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Didn't work for me, either - so I copied the body of the letter and pasted it into a new e-mail - and added the various liberals, to the address bar. It "sent" fine.
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######x,
Thank you for reaching out to me regarding Bill C-71, An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearms. I appreciate you taking the time to outline your position on the Bill.
To be clear, Bill C-71 is in no way meant to undermine the rights of law-abiding gun owners— it is meant to close loopholes and make it harder for individuals who should not have a gun from getting one. I am steadfast in my support of law abiding citizen’s right to own a legal weapon.
While I believe strongly in an individual’s right to legally own a gun, we have to acknowledge that Canada and New Brunswick are not immune to gun related violence. The number of firearm-related homicides in Canada hit 223 in 2016 — up 44 from 2015, and the third consecutive annual increase. There were 141 gang-related homicides in 2016, 45 more than the previous year.
With this legislation, we are taking concrete steps to make our country less vulnerable to the threat of gun violence, while treating law-abiding firearms owners in a fair and reasonable manner. The new legislation proposes to:
· Enhance background checks on those seeking to acquire firearms – looking at the full life history of a person, including any history of mental illness associated with violence, not just over the last five years.
· Require that whenever a non-restricted firearm is transferred, the buyer must actually produce his/her licence, and the vendor must verify that it is valid.
· Ensure the impartial, professional, accurate and consistent classification of firearms by restoring a system in which Parliament defines the classes and then experts in the RCMP make the technical determination about the class into which a particular firearm falls into, without political influence.
· Except between a residence and an approved shooting range, require specific transportation authorizations to be obtained whenever restricted and prohibited guns (mostly handguns and assault weapons) are moved through the community.
· Standardize record-keeping of sales by firearms retailers, already a common “best-practice” in the industry. This information would be accessible to police officers (not governments) on reasonable grounds and with judicial authorization.
I would like to reiterate that this bill is not meant to undermine the rights of individuals to legally own a gun, it is meant to save lives.
I would again like to thank you for sharing your perspective with me.
Sincerely,
Matt DeCourcey MP
Fredericton
Matt, I will have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of C71.
First, I will lead off with saying that I have no issues with the enhanced background check portion of this bill.
Firearms owners are the most vetted members of society, and 1/3 as likely to commit a violent crime as someone who has no PAL, and everything in this bill directly affects us while there is nothing in there to target gangs or gun violence, such as longer sentences for violent crimes, or crimes committed with a firearm.
Also, your point of making firearms classification non-political with handing it over to the RCMP is kind of proven wrong by the fact that this bill specifically bans 2 firearms: the Swiss Arms Classic Green as well as 4 versions of the CZ858. These are simply 2 semi automatic rifles, and many people have taken deer with their CZ858s. C71 also takes the ability away for parliament to take firearms off the prohibited or restricted list by name, while leaving the ability for parliament to ban firearms by OIC. If you really wanted the appearance of being impartial with relation to prohibiting firearms, you would also remove all the OIC's prohibiting firearms by name (or simply by virtue of being a "variant" of a prohibited firearm) and let the RCMP reclassify all of those firearms by their technical details, such as full auto capability, etc.
This bill also creates a new prohibited category, 12.9, which is to be used for further prohibitions down the road. Law abiding firearms owners have been down this road before and know what this will lead to, we really aren't that dumb.
I won't even touch on the portions of this bill which essentially return a "shadow" long gun registry, but suffice to say it will be as ineffective, inaccurate and most likely just as an expensive a waste of time as the previous one.
Thank you for your timely response and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Here’s my idea, let me know what you think.
Everyone with a CZ858 takes their rifle to a gunsmith to have it inspected. The gunsmith with “certify” that no modifications have been made to alter the firearm into a fully automatic rifle. If we mail a ton of these “certificates of semi auto only” to the MPs, it would prove we are honourable and honest gun owners while showing how the government does not trust us in return.
I would even pay $100 to have my rifle certified as “semi auto.”
Thoughts?
Also, this is the first time I've crafted a letter to an MP myself rather than filling out a form, so any feedback you guys have would be cool. I found I was all over the place and kept switching back to another paragraph to add something to that while I was working on another one.




























