r/canadaguns • u/AutoModerator • Jun 13 '22

Weekly Politics Thread

Please post all your Politics or Ban-related ideas, initiatives, comments, suggestions, news articles, and recommendations in this thread. Unless new information is published in the media, recurring articles related to the gov'ts ***possible*** legislation are to be posted here. These threads will be weekly, until it's necessary for another per-week.

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u/Batsinvic888 Bats888 on YouTube Jun 15 '22

One thing I've noticed over the last 3 years as I've gotten into the politics of guns is how enabling the Firearms Act is for future gun control. Like what purpose could the GIC being able to suspended transfers be for except a handgun ban? The May OIC is the most blatant example of this.

Now I am not old enough to even have been alive for the passing of the Firearms Act, so for the people that have memories of it, was the enabling of future gun control a major sticking point of the bill? Or was it just so shit that focusing on what could come in the future was just not a priority

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

The Liberals always planned on bringing in more gun control after the act was passed but the party fell apart when Jean Chretien resigned as Prime Minister in 2002. It brought down his entire government. Paul Martin took over temporarily as head of the Liberal Party and stayed until the election and at that point their gun control scheme stalled. The reason all that is relevant is because we would have seen a lot more gun control from the liberals had their party not lost power when they did. They setup the firearms act with the intention of bringing in more and more gun control with each passing term. Their goal was always a total ban on firearms in Canada and they didn't try to hide it in the nineties. It wasn't until they knew they were close to defeating Harper and the CPC that they suddenly changed their tune.

Even when Chretien was in office, the LPC always knew another party would take over at some point, so they intentionally made the Firearms Act easy to manipulate but hard to repeal. That's what they're doing with C-21, the LPC have stated their intention to make it as hard as they possibly can for any future government to undo. We're seeing a repeat of the Chretien administration with Trudeau, and C-21 nearly mirrors the legislation passed under Chretien but goes even further. We've got the new air gun ban to go with the old airsoft ban, a total prohibition on replica guns even if they're kids toys or replicas of antiques. The handgun freeze, the new extended record keeping. More magazine restrictions and more rules and regulations to contend with, by the time it's done the legislation we're told "won't affect law abiding gun owners" will wipe out shooting sports in the country and crush countless legitimate businesses. On top of that, I'm sure the LPC is already planning more ways to attack gun ownership in the future. They knew exactly what they were doing with Firearms Act in 1995, don't doubt it.

TLDR: There's no way to condense this without using foul language.

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u/TechnologyReady Radical Centrist Jun 15 '22

I don't understand people saying "making laws difficult/impossible to reverse by future CPC governments."

Can anybody explain what this means? If the LPC brings in gun regulations by OIC, the CPC can remove them by OIC just as easily? This isn't a one-way street.

Any legislation actually passed would have to go through Parliament, so the CPC would need a majority or coalition. But this isn't "harder" than the LPC currently have it. It's the same process. They have their coalition.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

The OIC is powerful legislative tool, but it can't be used to bypass the legislative process. Trudeau was able to use the OIC to reclassify firearms because the Firearms Act already exists and Canadian law allows for reclassification of firearms. He didn't create a new law; he just took advantage of an existing one. An OIC can’t be used to undo that change in classification, it would have to be done through new legislation and probably legislation that creates an entirely new classification system. Trudeau can also issue an OIC that affects magazine capacity within the existing framework because such a mechanism already exists. So, for example magazines are limited to five rounds by Canadian law, he can issue an OIC that requires permanent alteration of all magazines to that limit. There's a lot of debate around whether the OIC can legally be used for a handgun freeze or if it must be done through legislation, but the LPC at least indicated they believed an OIC could be used to enact a freeze.

You’ll notice there was no mention of using the OIC to ban airsoft guns or air guns, that’s because under Canadian law if a gun fires a projectile within a certain range of feet per second, it can’t be considered a firearm unless used in the commission of a crime and as a result there’s no mechanism to reclassify them with the OIC. So, an air gun for example is limited to firing below 500 feet per second and that means it’s a non-gun. Not a firearm. In order to ban air guns, the LPC introduced C-21, part of which reclassifies air guns as Replica Firearms and based on the 1995 firearms act, that makes them prohibited devices. People call them replicas now but legally they aren’t, once C-21 passes they will be.

Making legislation difficult to repeal boils down to making it as broad, and as far reaching as possible and that includes giving other parties as much input into the bill as possible. That creates more procedural hurdles and makes the legislation more politically divisive while creating an environment that will lead to unintended consequences if the bill is ever repealed. The CPC could potentially just scrap the entire bill if they get a majority that’s strong enough and party members agree but that’s going to create legal loopholes, interfere with existing prosecutions, anger opposition parties and cause a great deal of animosity among voters. Depending on the final form of C-21, it could even mean that new legislation must be introduced, or other existing legislation has to be changed. The CPC getting that majority is also an issue. A minority CPC government or a soft majority is much more likely and that means they’ll have to work with opposition parties to make changes to the law because the opposition will never agree to repeal the entire bill. That bargaining means nuanced changes so the majority of the bill will remain in place and that’s the whole point. It’s as difficult as possible to repeal.

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u/Owl-Timpanogos Jun 15 '22

I don't believe this is accurate. Future governments cannot be bound and they can easily issue an OIC to toss this stuff

OICs are pretty powerful tools.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '22

The power of an OIC is limited in that it can’t be used to introduce any act or statute or make any legislative change that would require the approval of parliament. Changing the classification system for firearms and overturning a bill that's been given Royal Assent would both require the approval of parliament.

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u/Owl-Timpanogos Jun 16 '22

That would make the OIC Trudeau used to ban AR15s invalid then...

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '22

He used an existing area of law that allowed for the reclassification of firearms without parliamentary approval, so the order is valid. He simply changed the classification for certain long guns to prohibited.

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u/Owl-Timpanogos Jun 16 '22

hunting and sporting rifles cannot be reclassified like that via OIC based in the law so it isn't valid.

This is a cornerstone of the legal challenges.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '22

It's valid unless the courts overturn it, until then it stands and must be recognized as legal by authorities, law abiding citizens and business owners. I do agree the foundation for the OIC is questionable, but it's up the courts at this point, all we can do is watch and wait.

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u/NightFuryToni Jun 16 '22

So, an air gun for example is limited to firing below 500 feet per second and that means it’s a non-gun. Not a firearm.

I thought it actually has to be an uncontrolled firearm for it to be not a prohibited device, the intent now is to push those "lookalikes" into prohibited. So it is indeed a firearm. Only issue now is there's no precedent on what or who gets to determine "lookalike".

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u/DistortoiseLP Jun 16 '22

It would likely be at the Governor General's discretion like the rest of those case by case classifications already are.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22 edited Jun 17 '22

Section 84 of our criminal code clarifies prohibited devices which are different than prohibited weapons. I’m paraphrasing but the definition of a prohibited device is any part of a prohibited weapon including any accessory for a prohibited weapon and any device that is a replica firearm. Firearms themselves aren't classified as prohibited devices but rather prohibited weapons when they’re banned, their parts become prohibited devices, but non-firing replicas of modern firearms are always prohibited devices. Airguns along with airsoft guns don’t fire at a sufficient fps to be classified as firearms unless they're used in the commission of a crime, so they’re being reclassified as replica firearms in order to make them prohibited devices and that’s being done purely on the basis that they tend to look like real guns. With non-firing antique replicas, the Liberals are using that same twist to remove the antique replica exemption that exists in law and classify them as replica guns also making them prohibited. It will also classify anything that looks like a gun but isn’t a gun as a firearm including toy guns, cap guns, static props, rubber band guns, squirt guns and so on. The definition of replica firearm will fall to the one from the firearms act passed in 1995. If it looks like an existing firearm, it's a replica firearm and therefore it's prohibited, banned from import or export, banned from sale or transfer and can be confiscated at any time by a police officer.