Laws control law-abiding gun owners but those too dangerous to own firearms, not so much.

More than two million law-abiding gun owners issued licenses by the RCMP must report their change of address or face criminal charges with sentences of up to two years in jail. So why are the 324,723 convicted criminals (as of 2011) prohibited from owning guns by the courts not forced to do the same? A question that has been asked in Parliament but never really answered. On November 24, 2004, MP Garry Breitkreuz asked Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan, “Where is the logic.” She deferred to her Commissioner of Firearms who said, “On the change of address, if someone is prohibited from having a firearm in the country they are no longer effectively covered by the Firearms Act. The Firearms Act only deals with people who own, possess and use firearms. In terms of firearms officers, they would have no authority to collect information from somebody who is not a client of the program.” Anyone with any common sense still wants a clear answer to the question, “Where is the logic in that?”

Surely, those convicted criminals prohibited from owning firearms are the very ones most likely to acquire firearms illegally, most likely to use them to commit crimes and pose the greatest threat to police and public safety. Where’s the evidence that the higher priority for police is to have the current addresses of law-abiding gun owners but not the current addresses of those that have proven themselves by their own criminal acts to be too dangerous to own firearms?

The two million licensed gun owners in Canada are monitored daily for criminal activity and violence under the Continuous Eligibility Program. Prohibited gun owners (as we learned above) are not ‘clients’ and therefore are not covered by the Firearms Act. So how does the government police the hundreds of thousands prohibited gun owners? Recently, MP Brad Trost received a response but no real answers to a very comprehensive Parliamentary Order Paper Question Q-623 which basically asked: How effective is the government’s enforcement of court ordered firearms prohibitions?

Instead of answering Trost’s questions with evidence that enforcement of these most dangerous persons is effectively keeping firearms out of their hands, the Minister of Public Safety’s disappointing response was riddled with responses like this: “The Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) is unable to provide this information,” or more alarmingly: “The CFIS database does not capture information concerning the illegal acquisition of firearms by prohibited persons.”

Based on what the Government has told Parliament, here is what we now know about the enforcement of firearms prohibition court orders:

• Firearm prohibition orders imposed by the courts on convicted criminals has risen dramatically over the years, 176,000 in 2004, 200,000 in 2006, 325,000 in 2011, 405,000 in 2015. NOTE: MP Brad Trost is now trying to find out the total number of persons too dangerous to own firearms with the tabling of his Order Paper Question Q-887.

• The RCMP has no legislative authority to demand convicted criminals with firearm prohibition orders to report their current addresses to police.

• The Minister reported that tracking of firearms prohibition orders by the Chief Firearms Officers in every province is not used for monitoring unlawful firearms acquisitions or illegal use of firearms by those convicted criminals with firearm prohibition orders.

• The Minister’s response stated: “The CFIS database does not capture information concerning the illegal acquisition of firearms by prohibited persons.” Everyone must now be wondering, why not? How else would the RCMP and Parliament know whether court ordered firearms prohibitions are working to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals – or not?

• The Minister was unable to provide statistics showing the ‘average number of days’ it takes to get information about firearms prohibition orders, conditions, restrictions into the hands of front-line police officers.

• The Minister admitted the Canadian Firearms Program was unable to provide statistics showing the average time it takes to remove firearms and weapons from the hands of those convicted criminals prohibited from owning firearms by the courts.

• The Minister reported that the Canadian Firearms Program was unable confirm if periodic searches for firearms are conducted of the homes of convicted criminals subject of firearm prohibition orders.

• The Minister was unable to say how long it takes to get notification of the expiration or rescinding of prohibition orders to front-line police officers. The Minister’s reply to MP Brad Trost stated: “The police service of local jurisdiction is responsible for entering the relevant information about the court's decision into the CPIC database.” The problem is there is a growing backlog of more than half a million criminal fingerprint files waiting to be entered into CPIC.

• The Minister advised that provincial Chief Firearms Officers ‘may’ follow up with police jurisdictions to ensure those convicted criminals subject to a firearms prohibition order have properly disposed of their firearms licenses, Authorizations to Transport and Carry and registration certificates.

  But the 400,000+ convicted criminals prohibited from owning firearms by the courts aren’t the only bad guys police need to keep tabs on. There are also: wanted criminals, known sex offenders, persons charged with a violent crime, violent criminals released with conditions, on probation or parole, persons subject to a restraining order or protection order, a peace bond, and previously deported criminal. MP Brad Trost has tabled Order Paper Question Q-887 to get the total number of these individuals that are too dangerous to own firearms.

  Now there will be some of you who believe that law-abiding gun owners still need to be licensed and monitored extensively at a cost of more than $50 million a year by nearly 500 full time public servants. This despite evidence to the contrary. For example, analysis of Statistics Canada data shows that licensed gun owners are far less likely to commit a homicide than the average person in Canada and another study that shows that all the firearms policies and programs enacted between 1974 and 2008 had no beneficial effect on firearm homicide rates.

Given that the Minister of Public Safety and the RCMP don’t have any real information on how well the bad guys are being monitored and firearms prohibition orders are being enforced, it might be wiser for the Liberals to spend some of the millions being wasted tracking the good guys be spent doing a far better job keeping track of the bad guys.

Both Prime Minister Trudeau and Ralph Goodale, his Minister of Public Safety have made commitments to all Canadians to ‘evidence-based policy making’. It’s about time the government start collecting the evidence to justify, not only the promises they made in the last election but also the evidence justifying the entire multi-billion dollar firearms regime they rammed through Parliament in 1995.  

A large cache of firearms and ammunition was seized from a Barrie home after the city police tactical support unit raided a Yonge Street home Sunday evening.

Prohibited weapons, loaded long guns, mini-cannons and a cane with a removable sword were also seized.

A 57-year-old Barrie man faces multiple charges. He did not have a licence to possess firearms or ammunition, police said.

Const. Nicole Rodgers was asked if there was a danger to the public.

“No, I don't believe police feel that at this time, but it is something that is being explored as part of the investigation,” she said, “just because of the nature of the loaded weapons and the quantity of weapons and them being unlicensed.”

The man's intent is also unknown, Rodgers said.

“Police don't at this time know what he planned on doing (with the weapons),” she said.

At 5 p.m. Sunday, police received information about a Yonge Street man who had loaded weapons strewn around his home – unregistered long guns, handguns, ammunition and swords.

Police were also told a sawed-off shotgun was loaded and sitting in the arm of the couch, with ammunition throughout the house. Its resident had a cane with a removable sword in his possession as well.

A short time later, the Barrie police tactical support unit descended on the home and arrested a man without incident.

On Monday, police used a search warrant there and seized several weapons.

This included 20 antique guns, five loaded long guns, two mini-cannons, one load-bearing vest full of ammunition, one sawed-off shotgun, three unloaded long guns, a cane with a removable sword and an excessive amount of ammunition.

Rodgers said a load-bearing vest is a tactical vest that has various areas on it, either hooked or Velcro, where ammunition or other things can be attached in order to carry the load evenly, on front and back.

A man is charged with unauthorized possession of a firearm, careless use of a firearm, possession of a weapon with a prohibited device or ammunition, two counts of careless storage of a firearm, weapon, prohibited device or ammunition and possession of a loaded, prohibited or restricted firearm.

He was held for a bail hearing Tuesday.

Detectives are still processing the seized weapons and ammunition, and police say more charges are pending.

It's the second time in approximately four months that Barrie police have made a significant seizure of prohibited weapons.

In mid-December, police raided a Touchette Drive home and seized a loaded 9mm Smith and Wesson firearm, a 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun, ammunition and drugs.

A 25-year-old Barrie man was charged with knowledge of unauthorized possession of a firearm, two counts of possession of a firearm contrary to a prohibition order, two counts of careless storage of a firearm, two counts of unauthorized possession of a firearm, two counts of unauthorized possession of a prohibited firearm, possession of a restricted firearm with ammunition, four counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, possession of a weapon obtained by commission of an offence, two counts of possession of property obtained by crime and illegal drug offences.

A 24-year-old Barrie woman was charged with knowledge of unauthorized possession of a firearm, two counts of careless storage of a firearm, two counts of unauthorized possession of a firearm, two counts of unauthorized possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of a restricted firearm with ammunition, four counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, possession of a weapon obtained by the commission of an offence, two counts of possession of property obtained by crime, and drug crimes.

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See the story: http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/2017/03/07/barrie-man-facing-multiple-charges

Show dates are Wednesday, March 15 through Sunday, March 19.   Doors open at 10 a.m. 

We hope that you will come out and visit us at Booth #1012. Stop by and chat with our representatives and staff. Of course, some lucky participant of our draw will be taking home a brand new Benelli shotgun at the end of the show. 

We hope to see you there! 

International Centre 
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Wednesday to Saturday: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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NOTE:  * We are looking for capable volunteers who want become more involved and help out at the CSSA booth. Please email Mike Duynhoven at [email protected] and let him know what days and time frames you want to help out at the show!  Alternatively, you can contact our office at 1-888-873-4339. 

Bob Paulson is stepping down as the top cop at the RCMP. He served as Commissioner since November 2011, spent 32 years serving with the Mounties and before that, six years in the army. Anyone that serves their country for four decades has to be admired.

And while I have problems with Paulson over one major issue, the fact is that on other files, the force under his command has done some amazing work.

Watch as I lay out what he did well, and the one issue I have a problem with - the High River gun grab, a massive violation of civil rights mostly ignored by the media because they have no time for gun owners.

When flooding hit High River, Alberta in late June 2013 the town declared a state of emergency. Residents evacuated secure in the knowledge that they needed to look after themselves first and that local authorities would protect their belongings.

For the most part, that’s what happened until officers started searching for guns and breaking the law while breaking down doors.

The end result in the aftermath is broken trust between the people of the town and their local police, between gun owners and police.

This could have been handled much better by Commissioner Paulson including punishing those in Alberta’s K Division that were responsible, instead of handing out promotions.

I don’t expect others in the media to take up this issue, their antipathy to gun owners is well documented, some of them outright lied about what happened and what McPhail reported.

But I do wish Commissioner Paulson had acted on this rather than retiring with this black mark, this asterisk on his outstanding career.

See the story:  http://www.therebel.media/high_river_gun_grab_remains_a_blight_on_a_long_and_storied_career

In the search for causes of gun violence in the District, you can’t go wrong by blaming the gun.

“This is our number one problem in the District of Columbia. Illegal guns,” acting police chief Peter Newsham said at a community meeting on crime in Southeast Washington on Monday.

Hundreds of residents nodded in agreement. They had gathered at the Eagle Academy Public Charter School in the Congress Heights neighborhood, many of them angry and afraid. Six people had been recently shot along a seven-block stretch of the thoroughfare where the school is located. One of them died.

“The number one motive of shootings is petty disputes, minor petty beefs,” Newsham said. “And the reasons those interactions are becoming fatal is because of these right here.” On a large projector screen was a photograph of some of the guns that police had confiscated.

To hear police tell it, you’d think the gun had somehow turned a “petty” dispute into a homicide. But the gun did not pull its own trigger or compel a person to pick it up and shoot somebody.

Ward 8, where the shootings occurred, is predominantly black and has the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, premature deaths and crime in the city. Years ago, low-income black people were pushed out of Georgetown and Southwest Washington and herded into poorly constructed public housing in Southeast.

Violence escalated amid despair, hopelessness, inequality and neglect.

Now residents are being pushed again — displaced to make way for more expensive housing and luxurious amenities for people with more resources.

“People are being moved into neighborhoods where they have long-standing beefs with people already there,” said Anthony Muhammad, a longtime resident of the ward. “See what’s happening in Barry Farm,” he said, referring to the public housing complex. Residents there “are being moved into Congress Park, so problems are being created because of that type of move.”

What appears to the police to be little more than “petty disputes” may actually be desperation, anger and fear born of poverty, joblessness, mass incarceration and fraying social networks.

“We can spend $5 million on dog parks and $300 a day to incarcerate a juvenile at the [Department of Youth Services],” said Trayon White, who represents the area on the D.C. Council, “but we can’t get funding for after-school programs that cost $75 a child.”

White has proposed an after-school program that would offer additional academic enrichment, but he has yet to gain enough support to get it off the ground.

Do dogs matter more than black lives? It can sometimes feel that way. Residents in Southeast should no more tolerate such perverse priorities than they would these killings.

Shootings are guaranteed to fill a community meeting. But residents also need to get excited about addressing the problems that lead to violence. Post-traumatic stress disorder is epidemic in the city. Walter Reed Army Medical Center, also located in the city, has experts who know how to treat it. Why aren’t some of them being invited to community meetings?

Regis Bryant, commander of the 7th Police District, announced that he was holding a “private meeting” with Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, “so we can all be on the same page.” But what about a meeting with some global business leaders who know how to create jobs for chronically unemployed people?

Newsham noted that he was all for “long-term solutions,” but he emphasized that confiscating guns was a top priority.

In one week, from Feb. 27 to March 6, D.C. police seized 27 firearms. The guns included a sawed-off Mossberg shotgun; a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic handgun; .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun; and a 9 mm Iwi Uzi semiautomatic pistol with an extended clip.

The availability of such high-quality firearms indicates the presence of a robust gun trade in a city with some of the strictest gun-control laws in the country.

And the market shows no sign of disappearing, even though the District has been confiscating guns by the thousands for decades. Whether gun violence goes up or down has little to do with how many they seize. It has to do with how hopeful people are, how much opportunity they have, and how much help they receive managing pain, anger and rage.

“If you see someone in our community carrying one of these, let us know,” Newsham said of the firearms. “We will come and get it. We have 3,700 officers who will be happy to come and take these out of our community.”

As if the gun were public enemy No. 1.

See the story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/guns-are-an-easy-target-but-the-real-crime-of-despair-and-neglect-is-harder-to-fix/2017/03/07/341d30c8-0360-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html?utm_term=.a4ef284c7d85

Why do Democrats, self-proclaimed champions of the poor, make it so difficult for poor people to defend themselves? Democrats oppose even free voter IDs as imposing too much of a burden on the poor, but when it comes to guns, they don't hesitate to impose fees, expensive training requirements and onerous background checks. These are precisely the things that can put guns out of reach for poor people.

Connecticut already charges $140 in initial fees for handgun permits — twice the national average. Now Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wants to raise it to $370, with a $300 renewal fee required every five years.