In Canada we have strict gun controls. We can own handguns, semi-automatic (self-loading) rifles, and even full auto machine guns – provided you have the right licenses. The first gun control imposed on Canadians was in 1934 when a registry for all handguns was established. The real change in firearms laws, however, was started by the Liberal Government when the Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC) was introduced in 1979, also known as C-17. This allowed for citizens to own a non-handgun without a license, but required an FAC to purchase a firearm.
Then came Alan Rock, Minster of Justice for the Federal Liberal Government. Rock instigated a massive change to Canadian gun laws, which was prompted by after a mass shooting at the École Polytechnique of the University of Montreal in 1989.
Victims of the Montreal Massacre at École Polytechnique de Montréal at are rushed for medical care
The change in legislation (C-68) did not pass until 1995, as it took the government years to figure out how it could confiscate every handgun, every semi-auto rifle, and anything else that looked scary. Its goal was to ban as many handguns as possible. To achieve that goal, lawmakers banned all 25 cal, and all 32 cal pistols. Then when they still hadn’t reached the majority of handguns in private hands, they looked restricting the barrel length. Any firearm with a barrel of four inches or shorter was banned.
Predictably, there were a few unintended consequences. For example, German Lugers instantly became illegal because of their short barrels. There are likely thousands of these pistols in Canada that soldiers brought home as souvenirs after WWII. As a consequence, many of these guns were turned in and destroyed.
But a fellow in Montreal, who has license for prohibited firearms, buys these relics of history and fits them with new, longer barrels so that they are in compliance with the law. A barrel of a Luger being a mere quarter-inch longer makes it legal under the eyes of Canadian law. Yet, there is no difference in function. Go figure.
German Luger from the WWI and WWII eras, a prized trophy
Another result of C-68 legislation was a three-tiered license system – non-restricted, restricted, and prohibited. The prohibited (or prohib) license included anything full auto or even guns that had been previously fully automatic and then converted to semi. In private hands, guns like these were grandfathered with a special prohibited license that could be passed down to an heir. No new prohib licenses would be issued ever again, however.
Right off, the C-68 legislation caused serious problems. Olympic competitors use 32 cal revolvers and had to be granted exceptions from the prohib rules.
Other provisions in C-68 was magazine restriction for semi-auto rifles to just five rounds. Originally, Alan Rock demanded that a rifle hold no more than one round at time, but it was deemed impossible to force the public to hand in all their rifle magazines. So, under pressure, Rock caved and allowed us five round magazines for semi-auto rifles. Hand guns were allowed ten round magazines and no limit was placed on bolt action rifles. However, there are certain ten round mags for bolt action rifles that fit some semi-auto rifles.
Go figure …
C-68 also forced those buying ammunition to have a license. It also forced everyone to register everything they owned, including bolt action rifles and shotguns into a registry known as the Long Gun Registry. The Liberals claimed it would cost only three million to implement. Naturally, it cost two billion. Even worse, not everyone registered their rifles. It is estimated that less than half of Canada’s privately owned long guns were registered.
As can be expected, C-68 had subsequent amendments passed, through what is called an Order in Council, that allowed the government to prohibit specific firearms by name. And the hit list was large. Even the AR15 was on the list, but it was classified as restricted. A restricted rifle includes any rifle with a barrel length of less than eighteen inches.
Rumors have it that the government decided what rifle was to be prohibited by looking through a catalog and circled in red anything they deemed was scary looking. Functionality was irrelevant. For example, one can buy a semi-auto 45 ACP rifle. They are restricted. But the Auto-Ordnance series of semi-auto rifles based on the classic Thompson submachine gun, is prohibited. So is anything deemed to be a “variant of” a gun that is already prohibited.
As can be expected, this has opened the door to a lot of abuse by the gun grabbers. For example, anything that looks like an AK47, regardless of the functionality, is prohibited. Why? Because it’s a scary looking assault rifle used to kill millions of people. It’s so ridiculous that recently the Mossberg Blaze 47 .22 cal rimfire rifle was quickly deemed prohibited by the RCMP. They didn’t even bother to test it. Yet they have just allowed the .22cal version of the famous StG44 into Canada as a non-restricted.
.22 cal Blaze 47 – prohibited
The original StG44 was a German assault rifle used during the latter years of WWII and was used as the template for the Russian AK47. Even the semi-auto centre fire (8mm Kurtz) version of the StG44 made by a German company is legal as a restricted rifle in Canada.
.22 cal StG44 – non-restricted
By the time the Conservatives got into government some nine years ago, the Firearms Act was a spaghetti mess already and costing tax payers billions of dollars. The headache for the new government, however, wasn’t just the money.
The C-68 legislation set up provincial Chief Firearms Officers. Part of their job is to issue Authorizations to Transport (ATT). Anyone with a restricted or prohibited firearm had to get an ATT even for the purpose of moving the gun outside of his or her own home. For example, I know one guy that had to obtain an ATT to go from his house to his private range in his own backyard.
In addition, these firearms can only be used at approved ranges. They cannot be used for hunting. If you belonged to a club they would get your ATT. If you needed to take your firearm to a gunsmith, you had to call the CFO office and request an ATT to take it there. Then, when done, you had to get another ATT just to bring it home. If you bought a firearm at a store, you had to get another ATT to transport that gun only. If you bought a restricted gun in a private sale, you needed to get an ATT just to be able to pick it up at the post office. And of course the seller needed one to get the gun to the Post Office.
The interesting thing about these ATTs is no one looked at them. They were never used in any criminal investigations. Criminals, of course, don’t bother to call the CFO to ask for an ATT.
Not long ago, things got real interesting in Ontario. An individual with handguns who did not belong to a range was denied the needed ATTs allowing him to transport his handguns to shooting ranges around Ontario. This owner took the CFO to court, but lost.
The Firearms Act allowed CFOs to be kings and make their own laws. For example, CFOs decided, on their own, that you must belong to a club to keep your restricted firearms. If you did not belong to a club, upon renewal of your license, they could come and confiscate all your restricted firearms, and destroy them. No recourse, and no compensation for the value of the firearms.
Following this, the Ontario CFO imposed new rules on ATTs. You could only get an ATT for the specific club you belonged to. If you wanted to attend an event at another club, you had to get an invitation from that club and only then would the CFO give you a short term ATT to attend the event. If you got caught without one going to another club, you were looking at three years in a federal prison.
What was interesting about these conditions was there was no legislation in the Firearms Act for any of it. The Ontario CFO was making his own laws whenever he deemed necessary, which carried with them criminal consequences for anyone that violated them. Classic police state.
When the Conservative Party finally got a majority in 2011, the first thing they did was pass a law ending the costly Long Gun Registry. The anti-gun people went ballistic, warning that there would be blood running in the streets. I watched the hearings live and the anti-gun people were ruthless in their attack against all firearms owners. They grave-danced on the victims of tragic shootings, all the while lying to Parliamentarians about what would happen now that restrictions were removed. NDP and Liberal MPs sang along with the gun-grabbers. Yet not one of them, when probed, could site a single case of a life being saved because of the Long Gun Registry.
In the end, the Long Gun Registry passed (C-19), allowing us all to burn our long gun certificates. Blood didn’t run in the streets. Data from the Long Gun Registry was destroyed at the Federal government, apart from Quebec firearms records. The province wanted to make its own Long Gun Registry, and they wanted the Federal government’s records. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Quebec, denying them the data. They can start their own registry, just not using Federal Government records.
This wasn’t the end of the data saga, however, as Chiefs of Police were also against the government abolishing the Long Gun Registry. Once C-19 passed, CFOs tried to make their own back door registry by retaining copies of the data and also ordering businesses to hand over any and all records of long guns purchases. Thankfully, the Federal government squashed that practice immediately.
Then March of 2014 saw something miraculous. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) decided to ban two semi-automatic rifles that had been sold in Canada for almost ten years. Over night, the RCMP made some 10,000 Canadians criminals, myself being one of them. Do you see a pattern here?
I own one of these rifles above, called the Cz858. The other rifle banned was the Swiss Arms Classic Green shown below.
Swiss Arms Classic Green
The Cz858 was deemed to be converted from full auto. The story is long and complex, but the rifles were certainly not converted from full auto. Regardless, the RCMP decided they were. In the RCMP’s opinion, the Classic Green was a “variant of” a fully automatic Swiss Arms rifle. Again, they are wrong.
Immediately the government acted and gave us all a two-year amnesty to keep, and use, our firearms, which upset the RCMP, as they haven’t even had time to send everyone confiscation notices.
This reclassification proved to be the best thing to happen to firearms owners, but only because we have a Conservative government. In the fall, the government introduced legislation to fix the CFO ATT issue and the Cz858/Classic Green reclassification. But there was one problem. Prohib and restricted firearms are explicitly defined in our Criminal Code. Non-restricted rifles, however, were not. Therefore the government couldn’t do an Order in Council to turn the prohibited rifles the RCMP just banned back to non-restricted. This was a deliberate omission when the Liberals wrote C-68, as they didn’t want the classification to be anything other than firearms going prohibited.
That brings us to today, where the new bill (C-42) just passed into law. C-42 fixes the CFO’s being able to make their own laws and allows us to transport our restricted firearms as part of our licenses, without having to ask for an ATT. It clearly defines what a non-restricted firearm is and explicitly states in the bill that the government has the authority to make any firearm non-restricted by Order in Council.
This is what they are legislating this summer in order reverse the RCMP reclassification of the two rifles described above. They’ll also be making new regulations for the CFOs and RCMP, which will spell out exactly what they can and cannot do. Therefore ending the police state.
Last summer, the government wrote new regulations on the RCMP such that they have only one year to reverse their classification designation of any new firearm. After that, they cannot reverse the classification. Thus all our current rifles are safe from reclassification. The government will also set up a committee that will be tasked with classifications of any new firearm, taking even more teeth out of the jaws of the RCMP.
However, our successes may be short-lived, as Canada has a federal election this coming October. Should the Liberals or NDP get into power, we can fully expect them to rejuvenate their gun grabs, going much further than before.
The Liberals narrowly defeated a policy at their convention three years ago that would impose a system of gun control and confiscation similar to that of Australia.
That system is the topic of my next post.
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