I'm not sure I follow what you are saying.
All firearms will be subject to the new regulations from May 18 onwards.
But what we will have is a mixed bag of firearms that have been tainted by varying degrees of registration.
Such as:
Non restricted firearms that were acquired before 1995 and have never been registered anywhere, and are legally possessed by the original owner. These firearms may or may not appear in one of the old red CFO log books issued to and held by a licensed business for firearms related transactions.
Non restricted firearms that were acquired before 1995, and were transferred after that point during the requirement to register Non-restricted firearms, but were not actually registered as the individuals availed themselves of the amnesty that was enforce through out that period.
Non restricted firearms Manufactured or imported after 1998 which were positively subject to a legal requirement for registration, that may or may not have actually been registered.
These firearms may or may not also appear in the CFO issued log books held by businesses.
Non restricted firearms that at some point in time from 1998 to 2012 that were registered in the firearms registry, where the records were officially, allegedly, but not actually deleted. These firearms may or may not also appear in CFO log books held by a business
Non restricted firearms that were never registered in the Federal Registry, but were registered in the Quebec Provincial registry.
non Restricted firearms that were registered in both the federal and the Quebec provincial registry.
Non restricted firearms that entered Canada at any point from 1968 to 2012 where the firearm would have needed to be declared at CBSA, and CBSA would have recorded the declaration of the firearm in CBSA records, whether or not they also appear in any other registry.
There are probably other versions of government records I am forgetting.
After May 18th, 2022, there will be the requirement to comply with this transfer number process, which will see records created both at the Canadian Firearms Registry as well as at the point of sale, if its a business.
it is impossible for any person to know whether a non restricted firearm offered for sale today would be captured in any of the above databases, unless they have been the sole owner, manufacturer, importer, and can be sure that no other person would have provided any such info.
Receivers (or whole firearms) manufactured before 18 may, 2022, would likely have been manufactured, imported, or transferred during some period of time where no registration was required, and so there would be a break in the documented chain of ownership from factory to current legal owner.
Receivers (or whole firearms) manufactured after 18 May, 2022, and afterwards for the period of time that these regulations, these firearms are going to captured in records documenting a chain of person to person transfers (like a registry).
As we have already seen in Quebec, firearms that exist in government records tend to be assigned less value to a person not subject to such requirements.
Yes I suspect this will have a chilling effect on the secondary market. I suspect people will not want to transfer a firearm that is unregistered in a fashion that causes it become registered.
There will be lots of gun owners that are utterly ignorant of these regulations, and will unwittingly contravene them.
There will also be a smaller subset of gun owners, some of whom who never bothered to get a PAL, who deliberately ignore these regulations as more unenforceable nonsense.
Other gun owners will be weary of such transactions, and seek to avoid a potentially unlawful transfer that would otherwise have been mutually agreeable.
As always, it will be a mess, legally it will be atrocious, practically this law will likely be of little consequence, complied with joyfully by those gun owners who love to comply with nonsense regulations, and ignored with impunity by those opposed to such nonsense, just as the last requirement to register non-restricted firearms was.
Incompetent politicians, being advised by incompetent bureaucrats, being administered by incompetent government drones. Expect the Canadian Firearms Program to continue its well documented pattern of interpreting the law as they see fit, ignoring it completely when it becomes convenient to do so, and having absolutely no regard for the sanctity of the rights of Canadians, the constitution of Canada, or their oaths of office.