CANADIAN SHOOTING SPORTS ASSOCIATION / CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION
TEAM CSSA E-NEWS - October 01, 2012
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QUEBEC IS FAKING – POLITICIANS HAVE NO PLAN TO USE GUN REGISTRY DATA
The long-gun registry has earned a reputation as a “wedge issue” in Canadian politics, but nowhere is it more obvious than Quebec.
There is evidence that Quebec politicians of every party stripe don’t plan to actually create a provincial registry. It is a handy exploitation tool, however, to show Quebeckers they are once again telling the federal government to back off. The registry data is little more than a political volleyball to garner votes and highlight the two solitudes. The registry controversy has evolved into a part of Quebecois “culture” that crosses party lines. Witness the recent pro-registry fervour of former premier Jean Charest, who was a dedicated critic of the very same registry when he led the federal Progressive Conservatives. In Quebec politics, the registry is the gift that keeps on giving.
Where is the proof that Quebec won’t bother to use the registry data? Provincial politicians knew for years that the Harper government was planning to nuke the data, yet they made no provisions to accommodate the data if the courts force the feds to hand it over. Quebec has had nearly a decade to prepare its own legislation to reconcile the data. And what has it done to prepare for the hand-off? Nada.
Even more telling, it seems the good citizens of Quebec may not be legally bound to register their firearms since the federal registry has been trashed. It speaks volumes that Quebec police cannot tell us what legal grounds to charge a Quebecker for refusing to register a firearm. It seems there is no such law in Quebec’s criminal code – it is merely left to an “honour system.” This isn’t to say that Quebec police wouldn’t conveniently invent charges for bogus gun-related infractions like police have done elsewhere, but there is no apparent legal infraction in Quebec for not cooperating.
So, where is the fresh Quebec legislation to enforce a provincial registry? There isn’t any. And it seems likely there never will be. Even Quebec politicians know a gun registry does nothing in the real world. And, they know a registry would single-handedly plunge the province into unprecedented debt and fiscal squalor.
It would appear there won’t be a Quebec long-gun registry, no matter what they want voters to believe.
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YOUR MEMBERSHIP DUES ARE NOT ENOUGH: If you want to defend your right to own and use a firearm -- if the freedom to hunt and shoot is important to you -- then you need to support CILA, the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action. CILA defends your firearms rights on Parliament Hill, the United Nations, in provincial legislatures and in courtrooms across Canada. Be part of the solution. Please support CSSA-CILA today by donating here:
http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/membership.html-------
THANKSGIVING TURKEY SHOOT IN MUSKOKA, ONTARIO: The Windermere and District Lions Club is holding its first turkey shoot on Saturday, October 6 on the Thanksgiving long weekend. This event is designed to have some good old-fashioned family fun. The “world famous” chefs on the Lions Barbecue are planning for a large turnout. Shooting Rules and Regs for shotguns and archery and additional information is available at
www.windermerelionsclub.com. Everyone is welcome to enjoy the BBQ lunch and archery demonstrations. The shooter in each groups of 10 with the most pellet holes/marks wins a turkey. Only the Lions Club will supply the shells -- no one is permitted to attend with their own shells. No practice shots are permitted and each shell is $5. No “special guns” are permitted and those without a gun will be provided with a loaner. See the map on the web site for directions.
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VICTORY FOR GUN OWNERS: Canada's public safety minister is applauding an Ontario Superior Court's rejection of a bid to preserve long gun-registry data. Vic Toews called the ruling an "absolute victory for the rule of law." The Toronto court had heard a motion from the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic for an emergency injunction that would have prevented the federal government from destroying long-gun data in a federal registry that's been abolished.
Justice D.M. Brown declined to grant the injunction, rejecting arguments that the destruction would be a violation of the Charter of Rights. The City of Toronto had supported the motion, though the province did not. The ruling follows a successful court application by the Quebec government to preserve long-gun registry data in that province.
Last week, Superior Court Judge Marc-Andre Blanchard voided two sections of the Conservative government's legislation to scrap the long-gun registry. The judge ordered Ottawa to surrender all records on Quebec-owned rifles and shotguns in the registry to the province within 30 days. Minister of State Maxime Bernier told the House of Commons on Monday the government will appeal the Quebec court decision. (CBC – September 21, 2012)
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BCWF GETS BEHIND THE HARPER GOVERNMENT: The B.C. Wildlife Federation (BCWF) is pleased that the federal government is challenging the Quebec Superior Court decision, rendered last week by Justice Marc-André Blanchard, that undermines federal legislation to scrap the badly flawed long-gun registry and associated records. BCWF President Bill Bosch said, “Ottawa’s appeal will stop any provincial government from attempting to re-introduce a long-gun registry through the back-door. The BCWF does not believe that law-abiding hunters, shooters or farmers should be required to register ordinary rifles and shotguns.”
If the Quebec Superior Court decision held, the federal government would have been required to hand over all records on Canadians living in Quebec who own guns to the Quebec provincial government within 30 days. The federal government’s decision to appeal supports Parliament’s decision to end the long-gun registry. “The federal government deserves praise for continuing to honour its promise to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry,” said Gary Mauser, Firearms Committee Chair for BCWF. “The failure of a similar appeal in Ontario underlies the weakness of the Quebec court’s position. Justice Blanchard’s decision is an affront to parliamentary democracy and conveniently ignores a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), which found that the matter lies entirely within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament.”
The BCWF, along with colleagues in the firearms community across Canada, has long worked with the Conservative government in support of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and Firearms Act. The long-gun registry, invented by a previous Liberal government, was a misguided effort to track trained, legal, licensed firearms owners. It is irrational to focus on law-abiding citizens rather than violent criminals. Unsurprisingly, the long-gun registry failed miserably as a tool to prevent violent crime and did nothing to enhance public safety because it ignored the fact that criminals do not register guns. (BCWF media release – September 21, 2012)
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GREAT MEDIA COVERAGE FOR ONTARIO GUNSMITH: Mankind’s fascination with firearms sparked in the 12th century after the Chinese invented gunpowder and married it to brass barrels and steel projectiles. Firearms revolutionized and democratized warfare, offered potent personal defence and offence, empowered peacekeepers and the nefarious alike and sustained pioneering generations reliant on the hunt. Subject to your politics, many suggest firearms should only be in the control of police, military and licensed target shooters and hunters.
In the skilled, strong hands of Stephen Milton, firearms become one-of-a-kind works of engineering art. One of Canada’s few remaining gun makers, let alone genuine gunsmiths, the 63-year-old has been retailing, repairing and crafting fine firearms in York Region since 1979, the year he emigrated from his native London, England. Setting up shop first in Nobleton, he moved Precision Arms and Gunsmithing to King City in the mid-’90s.
It was there where Lisa bought out his business partner and shortly after, became his life partner. The husband and wife team operates a reverent, well stocked and equipped oasis for firearm aficionados, from the target hobbyist, traditional and big game hunter, to the collector and the well-heeled who seek and can afford Mr. Milton’s custom-tailored firearms, a pair of which can cost $65,000. As the tall, two-time national, five-time provincial and bronze-winning world sporting clays champion explains repairs to a customer’s shotgun, his wife displays the shop’s eclectic, elegant and exotic wares, new, used and antique.
“First, they are not weapons,” she said with an ever present smile. “The military uses weapons. These are firearms.” Against the walls rest an array of rifles ranging from a Husky H-5000 30-06 calibre, 22-barrel for $550 to a Krieghoff big game express rifle valued at $16,395. “We sell quite of few of those,” she said. In the shotgun category, the Miltons have a modest Boito Hiker 12-inch barrel, single shot, full choke unit for $220 all the way to a Krieghoff k-80 Sporting 12 gauge, custom stock and titanium trigger shotgun for just less than $10,000.
The handgun case, for anyone who grew up watching western, James Bond and Dirty Harry films, is a magnet. There’s a Smith & Wesson .357 calibre Combat Magnum revolver for $525, antique Berettas in the $400s and an exquisite 1862 Uberti .45 Colt six-shot revolver reproduction for $6,700. Mr. Milton recently sold a single action army Colt from “before Custard’s time” for $20,000. The store normally stays away from military ordnance, Ms Milton said. The handguns, mostly used, are sold, but not serviced, unlike the rifles and shotguns Mr. Milton expertly repairs and restores in the back room machine shop.
Of course, anyone wanting to do business needs a firearms license, a rigorous course of study, training, testing and scrutiny by provincial law enforcement, the Ontario Provincial Police in the case of York Region... For more information, visit precisionarms.ca (yorkregion.com – September 27, 2012)
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JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU’D HEARD EVERYTHIN A firearm anyone can download and print in their own home may be the most controversial application yet of consumer 3D printing. But some gunlovers, it seems, want to see it happen badly enough to put their wallets behind it.
This week, the so-called Wiki Weapon Project, an initiative that aims to design and build the world’s first entirely 3D-printable handgun, met its goal of raising $20,000 from Internet donors, according to the group’s spokesperson, University of Texas law student Cody Wilson. That’s about ten times the amount the project had managed to raise through the crowdsourced fundraising site Indiegogo when the donation platform summarily booted the printable gun project from its website last month and refunded the group’s pool of contributions to donors.
Wilson says he sees the fact that more contributors came through for the project despite Indiegogo’s rejection as a sign of the wide appeal of his goal: allowing anyone to create a firearm at home with cheap, easily available 3D-printing tools. “They wanted to get this done,” he says. “I think it shows they really believe in a future where the gun is inalienable…a kind of faith in American individualism, the sovereignty of the individual.”
The Wiki Weapon Project, hosted by a group that calls itself Defense Distributed, set out in July with the goal of raising enough money to hold a design competition among 3D-printable software models for a working gun capable of firing at least a single .22 caliber bullet that can be printed on a relatively cheap RepRap 3D printer... See
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygree...off-indiegogo/ (Forbes – September 20, 2012)
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ONLY POLICE AND MILITARY SHOULD HAVE GUNS? A soldier trying to scare another soldier out of hiccups shot his comrade in the face, killing him, authorities said Tuesday. Both soldiers, joined by a third man, were drinking alcohol and watching football at the time of the Sunday night incident, authorities said.
"The victim had the hiccups. The suspect pulled out a gun to scare him in order to stop the hiccups," said spokesman Carroll Smith of the Killeen, Texas, Police Department. Pfc. Patrick Edward Myers, 27, was charged on Tuesday with manslaughter, and Justice of the Peace Garland Potvin set his bond at $1 million, police said. Killed was Pfc. Isaac Lawrence Young, 22, of Ash Grove, Missouri, a motor transport operator at the Army base, the military said. Young entered active duty in May 2011 and arrived at Fort Hood in October 2011, the Army said.
Myers is a soldier at the base, as was Young at the time of his death, said Fort Hood spokesman Chris Haug. Police responded to a shooting shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday and found a man shot in the face and two other men at the residence, Killeen police said. Myers allegedly "produced a handgun and while handling it in an unsafe manner, discharged the handgun striking the victim in the face," police said.... (CNN – September 25, 2012)
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The CSSA is the voice of the sport shooter and firearms enthusiast in Canada. Our national membership supports and promotes Canada's firearms heritage, traditional target shooting competition, modern action shooting sports, hunting, and archery. We support and sponsor competitions and youth programs that promote these Canadian heritage activities.
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