Amnesty isn’t good enough
Last week, thousands of rifles that had been legally purchased by properly licenced Canadians had their classifications under the Firearms Act changed by the RCMP, from non-restricted to prohibited. For thousands of law-abiding gun owners, who had complied with all laws when purchasing their firearms, paid taxes on the purchases and then stored and used their firearms properly, this was tantamount to a seizure of property without compensation.
Our law requires anyone who purchases or possesses a firearm or ammunition to be licenced, but there are three levels of licence: non-restricted, which covers most hunting rifles and shotguns; restricted, mostly for handguns; and prohibited, which covers fully automatic firearms, easily concealed snub-nosed pistols and other exotic bits of hard-
The Tories must reverse the RCMP’s recent gun ban and make sure it can’t happen again
ware. Prohibited licences are only available to a select few Canadians who already owned prohibited-class firearms when the laws were enacted in 1995, and have not been issued since. By reclassifying thousands of rifles as prohibited, the RCMP made it effectively impossible for even a licenced, law-abiding gun owner to legally possess rifles they already owned.
After a sharp backlash among gun owners and some media commentators, including in the National Post, the Conservative government — which has long courted Canada’s millions of firearms owners — backpedalled quickly. Steven Blaney, Minister for Public Safety, said he was shocked, outraged and determined to never let something like this happen again. He promised action and a full review. And earlier this week, the government announced an amnesty for all who own the now prohibited rifles. Their owners will not be subject to prosecution for continuing to possess a prohibited firearm.
That’s a good first step, but no more. The RCMP’s reclassification of these firearms, turning normal Canadians sud- denly into outlaws for owning property the RCMP had already approved, was outrageous. No explanation was offered as to why these firearms had suddenly become more dangerous. No incidents of violence were cited, no new information brought forward. In effect, the RCMP changed its mind, and ordered citizens to turn over equipment they had invested thousands of dollars into or else face charges. This is a grotesque abuse of power, one that police should not have. In a free society, the police enforce the laws, and interpret them with trained judgment, but they do not make them up as they go.
This incident could reoccur for as long as the RCMP retains the ability to reclassify firearms at will. This power should be removed from the RCMP, and vested in a transparent independent review body of technical experts. This panel should consider each new firearm proposed for sale in Canada and determine how it should fit under our laws. If any changes to existing classifications are proposed, the review panel should study the case on its merits and rule impartially. Canadian gun owners have long chafed under seemingly arbitrary decisions. If Minister Blaney is serious about preventing this from ever happening again, he should start here.
And the next step must be reversing the decisions of last week. An amnesty is simply not good enough, as it still suggests Canadians are being forgiven for having broken a law that was suddenly imposed on them without notice or explanation. While an amnesty was an appropriate means of preventing any arrests and undue alarm among lawful gun owners in the immediate present, it is only a temporary solution. The Tories must reinstate the original classification of these rifles, which, again, the RCMP approved in the first place.
All Canadians deserve an effective system of gun control, with appropriate evidencebased laws that correctly target criminals who use (typically illegally possessed) firearms, and not the millions of Canadians who use firearms responsibly. Enacting such laws will ultimately require a full overhaul of the poorly written and conceived Canadian Firearms Act. But in the meantime, reversing the reclassification of these rifles and the criminalization of their owners, and implementing an independent review body to avoid similar incidents in the future, is a good place to start.