusonik. The deal should happen quickly, within a day or two of the mention of such a possibility, to lessen the chance of a gun being purchased for the purpose of a patch, he says. Rusonik's first gun patch was about 15 years ago and involved Toronto police and a client who surrendered a Beretta handgun. Since then, he's done on average two to three such deals a year, sometimes involving multiple firearms. His last gun patch in Toronto was in 2010. Rusonik doesn't believe gun patches add fuel to the illegal gun trade and proposes a "one-time deal" to prove it, where the Crowns set out a tariff for the defence bar of what the surrender of a firearm would be worth in the next week. He predicts it would "take more guns off the street than the police can in a decade." At the same time, authorities could closely monitor the border for any ensuing bump in gun smuggling. It there wasn't one, says Rusonik, it would "shatter the 'smuggle for credit' myth." Sapiano believes there should be room for the occasional gun patch but says that, overall, they have become a bad idea because some criminals, he says, do believe that keeping a stash of guns can help them out later. "What the policy unintentionally started precipitating was a market for guns. It was actually creating a reason to bring more guns into the city and the country." But perhaps of most significant concern in these deals is the thought of what might happen if a gun patch came back to bite. Imagine being the police service or Crown attorney who brokered a gun deal with a criminal who went on to shoot someone. That's not the kind of headline anyone wants to wear. Federal and provincial Crown attorneys do not have specific rules to follow on gun surrenders for considerations. In Ontario, "prosecutors make decisions on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the individual facts and circumstances involved," said Marya Winter, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General. Patches are not a novel concept. Plea bargains and deals where accused trade off on information about bigger criminals or lead police to stashes of drugs, property or other illicit booty to improve their own lot are ingrained in many justice systems. Without them, some illegal activities and criminals may never come to police attention. In a case last year in New Zealand, a drug boss convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine surrendered a cache of guns and ammunition on the eve of his sentencing hearing and saw two years shaved off his jail sentence as a result. "Getting illegal firearms off the street, under any circumstances, can only be good," the prosecutor in that case told court, according to a report by the New Zealand Herald. An editorial that later appeared in the same paper disagreed. "Any value to the community of this way of reducing long prison sentences hinges on the dent that is likely to be made in criminal arsenals," stated the editorial. "Unfortunately, all the evidence suggests this is bound to be minimal. The problem is too large." While other jurisdictions have their reasons to dislike gun patches, so, too, should the accused in some cases. Sapiano, on "dozens of occasions," has had clients facing drug or other non-violent charges suggest they might know something about firearms and ask whether that would reduce a sentence or see reduced charges. "They say, 'Edward, if I can give you one of these' - they always say one of these, they never actually use the word (gun) - 'if I get you one can you get (charges) tossed?' "My advice to them?: 'Are you insane? Right now the police think that you sell a little marijuana. You want me to go tell that you have ready access to firearms so that they can put that into their computer forever?'" How do patches come up? Sometimes, it is through vague or slang references to firearms caught on wiretaps, says Rusonik. And then there would be a discussion with the client that "if this indicates that you have access to one, they would be thrilled to get that gun off the street." "It's not like lawyers were rushing to do this," says Rusonik. "It's not like you said to a client, 'Can you do a patch?' The client would almost always be the one who introduced the possibility. "The (Toronto) cops were very good about it. Generally speaking, they would come to the office, there would be a spot created where a person could, unbeknownst to a lawyer, drop it off, call that it is there. The police would be called and there it would be for them to safely recover. It worked beautifully." Rusonik says gun patches are still happening in other GTA police jurisdictions and he thinks Toronto should reconsider the apparent abandonment of the practice. "We're wasting defence lawyers as a resource in the battle to get the guns," he says. "We have a unique value in that the people with the guns can tell us they have them and are protected by solicitor/client privilege. We need them to give us back the incentive to dangle in front of our clients to tell us they have them." ------------------------------ Date: From: Subject: [none] SUN NEWS - Feds shoot down gun show rules BY JESSICA HUME | QMI AGENCY - 7:51 pm, September 7th, 2012 http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives/2012/09/20120907-195126.html OTTAWA -- The government has shot down gun show regulations that have been on hold for more than a decade and were seen as redundant and cumbersome by many. "Allowing redundant regulations to come into force would only introduce an unneccessary burden on law-abiding citizens," Candice Hoeppner, parliamentary secretary to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said in a press release. First introduced in 1998 under the Firearms Act, the regulations have been deferred by both Liberal and Conservative governments, who have said further study and stakeholder consultation was needed. The regulations would have forced the sponsors of gun shows to ensure the safety of all exhibitions. "The sport shooting community is very pleased by the Harper government's repeal of the unnecessary regulations on Canadian gun shows,' Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action and spokesman for the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, said in a release. "These rules were never imposed because they were never needed." Olympic gold medallist Linda Thom said Canadians would be well advised to remember that firearms are not always used malevolently. "Many people forget that sport shooting has been with us since the inception of the modern Olympics. Firearm shows are a lifeline for our sport." ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V15 #256 *********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca Moderator's email: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca FAQ list: http://www.canfirearms/Skeeter/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://www.canfirearms.ca CFDigest Archives: http://www.canfirearms.ca/archives To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next four lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".)