Handguns in Canada

Off Topic
1

A guy told me yesterday, that he plans to take a handgun course, buy a handgun and fire it at a range. This all sounds quite feasible to me. The part I question is this. He tells me that he can store the gun at his home ( locked up of course ) and transport it to the firing range in his vehicle. I thought that storing rifles at your home was AOK and that keeping handguns at home was a complete NO-NO by Canadian law.

Can someone straighten me out on this?

Thanks.

PS, I tried to Google it, and AskJeeves etc., but couldn’t find the straight goods.

|/ 3Toes

2

In Canada, a handgun is a restricted firearm.

Info:
http://www.cfc-cafc.gc.ca/info_for-renseignement/factsheets/restricted_e.asp

Storage of restricted firearms (including handguns) :
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/F-11.6/SOR-98-209/116468.html#rid-116499

Transportation:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/F-11.6/SOR-98-209/116468.html#rid-116514

More info:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/F-11.6/SOR-98-209/index.html

3

A friend’s father keeps a few handguns at home.

In order to do so, and be able to go back and forth to the range, he had to file a transportation plan outlining the path he would take to and from the gun range.

If you deviate from that path and are caught you are in trouble.

I’m sure the links in the above post go into much more detail than that.

Cheers,

Jeff

4

[quote]soupandspoons wrote:
A friend’s father keeps a few handguns at home.

In order to do so, and be able to go back and forth to the range, he had to file a transportation plan outlining the path he would take to and from the gun range.

If you deviate from that path and are caught you are in trouble.

I’m sure the links in the above post go into much more detail than that.

Cheers,

Jeff [/quote]

Wow, now thats real freedom…

5

This is only for legitimate gun owners. Criminals aren’t expected to obey gun laws. And they don’t.

6

Snipe,

I personally don’t think this is a bad idea. I’d rather know that the guns are being controlled rather than have laws that permit people to shoot each other on the street without hassle from the law if someone is endangering their personal property or safety… Nice.

You’ve never had the extreme pleasure of being shot by a handgun have you? I have…it’s no picnic. 9mm through the leg is not something you want to experience…but then again…maybe you do? All for “freedom” I could rant and rant…nobody has full freedom. If the government wants it can find out when you’re taking a shit…now that’s freedom!

Don’t bad mouth countries brother b/c they try to control dangerous useless weapons.

I for one have no problem with that law.

T

7

Snipe,

The way it was put sounded pretty bad, but really, the impact it has on the general citizen in Canada is pretty much non-existent.

I’m sure there are those who would want to own handguns that would disagree with me.

However, I will say, I’ve never been confronted with the presence of a weapon in a public place. I’m sure I could go looking for it if I really felt it was something I wanted to experience.

Just as an anecdote, not a political point, when I first moved to the US a while back, my friends girlfriend was very concerned that I “get a gun”! She was seriously concerned for me. It was funny.

By the way, I’m following your tales in the gun control thread, you might be surprised to know I certainly understand your need to carry a weapon when off duty, and fully support it.

Trained people using them knowledgably is not something that I’m worried about. Protecting yourself and your family is perfectly appropriate – just don’t break any laws… :wink:

8

$1 BILLION TO REGISTER 7 MILLION GUNS BUT
ONLY $8 MILLION TO REGISTER 40 MILLION COWS
?The gun registry is either a huge scandal or gross incompetence. Which is it??

Ottawa ? Once again, Saskatchewan M.P. Garry Breitkreuz, the Conservative Firearms Critic, lambasted the Liberal government for its futile firearms program that hasn?t even registered half the guns in Canada. Breitkreuz also released two letters from Auditor General Sheila Fraser that announced the start of another financial audit of the firearms program and her plans to report to Parliament in February 2006.

Here are Breitkreuz?s questions and Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan?s non-answers:

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton?Melville, CPC): Mr. Speaker, there is an even bigger scandal waiting for Justice John Gomery to investigate. The government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on computer contracts to implement the gun registry and plans to spend hundreds of millions more on computer contracts in the years ahead. To put this spending in perspective, we can register 40 million cows for $8 million. Would the minister please explain why it has cost $1 billion to register only seven million guns?

Hon. Anne McLellan (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this program has an $85 million cap. The operating budget for the entire program in 2005-06 is $82.5 million. As it relates to the gun registry component of the program, we imposed a $25 million cap in 2005-06. In fact the registry component of the program will cost only $15.7 million. In fact the costs of this program, since 2000, have gone down consistently.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton?Melville, CPC): Mr. Speaker, it is pretty obvious the minister still refuses to take responsibility for her role in this federal firearms fiasco. The cattle industry can locate a cow in any barnyard in Canada in seconds. The gun registry still cannot locate hundreds of thousands of gun owners and is still missing millions of guns. How many lives could have been saved if we had spent this wasted billion on DNA analysis, cancer research or more police on the streets. The gun registry is either a huge scandal or gross incompetence. Which is it?

Hon. Anne McLellan (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as I had just indicated, the costs of this program are under control and going down. Let me also share with the hon. member that since December 1, 1998, more than 13,500 individual firearm licences have been refused or revoked. In fact the program is accessed over 2,000 times a day by front line police officers. So, in spite of the ongoing protestations of this hon. member, it is time he pulled his head out of the sand and understood that–

?Barnyards need to be cleaned up regularly, and it?s about time to do this with the Liberals. Anne McLellan and her colleagues refuse to admit their mistakes but instead turn out more manure,? said Breitkreuz. ?If the government would also tally enforcement costs, compliance costs and economic costs as called for by the Auditor General, the not-so-grand total for this mess would already be over $2 billion,? calculated Breitkreuz. Sooner or later their political games will catch up with the Liberals. Then it will be up to a Conservative government to clean up this mess and fix all the flaws in federal firearms laws,? concluded Breitkreuz.

9

Thanks to all who answered.

The way I understand it is this. Meaning, I was wrong to think that you actually cannot own and keep a handgun at home.

“You are allowed to own and keep a pistol at home locked up and unloaded. But to take a gun to the range via your car you have to have a permit from the local cops and telling them the exact route you are going to take. And yes he has to have a course its called the P.A.L. and the restricted version as well as all hand guns are considered restricted weapons.”

As for whether or not gun control works in Canada… Obviously, criminals don’t register their guns. However, the rates of crimes committed with guns in Canada, are SO much lower than in the USA, there must be something to it?

As a side note, I found this interesting when I checked dictionary.com for the correct spelling of ‘whether’.

wheth?er ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hwthr, wth-)
conj.
Used in indirect questions to introduce one alternative: We should find out whether the museum is open.

I used the common expression, “whether or not,” but the dictionary.com example, simply says, “whether.”

And did you know that a 'wether" is a castrated ram? I didn’t know that until today.

|/ 3Toes

10

I really don’t think that one can compare the registry of cattle to guns. For one, cattle for the most part are controlled anyways…they live in pens, they are domesticated…jus twalk out tag the fuckers and register. Hardly the same as trying to find all the guns that people have or owned before the registry came into act.

People are indignant to this gun registry. If you notice that the first gripe was from Saskatchewan…(where I lived for 18 yrs of my life) this province if filled with farmers who grew up with rifles and used them to hunt or to slaughter animals yearly or kill rats on the farm etc. Alot different story than the thug rats running the streets playing “rapstar” games and shooting each other…or innocent bus drivers in the face, or a little child sleepin in his bed, or a mother of 3 dancing in a nightclub. The reason people from Saskatchewan think it’s insane to register your guns is that they aren’t being used for the same purpose. Check out the gun violence in Saskatchewan…it doesn’t exist…there are no large metropolis centers with high levels of gang violence etc. So naturally they’ll bitch and compare it cattle registry costs. The two can’t be compared.

No shit criminals aren’t going to register their guns, come on!

This will not work…it’ll take years to round up the guns…and register them…really, this thing can cost much more than budgeted b/c it’s so difficult to find all the guns, not to mention stop the smuggling of guns from the states…which is the real source of the problem.

T

11

“this year will go down in history.for the first time,a civilized nation has full gun registration.our streets will be safer,our police more efficient,and the world will follow our lead into the future!” adolf hitler 1935

12

You have to be shitting me posting that quote up here.

Holy shit dude…I hardly think our leaders are hitlers…bwahahahahahaha.

Nice work…

T

13

[quote]TOTrev wrote:
I personally don’t think this is a bad idea. I’d rather know that the guns are being controlled rather than have laws that permit people to shoot each other on the street without hassle from the law if someone is endangering their personal property or safety… Nice.
[/quote]

You don’t think people should be able to shoot someone who is “endangering their personal safety?”

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

14

Neph,

So you should shoot all drunk drivers? How bout the legally blind that still have licenses. They’re all endangering my personal safety by being on the roads when they clearly shouldn’t.

How bout the insane…we should jsut shoot them for fear that our personal safety is possibly in danger. I got out at a stop light in Buffalo to ask if I was going to right direction. Ran up to a parked car to ask for directions…could be taken in the complete wrong context…should I have been shot for asking directions? Let’s put it this way…are you sure that you’re in danger. Perception is often reality…so let’s just jump to the point and all pull out our guns.

My point being that if guns didn’t exist…we’d have to use equal force in some other means. Knives…bats…brass knuckles…I think all of these are less evil than guns. Not to mention all the people that get included via stray bullets. Let’s say you’re walking on the street one sunny day minding your business…some asshole decides to aim at someone whose “endangering their personal safety” and they miss 3 times, hitting a child, hitting you in the spine, and hitting someone beside you. How do you feel about it then.

In no way have I said anything about protection of personal safety. Or my views on it. You’ve quoted my opinion about controlling guns and having my preference for some control over an amendment that says all have the right to own bear arms.

Cheers,

T

15

[quote]TOTrev wrote:
…
(specious reasoning skipped)
Perception is often reality…so let’s just jump to the point and all pull out our guns.
[/quote]

If perception were reality, we wouldn’t have to worry about these kinds of scenarios, would we? You didn’t say anything about being mistaken in your original post. And let’s be clear: if someone with a knife attempts to rape my wife, girlfriend, or a stranger on the street, use of a gun is perfectly appropriate. To say that an ordinary person cannot tell the difference between someone asking directions and someone threatening imminent harm… well, perhaps you’ve watched too many movies with mistaken identity subplots. If all humans are truly that inept, we ought to all huddle into a fetal position and starve ourselves to death.

But they do exist, and strict laws only affect the law-abiding, not the criminals. You know it and I know it.

Guns are evil, or they are an evil? I don’t think that guns have an intent to do anything, much less a malicious intent.

Boy, I sure hate it when scenes from Die Hard occur in real life!

You’ve said volumes about protection of personal safety. The criminals have it, the plebes do not. The government has it, the plebes do not. Whether or not you think it’s a quaint idea, there is more to gun ownership than just protection against ordinary criminals. There’s also protection against the extraordinary ones, such as those found in corrupt government. I’ll never convince you, however. I recognize the limits of persuasive speech.

16

Funny, that any thread mentioning handguns has to bring out the pro/con arguments. I personally see transporting and storing your handgun properly as prohibitive to owning one. If the guy truly wants to fire the gun at the range, then he should keep it there. If he plans to store it within the law, at home, he has to keep it locked up and unloaded, making it useless for self-defence at his home.

If he wants to keep the gun for self-defence, he has to flaunt the law, and keep the gun loaded and within reach in his home. Which pretty much guarantees that one of his kids or his wife will shoot him.

|/ 3Toes

17

Hasn’t Canada always had lower crime rates than the US regardless of the gun control laws of the times?

18

Two small things:

1.) For the people that are saying that a person will just whip out a gun and start shooting at someone who is possibly a danger to them, it usually isn’t true. Most states have a law that requires a person to retreat from an attacker before they shoot at them, unless it is their house.

Also in a situation that the gun wielding citizen won’t be thrown in jail for manslaughter/ second-degree murder they will be close enough to an attacker that they won’t miss, usually within about twelve feet.

Lastly, the people who are carying guns around legally in public have had training in how to use them; it’s called a CCW permit.

2.) People don’t only have handguns to carry around on the street. I personally carry a hamdgun when I am out in the woods hunting. Bears and other frienldy little fuzzy forest creatures love it when there is fresh meat down near them, they even invite themselves over for a little meal sometimes.

Monster

19

One other thing that I would like to add.

Because the laws in Canada require you to keep the gun locked up in unusable condition and you can’t carry one for personal defense is there really much reason in having one?

Why not just get a pellet gun handgun instead? They work almost as well for target shooting, they are significantly cheaper to use, and they won’t get you any looks from the police or government.

Just a thought,
Monster

20

Neph,

I see your points. The way you come across on the original post was that I assumed that the use of a gun was never warranted.

It’s not that you’ll never convince me. It’s jsut that I’ve had a different spin on the whole thing due to experience with them.

As far as that Die hard situation…that’s exactly what happened to me, broad daylight…no idea I was even hit. Except I got it in the hamstring, a guy got it in the leg and the intended runnign up the street target got it in the spine via his ass. So…it wasn’t a die hard situation. It was reality.

As for the runnning up to ask for directions…the whole perception is often reality, the lady wouldn’t roll down her window…I’m serious. Just like people don’t open their doors wide when they hear a strange knock. You’d have to be pretty trusting to do that. People know bad things happen…you never want to put yourself in a situation that could be mistaken and get shot…that’s my point. By having a law saying that you can shoot anywhere anytime if you feel threatened only increases the chances that innocent people will be hit.

Yes, laws can be argued to inhibit citizens and not criminals. The thing is regardless of the rules, criminals will be criminals…if there were no rules on the handguns can we assume that the crime rates for guns would be higher? Maybe…maybe not…it’s hard to predict. I would bet that the incidents with guns would be higher in this city if there was less of a rule impact on them.

This has become such an issue in Canada that the prime minister has vowed money to gang control etc. That’s the first time in a long time that this is being addressed. We’ll see how this impacts the amount of handgun crimes going on in the city.

Neph, you could and probably will argue that the laws obviously aren’t working…and I’m not sure that’s entirely wrong. There are deeper issues here, I just think there is absolutely no reason for their to be guns, so since they existed before the laws did, it’s now impossible to remove them. The only thing left to do is to restrict them as much as possible by blanketing a law on everyone. Innocent responsible gun users and criminals alike. You need to have a law to be able to break it…and thus be sentenced…see the point.

AS far as the post goes that people carrying the guns are trained…the thugs on our streets are hardly trained. They shoot innocent people everyday…all summer almost everyday people were being shot. Some sitting in their cars at shopping malls…some getting off the subway and beign shot in a drive-bys. A bus driver in the face 3 times stopped at a stop…and on and on…it’s been bad…real bad.

End rant.

T