Todd Brown is the founder and executive director of F.I.R.E. (the Firearms Institute for Rational Education). He has written policy and consulted for many Canadian political parties including the PPC and Libertarian Party federally, in Alberta for the Wildrose Party, Freedom Conservative Party, Wildrose Independence Party and the United Conservative Party, and for the Buffalo Party of Saskatchewan.
When the Trudeau Liberals announced through an Order-in-Council that many firearms, previously considered acceptable, were now prohibited, many firearms advocacy groups and some conservative politicians were quick to open the debate as to what firearms should be prohibited or not. Todd Brown and myself think that they miss the mark.
The real question is whether an individual has committed a crime.
Common sense would posit that where there is no victim, there is no crime. Assault or threats of violence are clearly crimes. Robbery or theft is a crime. The simple act of owning a gun, any gun, causes no harm to anyone. Gun owners have been legislated in to criminality.
Likewise, some groups like to use the government licensing structure as a backdrop of legitimacy for their firearms advocacy. Here too, they have ceded too much ground.
A license - in the sense that we would regard a firearms license - is a permission granted by the government so that someone may engage in an activity considered unlawful. The license itself does not make a gun owner peaceful or responsible, and again, the simple act of ownership creates no victim. The license is a fine you pay in advance for doing something illegal. Hence guns in Canada are illegal by default.
Bill C-21 takes many prohibited firearms that have been grandfathered into licensing and makes them wholly unusable and inaccessible through a "storage only" clause. Current owners can keep their grandfathered guns if they never see the light of day, and even this comes with a swath of compliance requirements. Then, once the person passes away, the gun is seized and destroyed. This is confiscation. Where these instruments have not been engaged in any criminal activity, there is no justification for the government to rob the deceased person's estate.
The bill encroaches further by giving the government more power to suspend and revoke firearms licenses without due process. Without a license, the gun owner is deemed unlawful, and all firearms must be surrendered.
The legislation also refers to prohibited or restricted firearms as weapons, which speaks volumes as to why they want to make them illegal. The State views these things as weapons yet wants to be the only entity who has possession of them. Whereas peaceful and responsible gun owners would never imagine using them in force against another person, that is the only use the State has for them.
I am not a gun owner, but nothing makes want to own one more than the government telling me I can’t.
Episode #28 with Todd Brown