Tell me if I am too bitter?
The Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety
Sir,
I write to you about the current attempt by the RCMP to reclassify multiple firearms. This has greatly come to the fore in their attempt to reclassify the family of firearms known as the Swiss Arms Rifles.
This appears for what it is, as a political backlash against the Government for having removed the long gun registry and an attempt to ban everything incrementally. I ask that a number of things be implemented in order to save the firearms community from these outlandish behaviours.
We need an immediate grant of property rights to protect us against this ‘legalized theft’ of confiscation without compensation.
Why will I face three years in prison tomorrow for what was legal today because of some technicians’ decision?
I never realized that taking some firearms course found in a matchbook cover would make someone more powerful than Parliament.
The RCMP need to be ordered to immediately cease and desist from further attempts at reclassification of firearms.
Remove the SIG 550 rifle from the prohibited category by an Order In Council.
This would make all attempts to prohibit the Swiss Arms family of firearms mute, at no cost , while protecting against changing the classification.
Remove the ability to reclassify a firearm after classification has been granted.
The RCMP Forensic Lab has to do the job right the first time.
If they err, why is the public punished for their mistake twelve years after the fact?
An error has to either be lived with or admitted and held accountable.
Remove the ability to reclassify firearms.
This technicality is going to be used for no other purpose than political embarrassment.
Should reclassification result in confiscation, then the funding should come out of the budget of the RCMP.
That might make them approach this more judiciously should they know that they will be paying for it.
The RCMP Forensic Lab has to have an Appeal Process granted against a decision.
A person need not wait until charged and before the court in order to challenge something.
The current Firearms Act is a byzantine work that grants law making powers to technicians.
Seek the advice of the National Firearms Association and the Canadian Sports Shooters Association in order to update and simplify the Act.
While compensation is necessary for any reclassification, the cost is enormous.
For the Swiss Arms family of firearms alone it will be approximately $4, 000,000 for the firearms alone never mind the parts that went along with the firearms would be another equal amount.
This does not include mailings, notices, legal costs, training updates and man hours. Easily this could be triple the cost.
More importantly, the entire attempt at reclassifying the Swiss Arms family of firearms is a political slap in the face against the Government in that it will be used as ammunition by the RCMP as another reason to retain the long gun registry.
I can hear the complaints already, “If only the long gun registry were still around, we could locate all these non-restricted and newly prohibited dangers to society”. (Insert commercial funded by the BQ of someone buying a $4,000 rifle intending to rob a corner store of fourty dollars in cigarettes and chewing gum.)
While I look forward to being Grandfathered into some new holder of a Prohibited Category on my Possession and Acquisition License, I am not sure if that is either wise, feasible or without cost.
The RCMP is a para-military force with a chain of command and need be held accountable.
Sincerely,
LG
CC The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
CC MP Chris Alexander
Chris Alexander is not my MP, but I hope that CCing him will get the point across that each vote adds up.