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Over the past six months, I have received several requests for a Canadian law
section. The US laws are complicated enough, so I had little interest in
adding the laws of another country into my already cluttered brain. I
pretty much passed on the idea.
Then one day I receive a really great email from a firearm researcher from
Canada named Brian. I invited Brian to write an article for his fellow
Canadians, but Brian wasn't fooled. If anyone has ever tried anything like
that before, it's a very tall order. However, the response he did come up
with was interesting nonetheless and worth reprinting.
I find the differences in approach between our two countries
interesting and educational for both Canadian and US gun owners. Brian is
not a government employee or lawyer, but like I, he's doing his best to make the
laws and ideas understandable to everyone. The link he refers to in this
letter is:
http://www.canadianfirearms.com/Default-en.html
Brian writes:
Hello Dave.
Thanks for the Email and the invite to write an article. I am not sure
I have the time to write a formal article right now, but I will keep it in
mind. I sent you a link to the "Canadian
Firearms Centre" Site. It is good way to become acquainted
with Canada's gun laws. I will try to give you a brief explanation of
the approach Canada has taken. (Remember, I am not an expert, it is
just a subject that interests me).
You
asked about laws pertaining specifically to the SKS. Well in Canada,
the laws do not apply to specific guns as such, but to various
"classes" of guns. What the federal government did was to
divide up firearms into three distinct classes as follows:
"Non-Restricted", "Restricted" and
"Prohibited". These classes are assigned primarily on
factors such as barrel length, magazine capacity, type of action, and over
all length. The "Prohibited" class is pretty much self explanatory
and takes into account any gun that is full auto, (or select fire), .25 or
.32 cal pistols (because of their small "pocket size"), or certain
weapons that can be easily converted to full auto such as the FN FAL series
of rifles. The Canadian Justice Department has created a list of these
prohibited firearms so that there is no "guessing" as to what is
legal and what isn't. "Prohibited" firearms may be legally
owned in Canada by private individuals but only under a very narrow margin
of rules. That is to say that an individual may keep a gun that had
been legally acquired before it had been assigned the "Prohibited"
classification (known as "Grand fathering"), or that the gun has a
specific, legally authorized, purpose such as the making of movies.
Few guns laws are retro-active. The government rarely takes away a gun
that was previously acquired legally. Other than these special
circumstances, "Prohibited" firearms are pretty well out of the
reach of most gun enthusiasts. (Note of interest: "Fake
guns" or imitation firearms are now prohibited "devices" in
Canada).
The
"Restricted" class of firearms includes most revolvers, larger
pistols and certain carbines. The Ruger PC9 Police Carbine, for
example, is classified "Restricted" because it is too large to be
considered "Prohibited" yet has a too short of barrel to be called
"Non-Restricted". The "Restricted" classification
permits the use of the firearm only at federally authorized shooting ranges.
In Canada, hunting with handguns is illegal and permission to legally carry
guns for personal protection is almost impossible to attain. (That's
why most small time criminals in this country prefer employing knife
attacks. It is not illegal to carry a knife and they can be assured
with almost absolute certainty that their intended victims will be totally
unarmed). So, the only legitimate, (legal), reasons for a private
individual to own a handgun or any other "Restricted" firearm in
Canada would be for target shooting, (including competitions), or gun
collecting. Certain rifles such as the semi-auto AR15 are classified
as "Restricted" simply because they are "scary looking".
Sounds pretty stupid, but as I understand, the American Assault Weapons Ban
of 1994 has a similar clause.
The third, and most common classification, is "Non-Restricted".
This class includes most hunting and sporting rifles, (most weapons commonly
known as "long guns") and air guns capable of a muzzle velocity
over 500 fps. Again, this class is determined by barrel length,
overall length, and type of action. All "Non-Restricted" and
"Restricted" guns must NOT be capable of full auto-fire. The
SKS is classified "Non-Restricted" because it is a long rifle, it
is semi-automatic only, (and please don't be offended), it isn't "scary
looking" enough. I am aware that there are short barreled
versions of the SKS out there. These would be in fact classified as
"Restricted", solely based on the length of the barrel.
That, in a nutshell, are the basics for determining the legal classification
of firearms in Canada. The RCMP use a computer database of most
commonly found guns known as the "Canadian Firearms Reference
Table". Each known gun is assigned an "FRT" number and
a legal classification which enables the police, a firearms officer, a
firearms registrar, or a firearms verifier to determine instantly the
legality of a gun. Also, as you may already know, all gun owners need a license
to possess and/or acquire a firearm, and all handguns, (and restricted
guns), must be registered with the government. Our new laws are being
phased in over a period of several years and by the year 2003, ALL firearms
must be registered with the government. This part of the law was
created in order to discourage a licensed gun owner from selling his gun to
an individual who may not be authorized to purchase the weapon. If the
gun was used in a crime, and the perp was not licensed to own the gun, then
the original registered owner could be traced down and be held partially
liable for the crime. This law makes you think twice about selling
your gun to someone who maybe shouldn't have a firearm.
Canadian gun law does not concern itself with the so-called
"evils" such as detachable mags, pistol grips, folding stocks,
flash suppressors etc. These items are permitted as long as they don't
violate the "under length" criteria. The only real big
restrictions we have are the magazine capacity laws. This simply
states that centre fire semi-auto rifles can have a max mag capacity of five
shots and handguns a max mag capacity of ten.
I hope I was able to give you an idea of
how our gun laws work. One big difference between your system and ours
is that in your system, individual states are permitted to enforce guns laws
particular to that state. Canada does not do this. All guns laws are
mandated by the Federal Government. As a matter of fact, several
western Canadian provinces banded together in a fight to repeal some of the
federal restrictions, but the effort failed. Unlike the vast
distribution of the population of the United States, most of Canada's
population is concentrated along the southern most borders of only the two
provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Most of our national laws are
determined by the influence of these two numerically superior provinces, so
in effect, we have two primarily "anti-gun" provinces that
"run" the whole country.
You can refer to the link I sent for specifics on Canadian
Firearm laws. As I said before, I am not a legal expert, but I
would be happy to answer any question I can on Canadian gun law. You
can post any info I give you if you like, but I cannot assume responsibility
for its accuracy or how someone else may choose to use the information.
Anyone deciding to purchase a particular firearm, for example, based on what
information I may have furnished should not do so without first checking
with the proper legal authority. Take care for now ...
Brian G.
A special thank you goes out to Brian for taking to
time to fill us in on Canadian gun laws.
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