The
Criminal Code Section 84(1) defines a hand-gun as:
A firearm that is designed, altered or intended to be aimed and fired by the action of one hand, whether or not it has been redesigned or subsequently altered to be aimed and fired by the action of both hands.
It further defines an antique fire-arm:
(a) Any firearm manufactured before 1898 that was not designed to discharge rim-fire or centre-fire ammunition and that has not been redesigned to discharge such ammunition, or
(b) any firearm that is prescribed to be an antique firearm.
And also S.84(3):
For the purposes of sections 91 to 95, 99 to 101, 103 to 107 and 117.03 of this Act and the provisions of the Firearms Act, the following weapons are deemed not to be firearms:
(a) any antique firearm.
S.84(3.1):
An antique firearm is a firearm for the purposes of regulations made under paragraph 117(h) of the Firearms Act and subsection 86(2) of this Act.
The reference to
S.117(h) is basically the Storage and Transport
Regulations (
SOR/98-209), and S.86(2) is the Offence and punishment for breaking them.
All this means is that a hand-gun is a hand-gun, except if it's an Antique then it's not a gun at all, for *most* of the things having to do with guns, but in some cases it is.
There is a set of
Regulations Prescribing Antique Firearms (
SOR/98-464), which gives a listing of calibres that make a gun fall under the (b) definition of Antique, basically rim fire except for .22, and centre fire excluding most common modern ammunition. The intent is that pre-1898 fire-arms are designed for black powder rather than smokeless cartridges, and use low-powered, obsolete calibres. There are many holes in this theory.
There's a
forum here for Antiques, which doubtless has seen much discussion along these lines.
