Basically were in "assault rifle" section of 1990 Gun Digest
Conversion to full auto has nothing to do with it. Possibly in the case of the FAL but I doubt that as well.
I was there and really know the story full well.
Remember that this is history not a statement of what is logical or sane.
Before the 90s, IMI Galil, Steyr Aug, Chinese AKs and RPKs, Hungarian AKs, Romanian AKs, millitary surplus G3 rifles (but not HK91) were non-restricted (even some very rare Famas F1, Enfield bullpup).
All millitary gun nuts had a 400$ AK with 30 round banana magazines and the rich guys would shot their for more expensive rifle with 30 round clips.
RCMP weapon main restricted status classification criteria was "can it be converted to a 'machine-gun' easily", I know this because I asked them numerous time what was their classification criteria since I wanted to buy a non-restricted FN FAL or an HK 91(there were around 10 variants of FALs available in Canada).
Many early semis were way too easy to modify
Believe it or not, but many early FN FAL imported in Canada and sold at Sears only needed an auto-sear to become full-auto.
The same is true for really old AR15s, in Canada that was a huge problem for the RCMP but in the US it was only an annoyance for the BATF since the gun were American made by American workers.
What can be learned from this
What I've learned from this episode is
Anti gun will always want to ban all "assault rifles" and you can't negociate or compromise with them.,
join the NFA, the DCRA is a really good decent bunch of shooters, write to your MP, go talk with your MP and make sure that you vote for a pro-gun candidate (if possible).
Gun owners were screwed big time by the Conservatives in the 90s and it tooks 20 years to get rid of the LGR.
I hope that we can get the AR15 (our army's service rifle) non-restricted and see what can be done about prohibited "assault-rifles" and high capacity magazines.
So in short, all guns that were in the "assault rifle" section of the 1990 Gun Digest were prohibited except for Valmet 78 (natives), AR15 (DCRA-Canadian army) and a handful of other rifles such as the M14 (museum pieces
).
The current non-restricted black guns like RA XCR-L, H&K SL8 and Binelli MR1 had not been designed and were not in the 1990 Gun Digest.
I hate arguing with another gun nut because we're on the same side!
Alex
