Just to remind everybody, apparently this incident was instigated by ONE individual.
This is not a case of PoCo being taken over by "Fudds" and with an agenda of expelling the "Rambo's".
However, some of the suggestions in this thread are very good.
The firearms community is more united than ever. Most of the hunters have woken up to the fact that it is wrong to trade their "sporting arms" for bans on others because their duck guns and deer rifles are next on the list.
Universal registration proved that.
But there are still those out there who still hold to these outdated notions, and if gone unanswered this will embolden them to become irresponsibly vocal and demonstrative in their efforts to drive wedges in the firearms community again.
This cannot be allowed to happen. Any expression of this kind of disunity must be shut down with extreme prejudice. If the individual who perpetrated this incident is not interested in seeing the error in his ways, negative social re inforcement might be necessary in schooling him on the wrongs of ignorantly taking the law into his own hands and causing an incident for which there was no excuse.
If he is a member of PoCo, perhaps this should be put under review ?
It is legitimate for those with firearms licenses and registrations to make use of the Port Coquitlam range, regardless of the types of firearms they are using. The presence of firearms licenses and registrations proves this legitimacy. It is not acceptable to "assume" because a firearm looks unfamiliar, it must be illegal and a LEO investigation must be instigated.
The individual in question could have easily solved his concerns by asking a few questions, he chose not to do that, he brought a degree of harm to the firearms community by his actions and he deserves censure for it.
And the same goes the other way. I don't hunt, and I am not really interested in doing so. But I do believe that hunting is a fundamental Canadian cultural tradition, and a basic human right that must be respected and defended. I would not trade hunting rights for my right to shoot black rifles, and frankly the suggestion would be absurd for the right to keep and bear arms transcends these petty political divisions.
PoCo apparently has a problem with ONE individual, and I think this is where finding the solution must start.