I fired off this letter to my MP:
I am writing to you to expose yet another hurtful and deceitful act that has been perpetrated against law abiding Canadian gun owners in recent weeks. You see, last year Smith and Wesson began to market their new .22 caliber rimfire rifle in Canada. The Smith & Wesson M&P 15-22. The RCMP, in an unprecedented move, classified the small, lightweight, .22 caliber rifles as Restricted and relegated a rifle that was meant to be used for shooting pop cans - to the "Range Only" class of rifles.
What I find most distressing, is that this rifle was obviously classified as restricted based purely on its looks. It is designed to look like an Armalite Rifle or AR style of rifle. Looks though, are all that is shared with any other type of rifle, as the Smith and Wesson M&P15-22 is constructed entirely of polymer. That's right, it's plastic.
Many of Canada’s 1 million gun owners looked past the restrictions placed on this rifle and purchased it anyway.
The Smith and Wesson M&P15-22 is shipped from the factory with the rifle, a cable lock and one 25 round magazine, which is the reason I am writing to you today. You see, now due to the stroke of a pen at the RCMP's Firearms Center, many law abiding Canadians are now criminals.
Recently the RCMP has ruled that because Smith and Wesson has introduced a new pistol on to the market that uses the same 25 round magazine that their rifle uses, the 25 round magazine that was perfectly legal a week ago, is now Prohibited! A pistol magazine can only hold 10 rounds, so even though the Smith and Wesson pistol in question isn't even being sold in Canada yet, the magazine purchased legally with the rifle is now illegal. We are law abiding people, we have great respect and love for the laws of our country, but now, once again, our once legal property is contraband. There are no capacity limits on rimfire magazines according to the criminal code, but there are now, only no legislation was ever passed. The RCMP has decided to unilaterally to make this so.
We Canadian gun owners were told that the legislation known as Bill C-68 would not make criminals out of law abiding people, yet here I am writing to you to tell you that that very thing is happening right now. I know that the law abiding gun owners who have purchased this rifle will do everything in their power to legally modify the magazine to only hold 10 rounds, as per the RCMP's edict, or else they will surrender their once legal property over to the RCMP for destruction, without compensation.
I hope that I have opened your eyes a little bit to the situation that we are in here. We are constantly criminalized and forced to submit to bizarre and unreasonable firearms laws in Canada and this is only the most recent example. I implore you to share this story around Parliament, as we; the law abiding Canadian gun owners are demanding that the laws of Canada be changed so that no more of us are made criminals overnight by the stroke of a pen. We ask fervently for Bill C-68 to be repealed in its entirety and no new firearms laws to be written that will restrict or criminalize Canadian citizens. Instead we demand that firearms legislation only be created to control access to firearms by those who are criminals.
The people of this nation will not be made into criminals by those they have asked to protect them.
Thank you for your time.
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I suggest you guys do the same.