BattleRife
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- of No Fixed Address
But then he wouldn't get my indignant and contemptuous commentary
.Seriously though, revisiting the written regs to gather info for my more recent post on the topic made me notice something I hadn't noticed previously. Take a look at the wording that prohibits the FAL:
Prohibited Weapons Order, No. 13
SOR/94-741
Registration 29 November, 1994
... declaring certain weapons to be prohibited
weapons and declaring that a person who possesses any such
weapon prior to January 1, 1995 may retain it only if it is registered,
effective January 1, 1995.
2. The following weapons are hereby declared to be prohibited
weapons:
(k) the firearm of the design commonly known as the FN-FAL
(FN-LAR) rifle, and any variant or modified version thereof, including
the FN 308 Model 44, FN-FAL (FN-LAR) Competition Auto, FN-FAL
(FN-LAR) Heavy Barrel 308 Match, FN-FAL (FN-LAR) Paratrooper
308 Match 50-64 and FN 308 Model 50-63;
(v) the firearm of the design commonly known as the Springfield
Armory SAR-48 rifle, and any variant or modified version thereof,
including the SAR-48 Bush, SAR-48 Heavy Barrel, SAR-48 Para and
SAR-48 Model 22;
What is shockingly visible by its omission?
Canada experienced the import of many surplus Australian L1A1s in the late 70s. Then, we received an absolute flood of cheap (like $99 cheap) Indian 1A1s in about 1988. At the time this prohibition order came down dealers across the country were in the midst of a large shipment of British made L1A1s that were just out of war stores, in almost new arsenal refurb condition and selling for the incredible price of about $200. Of course this is Canada, and a number of C1A1 rifles had made it out into the hands of the public.
Together these L1A1, 1A1 and C1A1 rifles were the variants that comprised, I would guess, 90% of the FAL rifles held by Canadian civilians, yet none of these is named in the prohibition order.
It has long been stated by certain folks that this prohibition list was largely formulated by anti-gunners going through the catalogue section of a Guns Digest Annual Edition from around 1990. The models listed above are largely civilian market guns built on semi-auto receivers that would have been available for sale in the USA, and thus been listed in that publication. The surplus FAL models popular in Canada were never available in the USA, and weren't in the Gun Digest catalogues.
All of this musing raises in my mind the question, do you suppose it is possible that at the time the Order in Council was crafted the authors were not even aware the FAL had been produced in and used by the militaries of many Commonwealth nations? Is it possible the authors weren't even aware that the FAL existed as a Canadian variant?
