You may be happy to put dual purpose and commonly available pistols before a judge, but not everyone would.
Again... the biggest reason this magazine is a prohibited device is the easily removed floorplate and the ease of removing the spring and plug/stopper. That right there makes it a prohibited device and case law, and the law as written, says so.
The whole "dual purpose" may very well be a made up RCMP term, but here's the bulletin we all have seen and that I quoted earlier:
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/bulletins/bus-ent/20110323-72-eng.htm
It's right there on the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program website. These are drafted not just by police officers, but by the legal department of the RCMP and the Canadian Firearms Program and should not be dismissed so easily. Show me a time where one of these bulletins was ignored by a judge.
Your comments about M4's, AR15's and M16's being actions and not rifles don't hold up considering the whole FRT system we have. They are named firearms with differing manufacturers. Heck many are named right in the regulations to make them rrstricted. As is the LAR15... the only AR pistol I know that's been deemed commonly available in Canada by the RCMP lab who creates the FRT's. The laws we have name firearms, not actions.
As a side note, if these are legal as you believe, let's get some bigger distributors involved so we can get them across Canada. Cabelas, Canada Ammo, SFRC, Wolverine could all stock yhese and they'd sell like hot cakes. My guess is a 10 round bodied LAR15 mag would never be sold again!
Sure, if people want to avoid the risk of getting in front of a judge, then your advice should extend far wider than the magazine discussion at hand.
Talking about floor plate, now you are changing your tune. Now the biggest reason is not the capacity but the floor plate? Sure, I can go there with you.
Please reference the case law you are referring to regarding magazine floor plates?
I agree with you that a plain reading of the regulations would not deem that method of 'pinning' to meet the requirements, and further I'm sure you would agree that this would be true whether it was a rifle mag or a pistol mag. With regards to pinning the mag, the regs are pretty clear. Any method of pinning has to be permanently affixed to the body or casing of the magazine. Floor plates, followers, springs, etc, are clearly not an option. The method of attaching the pin, rod, etc be welding, brazing, or other similar method. Other methods would probably include soldering, because it is another example of using heat and a filler to bond metals. Screws, friction, magnets or other mechanical fasteners would probably not be included, and would easily be deemed to fall below the standard intended to be created by the law.
I would suspect that more than 50% of the full sized magazines pinned to a legal limit in Canada right now would fall below that standard, and presumably all of them have been inspected and approved by the RCMP for sale. IF the RCMP and CBSA approve something for import and sale, the very act of their approval creates a legal defense for anyone in possession of one. For the RCMP to claim that something approved for sale is illegal is at best an administrative error that should put no fault on the accused, and at worst is evidence of entrapment. Eitherway, if a public administrator makes a mistake and tells you something is legal, you can't be convicted for relying on their authority. The opposite however, is not true, because remember, the judge gets the final say and the benefit of the doubt goes to the accused. If the RCMP say something is illegal, in contradiction to the law, or in the total absence of a basis in law (like dual use), then the RCMPs opinion will be given consideration, but is in no way determinative of the outcome.
Your question about the RCMP bulletins being disregarded by judges is a tough one. Judges don't care about RCMP bulletins. Judges care about the law. Crowns can't convict someone based on what is in a bulletin. They convict based on the law. No self respecting crown would ever attempt to convict someone based on information in an RCMP bulletin. The bulletins themselves indicate that they are not law, and refer you to a specific reference to law when you need a precise legal interpretation. Those bulletins are summarized, make many generalizations, and in doing so contradict the law. They are for information purposes only. Have you seen the bulletin where the RCMP think that a carved up block of unfinished aluminum is a prohibited firearm?
The only time a Judge WON"T completely disregard one of those bulletins, is when an accused is relying on them as part of their defence. There are many situations in criminal law when the honest beliefs of the accused can offer a defense against charges, and those bulletins can be used as evidence of the basis of an honest belief. In this case, the judge will probably give weight to the bulletins, not as a matter of legal validity, but as a matter of an accused person showing he attempted to comply, did due diligence and consulted an authority on the subject, and still got it wrong.
I am sure there are a few out there, but I can not off the top of my head remember a case where either a crown or an accused relied on a bulletin as part of their case, and a judge made a definitive ruling on the validity of the bulletins. Probably because it should be self evident to anyone whose read them, they are not the law.
The closest example I can provide is in R V SINCLAIR,
https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/d...mlyZWFybSBkZWFjdGl2YXRlIAAAAAAB&resultIndex=1
This was a case about deactivation of firearms. The law said that firearms that have been 'deactivated' do not need to be registered. The question is what was the appropriate standard for deactivation.
The accused in the case was accused of trafficking firearms that were not deactivated to such a degree that they would not be "easily convertible" back into functioning firearms.
In that case, the judge found that
There has never been at any time a legislative or regulatory requirement that required deactivation to comply with the RCMP or other guidelines nor one which otherwise defined what had to be done to a gun to remove it from the definition of “firearm” in s. 2 of the Criminal Code and thus to remove it from the ambit of the operation of s. 99(1)(a) of the Code. Individuals are left to determine on their own what is adequate for this purpose as best they can.
In his reasons, the judge restated
In particular for each count I conclude that the appropriate standard for deactivation of any of these handguns is not to be determined simply based on the evidence that none of them were deactivated as described in the RCMP deactivation guidelines
, and went on to quote the relevant legal rulings which governed the issue at hand.
In that case, experts from the RCMP lab testified that the guns in question had not been deactivated in accordance with the guidelines, but also conceded that even guns deactivated in accordance with the guidelines would be convertible back into functioning firearms with the right tools and expertise.
In the end, the guidelines were not followed, but the accused was acquitted, because the guidelines themselves are not law.
Coming back to magazines, yes, the method of pinning is specified in regulations, and is therefore law and must be followed. No questions there.
Nonsense such as "dual use" does not appear in law, and can safely be disregarded by a judge. It is unsupported by the legislation, and there appears to be no legislative intent to create such a provision. The law is quite clear: There are rifle magazines, and there are pistol magazines. Determining whether a specific magazine in evidence was designed or manufactured as either one is a question of fact, to be determined on evidence by the judge at trial. The RCMP can not in any way issue a blanket ruling presuming in advance that magazines of a particular design will always be manufactured or intended for one or the other or both or neither, especially magazines that were not in existence at the time of the RCMP's opinion, because this is to usurp the very function of a judge/jury.
The FRT system is another perfect example of RCMP opinions, and NOT LAW. Yes, the regulations name specific firearms, and not their actions. Many of those references include the phrase variant and modified version, which are also nowhere in law defined. Several Access to Information requests have determined that the RCMP do not even have an operational definition of those terms that are consistently used in applying them to specific FRT decisions. Here is the thing about the FRT. It is utterly useless at trial. USE...LESS. The FRT describes a firearm that was inspected by the RCMP at some point in time. It is useful as a reference when attempting to determine the class of a factory condition firearm in relation to another factory condition firearm inspected by the RCMP of the same make model etc.
Nothing in law prohibits a person from modifying a firearm to be a condition such that it no longer conforms to an FRT. It is perfectly legal to modify a firearm in such a way that changes its classification, so long as you report and re-register the modification/change, and have a license for the new classification. Any firearm so modified, especially if done in an atypical manner, would not bear any specific resemblance to an FRT. I can cut the barrel on my Ruger Mini 14 to 6 inches, and it becomes restricted, but the FRT reference for the gun i bought will still say NR. What do you think a judge will use? THe obviously invalid FRT entry?
No. He will apply the law to the actual firearm in evidence, and find it to be restricted.
I could go on all day about the FRT and its usefulness in court, but you get the point. Judges use the law as the final basis of rulings. Statute. Regulation. Case law.
Presumption of innocence. Benefit of the doubt goes to the accused. Benefit of the doubt goes to the accused. Benefit of the doubt goes to the accused.
According to the RCMP bulletins, (and ignoring obvious over capacity mags owned by actual criminals) there are probably 100,000s of thousands of prohibited magazines in circulation. Where are the convictions?
If its such a slam dunk case as you suggest, and there are so many of them, we should be building new prisons for all the criminals, no?
