GUN SUITS TO REVEAL NEW EVIDENCE
2,000 pages to challenge Liberal claims
Legal representatives prepared to serve thousands of pages of evidence this week detailing their opposition to the Liberal government’s firearms ban, as lawsuits against the prohibition continue to mount.
Lawyer Edward Burlew, who leads one of five lawsuits now challenging the ban in federal court, was to put forward more than 2,000 pages of evidence on Friday that counter a range of claims cited by the federal government.
They include everything from Ottawa’s use of an order-in-council to enforce the prohibition to specific provisions within the ban, to counter arguments about what the firearms included under the ban are actually used for.
Lawyers say the evidence, which includes testimony from 18 citizens and organizations, sets a strong foundation to the five legal challenges now opposing the prohibition.
“The evidence that we have put together, and then we’re going to continue to put together, shows irrefutably that the statements of the Liberal party and the cabinet members who made this decision to ban these guns is not factually correct,” Burlew said in an interview.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a sweeping ban on May 1 that immediately outlawed more than 1,500 firearm variants, including a range of AR-15 and AR-10 rifles.
The move left gun retailers with millions of dollars in unsellable inventory, and forced owners to begin offloading rifles and shotguns that were included under the prohibition.
Legal representatives countering the Liberal ban say the government does not have the authority to use regulatory measures to outlaw firearms used for hunting or sport, according to the Firearms Act. They also say arbitrary provisions in the regulations, like the provision that outlaws any firearm with a muzzle velocity greater than 10,000 joules, for example, has wrongly reclassified a number of traditional hunting firearms, and even antiques, as prohibited.
“This OIC is predatory,” Burlew said. “It’s predatory and it didn’t have to be done in this way.”
Burlew is representing John Hipwell, a Manitoba man who is challenging the prohibition after his Springfield M1A1 hunting rifle was outlawed on May 1. His antique Manton 8 bore double rifle, which was made in the late 1800s, was also outlawed.
Other applicants challenging the ban include a Haida Nation hunter and trapper, two Alberta firearms manufacturers, the lobby group Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR), and Hipwell, who founded Manitoba-based retail company Wolverine Supplies. Two of the legal challenges were filed in Toronto, two in Ottawa, and one in Calgary.
A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the federal government has the authority to use an order-in-council to outlaw firearms, according to section 117.15 under the Criminal Code. Regulatory changes are the typical avenue for classifying firearms, spokesperson Mary-liz Power said.
“The use of regulations to reclassify firearms was also adopted by the Harper Conservatives who downgraded certain rifles in the absolute final days of their government without any consultation, and even contrary to the recommendations of the RCMP,” Power said in a written statement.
Critics of the ban say it outlawed guns based on esthetics rather than the function of the firearm, which created contradictions in which variations were included on the prohibition list and which were not. Others say the ban wrongly includes firearms used almost exclusively for hunting, sport shooting and collecting.
A recent survey by the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters found that the vast majority of rifles outlawed under the order in council are used for either sport shooting or hunting.
Out of a total of 64 firearms listed in the survey, respondents said they used 82 per cent of them for hunting, and 92 per cent for sport, such as target shooting, formal competitions or skeet shooting.
Many gun owners and lobby groups argue that the ban targets law-abiding gun owners, while the majority of gun violence continues to be committed by organized crime using illegal firearms. Supporters of gun control largely supported the prohibition, but said the order in council did not go far enough.