The Mackenzie Institute

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the Renewed Canadian Gun Control Debate

By John Thompson

First, an admission of bias; the author owns a number of firearms (most of a historic nature) having jumped through the hoops to become a firearms owner about six years ago. For the most part, navigating the rapids of Canadian firearms legislation was painless and much of what lies therein made sense. However, it was clear that anybody could blunder into a Kafkaesque situation easily enough given the combination of convoluted legislation and official antipathy.

The Canadian Government’s introduction of a bill to scrap the Long-Gun Registry, which was the most controversial component of Bill C-68 (The Firearms Act), has triggered the latest chapter of a decades-old debate about firearms legislation in Canada. Perhaps it is time to review how Canadian firearms legislation works and what is proposed before considering how to reform it.

Suppose you are a Canadian citizen who wishes to own firearms; perhaps you are interested in going hunting someday but while you are at it, target practice with handguns is appealing too. What happens?

Understand what firearms are under Canadian Law.

Non-restricted: Most shotguns and rifles (e.g. a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, Granddad’s old Lee-Enfield, etc.)

Restricted: Handguns with a barrel longer than 4.05 inches and long arms with a barrel length less than 19 inches (e.g. a .45 calibre Colt or that old M-1 Carbine from the Second World War).

Prohibited: Note: Prohibited does not mean banned but these are severely restricted so that only those who own such weapons when the law was passed could keep, buy or sell them. The net result was that the value of these firearms was severely reduced, yet the government did not have to pay compensation for devaluing people’s property. Prohibited firearms include:

  • Handguns with a barrel less than 4.05 inches (such as most of those Lugers and other Wartime souvenirs countless Canadians brought home);

  • Fully automatic firearms (except for owners grandfathered from C-51 in 1977, sundry museums, or businesses that require them);

  • A variety of handguns of specific calibre (causing irritation to the target shooting community as many international competitions use banned cartridges);

  • A variety of firearms thought to be ‘Assault Weapons’ or which otherwise look intimidating.

  • High capacity magazines (pistols are allowed 10 round magazines, most long arms only 5);

  • A variety of ammunition including tracer bullets, explosive rounds, etc.

Step 1: Pass the Canadian Firearms Safety Courses. Before applying for a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) for any class of firearms, an applicant will have to pass the written and practical exams for both non-restricted and restricted firearms. The exams are largely concerned with issues of safe handling and storage of firearms.

This measure was part of Bill C-17 in 1991 and makes sense. Even for those applicants with prior training in firearms, the course is useful. Nobody is proposing the abolition of this condition.


Step 2: Apply for your PAL. This is handled by the RCMP and the process takes at least 28 days (sometimes much longer). The results of the Safety Course exams must be appended by the instructor. Preparatory to a background check, applicants will be asked about any criminal and psychiatric history and other questions as a risk control measure. A spouse will also have to sign the application.

Many applicants find this part of the process insulting but background checks have been a part of Canadian firearms laws since 1977. The PAL system is not under question and it is useful although many parties, on both sides of the firearms debate, question its efficiency in stopping sociopathic types.


Step 3: Go shopping for non-restricted firearms. Go shopping, buy your firearm, ammunition, cleaning kit, trigger lock, storage cabinet for home, etc. The seller, whether a store or an individual owner, will:

It is the transfer of registration that seems unnecessary. A new firearm has been registered since first imported or manufactured in Canada; an older one may have been sitting in somebody’s closet for years.

Personally, I have always found the transference process quick and painless and the employees of the Firearms Registration are pleasant and professional. However, the question remaining is whether the public good of the Long-Gun Registry is worth it? Seemingly not, since the deterrent effect is non-existent and no real utility is discernible.

Proponents of the Long-Gun Registry argue that if it saves even one life, it is worthwhile. There is no evidence that it ever has. Moreover, over 16 years the Registry has supposedly cost some $2 Billion to establish and run. Its current annual budget is around $22 million.

Broadly speaking, it costs $150,000 a year to pay, equip and support a police officer out on the streets. Thus $2 billion spread over 16 years could have given Canada the services of 833 constables every year. The current operating budget is the equivalent of 146 officers. Therefore the question should not be how many lives the Registry might have hypothetically saved but how many it has actually cost.


Step 4: Go shopping for restricted firearms. This is where things get complicated.

Note: None of these measures are proposed for elimination with the removal of the Long-Gun Registry. Also note that in Canada handguns have been registered since 1934 and automatic weapons since 1951. It is not proposed to eliminate the registration of these types of firearm.

 

Vignettes from a Kafkaesque World:

Attending a gun auction revealed unusual bidding practices. First, the law was scrupulously obeyed and every purchaser had to show his or her valid PAL while communication lines burned to accomplish changes in registration and get ATTs in time to transfer new handguns home. The Colt Python revolver was always renowned for its accuracy and reliability. Bidding for one with a five inch barrel started with an opening bid of $300 and briskly went up to $850, with about twenty interested parties at the start. Then came the Colt with the three inch barrel (making it a Prohibited weapon). Only about 10% of those in attendance could bid and the price dropped from $300 to $120 before one buyer offered to take it.

A former weapons technician in the Canadian Army owned several military-type rifles when C-17 came into effect in 1991 and duly registered the two that were initially classed as Prohibited. After the passage of C-68 the Long-Gun Registry kicked in and he registered the remainder only to see several more in his collection also change from non-Restricted and Restricted to Prohibited by administrative fiat. Being grandfathered, he continued to take his prohibited firearms to the range until the Chief Firearms Office of the Province informed him that he was now no longer allowed to transport prohibited weapons and denied him an ATT, while still allowing him to transport restricted weapons. What he fears is that coming next will be a letter saying that since he can no longer fire his prohibited weapons he should therefore surrender them for destruction. There is no understanding the rationale behind these decisions nor is there any appeal mechanism.

SB, recently divorced, lost his job in the year before he decided to both join a pistol club and take a hunter-safety course to go hunting with his brother. Being a helpful sort, he duly ticked off the appropriate boxes on his PAL application; then he paused and also ticked off the box about psychological stress since there had been some associated with his divorce and job-loss. The system worked and he received a visit from a representative of his Province’s Chief Firearms Office who found SB to be a level-headed sort who was clearly not too stressed. SB was then told his application for a PAL would be approved, but he was cautioned “Next time, don’t be so honest. It sets off red flags and makes work for me.”

A museum that was going through some renovations had to find temporary storage for some of its military weapons and thought they had a nest egg since some of the historic machine-guns in their holdings were still working models. Checking internet prices for such weapons, they concluded that they could sell the working models on the US market and buy inert copies for display purposes. However, importing automatic weapons into the US is strictly forbidden and the $75,000 they thought they could realize for one model evaporated. Looking then for a Canadian buyer, they discovered that the markets for a working machine-gun were all saturated and that an inert weapon might cost three or four times as much as the $2,000 they would get here for a working machine-gun.

The rapid and often confusing changes in firearms regulations during the last 20 years have led to the destruction of thousands of firearms which were heirlooms and cultural relics. These can never be replaced and part of our history and heritage has been destroyed without any effort to salvage it.

 

Beyond the Long-Gun Registry

The Long-Gun Registry isn’t that onerous and it is quite innocuous. In the scheme of things. Its faults are that it is expensive and it provides no real value to the public or to public safety. What lies behind both support and opposition to the Registry program is something else again.

Proponents of gun control are, in varying degrees, prohibitionists. However, for them, any measure that impedes or restricts the use of firearms is to be supported, regardless of its utility, because it serves their desired end.

Opponents of gun control (as opposed to criminals, who merely ignore all regulation) resent any infringement on their rights. The more farsighted ones also wish to preserve their sports and activities and to pass them on to the next generation.

For both, the Registry is a symbol but also a tool which could someday provide a desired end to the prohibitionists and so likewise threatens opponents. However, the Long-Gun Registry’s symbolic value masks the main resentment behind Bill C-68 which turned firearms ownership in Canada into a privilege that could be cancelled – with criminal penalties – for something as simple as getting paperwork wrong. The realm of Kafka is never far away.

The automatic criminalization of firearms owners has been vexing, especially in Ontario and some Maritime provinces, where police automatically lay a charge of ‘Unsafe Storage’ under any circumstance – even when the firearms are all properly stored and registered. Although the charge is often dismissed as being totally without evidence, it still costs time and money in legal defence. It has also been noted that this situation does not prevail in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Unfair laws and regulations are a threat to the common good. What is inflicted on one community can be turned on another. Unequal application of laws and regulations designed to vex people will turn respect for the law into distrust for its officials. The end of the Long-Run Registry will not end this situation and Canada’s firearms owners will not long rest content with a symbolic victory. They will be back to demand more.

Between prohibitionists and their opponents, compromise is almost impossible. Regardless, without lasting and true compromise gun control is just a political football that will be kicked back and forth between ever shifting goalposts. Without respect, no law will be acceptable.

Canadian firearms owners deserve that respect. They tend to be more harmless and more law abiding than the Canadian average. Professor Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University recently pointed out that licensed Canadian firearms owners have a homicide rate of 0.38 per 100,000, while the Canadian average is 1.85 per 100,000, making gun-owners 4.9 times safer to be around than the rest of us.

With a record like that, it is suggested that facilitating and supporting firearms ownership would improve public safety.

 

October 2011

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John Thompson is Editorial Director of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: institute@mackenzieinstitute.com