CSSA NEWSLETTER JULY 12-2013
CANADIAN SHOOTING SPORTS ASSOCIATION / CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION
TEAM CSSA E-NEWS – July 12, 2013
** Please share this E-news with your friends **
CSSA COMMENTARY
COLUMNIST LORNE GUNTER – OLD-SCHOOL ETHICS AND ANALYSIS
Responsible firearms owners owe much to the wisdom of newspaper columnist Lorne Gunter, and not just because he defends their gun rights.
Gunter’s examination of the topics he broaches is executed with old-school aplomb. He has a reputation for seeing many issues through a right-wing filter, but his writing is much more than simple partisan preaching. In a world where the majority of journalists choose to tote around anti-gun baggage, they could learn from a man who understands why firearms laws have little bearing on public safety.
His recent column printed in Sun Media newspapers explains how the RCMP evolved into a police service that ostracizes firearms owners. Gunter illustrates how Canada’s national police force was long ago made an instrument of Parliament and set a course to become an extension of the Liberal government’s anti-gun movement. (Gun owners reacted with disgust when high-ranking RCMP officers ignored the current government’s intention to scrap the gun registry. The RCMP delegation trashed the bills in committee and pretended the registry was a useful police tool. Once a Liberal puppet, always…)
Gunter exposes the gun-grabbing police in High River as an example of dangerous trickle-down authority that tries to put gun owners in the same camp as law breakers. The RCMP took a major hit in High River last month, and we are fortunate to have media observers like Lorne Gunter to call out the guilty parties when they misbehave.
The entire Sun News team in print and on the tube deserves credit for staying on that story. And, we especially appreciate Lorne’s tenacious track record for showing Canada to itself.
——-
HELP SUPPORT THE GREAT WORK THE CSSA DOES TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS. DONATE HERE
FIREARM LEGAL DEFENCE INSURANCE: For every high profile case reported in the media about a gun owner facing legal charges, there are many more that never make the news. In 2011, police reported 2,183 incidents under Canada’s Firearms Act.
CSSA Member Special Price — As a member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, you qualify for a $10 saving on your annual premium. You pay just $85, plus tax where applicable. Visit www.firearmlegaldefence.com to sign up for this all-new insurance offering — never before available in Canada. Click on “Buy Now” and enter the following exclusive CSSA club code to access your savings: CSSA001
Firearm Legal Defence insurance was not created by the CSSA, but you can get a great discount if you are an association member. Defending oneself in court can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars and take months or years to resolve. Too often, the charge is the penalty — even not-guilty firearms owners are plunged into debt. Do you ever worry that one day it could happen to you?
Get Firearm Legal Defence – it is new, reasonably-priced and readily-available legal expense insurance. We pay for legal fees, court costs and time off work to attend court — up to $100,000 per occurrence or $500,000 total per year. Policy holders also receive 24-hour access to confidential legal advice from a qualified lawyer through our toll-free Legal Advice Helpline. With Firearm Legal Defence insurance, you can exercise your legal rights and know you will be guided every step of the way — and your legal expenses will be covered.
You will not be required to disclose any information about firearms in your possession.
Firearm Legal Defence
Affordable Access to Justice for Gun Owners
Email: [email protected]
www.firearmlegaldefence.com
——-
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS
GUNTER EXAMINES HOW TO FIX THE RCMP: I am not a Mountie-hater. Far from it. I grew up on the Prairies in the era when the local RCMP detachment was the cornerstone of every small community — the Mounties and a Chinese restaurant with arborite counters and revolving stools were required institutions. I was taught to venerate the RCMP. So any criticism I offer is offered out of esteem for the institution and a hope Mounties will not become what University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper once called “bureaucrats in uniform.” I don’t want them to become unionized letter carriers with guns and badges.
To the extent the RCMP has drifted away from its iconic days (and it has drifted a lot), the cause is fourfold: The force is too closely integrated into the broader civil service (it is no longer an independent police force), it has too many missions and not enough funding, personnel or training to do them all, its discipline policies are too union-like making it nearly impossible to fire bad-apple officers and the force has lost its credibility with a lot of ordinary Canadians because Mounties have become Ottawa’s gun cops.
The need to enforce the Liberals’ 1995 Firearms Act has made the Mounties suspicious of nearly every law-abiding Canadian who owns a gun. (That’s at least four million citizens, despite federal claims that just two million Canadians own guns.) Conversely, it has made millions of gun owners – most of whom should be natural supporters of the police – wary of their local RCMP officers. There is no underestimating the extent to which Bill C-68 has driven a wedge between police and the citizenry, especially in rural Canada and the West. (Even though the registry is history, the bill’s licensing and onerous safe-storage provisions remain in place.)…
To read the rest: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/07/05/how-it-all-went-bad-for-the-rcmp–and-how-to-get-it-good-again
(By Lorne Gunter – July 6, 2013 – Toronto Sun)
——-
OOPS – WRITER GOBBLES RCMP BAIT: The RCMP has been taking unfriendly fire from the prime minister’s office, which is apparently anxious to court Alberta’s vociferous gun lobby, which is once again in high dudgeon. Gosh, these guys must take umbrage lessons from Quebec’s nationalist language zealots. And what is the Mounties’ unpardonable sin? Uniformed police officers patrolling High River homes left unattended when 13,000 owners were forced to leave during floods had the temerity to secure firearms abandoned by their owners when they fled … and then ask for photo ID when returning the guns…
In this case, patrolling Mounties said they found weapons and ammunition left in plain view. Perhaps the prime minister’s office wasn’t aware of it, but federal firearms law has strict regulations regarding the secure storage and display of guns and ammunition. So, quite properly, it seems to me, and if we can believe the RCMP’s assistant commissioner, Marianne Ryan – and there’s no suggestion she’s being duplicitous – police officers encountering unsecured weapons immediately secured them, tagged them for return to their owners and removed them to a safe place…
However, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association – one of the two complainants – was reported as having decided the RCMP’s decision was not precautionary prudence but evidence of a “not-so-hidden agenda” to take firearms from citizens. “An act of aggression,” it was quoted as saying. Oh, for Pete’s sake. There’s something nutty in this and it’s not the RCMP.
According to the Criminal Intelligence Service, there is an arsenal of 85,000 firearms known to be stolen or reported missing by their legal owners in Canada. That is a lot of firepower. You’d think the law and order gang would be concerned about keeping any potential new thefts from swelling the criminal supply.
Not the big thinkers in the prime minister’s office. The guys so concerned about our security that they recently sought power to track your online communications without a warrant; to force telecommunications service providers to disclose basic subscriber information on demand; and to force them to build secret interception and surveillance capacity into servers that government agents could tap willynilly, these folks aren’t worried about unsecured weapons lying around in abandoned houses… (By Stephen Hume – Vancouver Sun – July 11, 2013)
——-
U.S. GUN EXPORT DOLLAR-LIMIT RAISED FOR CANADIANS: I am very pleased and proud to report that a FAIR Trade Group effort that has been in the works for several years has finally come to fruition. The State Department Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) has revised Sections 123.16 and 123.17 of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to increase the dollar limit of exports of certain firearms, and firearm parts, components, accessories and attachments to Canada without a license from $100 to $500 (wholesale).
These amendments implement the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, which restricts DDTC from requiring an export license (1) for certain firearms and firearm components for end-use by the Canadian Government when the total transaction value does not exceed $500 wholesale; and (2) for certain firearms components for end-use in Canada when the total transaction value does not exceed $500 wholesale.
FAIR has been advocating this issue on behalf of industry for quite some time. We thought we had attained victory back in 2005 when the House of Representatives and the Senate passed the appropriations legislation, but we had to continue our work with DDTC to ensure they implemented the legislation…
It is important to note that the license exemption dollar limit for all countries other than Canada remains at $100. FAIR continues to work on getting this amount increased…
* EDITOR’S NOTE: CSSA is a member of the FAIR Trade Group
(Johanna Reeves – Executive Director – FAIR Trade Group — http://www.fairtradegroup.org/)
——-
WANT TO FIND A PLACE TO SHOOT? The U.S.-based National Shooting Sports Foundation has introduced the “Where To Shoot” directory for the United States and Canada.
There’s a new-and-improved app, too. The NSSF has released an all-new “Where To Shoot: mobile app — available for iPhone, iPad and Android devices — that locates shooting ranges near you. Available for free in the Apple App Store and Google Play, Where To Shoot puts North America’s most comprehensive directory of shooting ranges in the palm of your hand. It also includes video tips for shooters, news and firearm safety information.
Users can search by current location, zip code (and Canadian postal code!) and find specifics about each range, including shooting activities offered, accessibility and contact information. The app also makes it easy to get directions to the range. The app is modeled after NSSF’s popular WhereToShoot.org® website and is updated frequently with range information in every U.S. state and Canadian province. New tips for hunters and shooters are also added regularly.
Download the app through the links below or by simply visiting www.wheretoshoot.org on your iOS or Android device. iPhone and iPad: http://www.wheretoshoot.org/iOS Android: http://www.wheretoshoot.org/Android
——-
HOW MUCH TO CREATE A GUN REGISTRY IN QUEBEC? A couple of weeks ago, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that Ottawa is within its rights to deny Quebec the data from the federal long-gun registry. Quebec’s highest court ruled that the registry was set up and created by the federal government which acted within its jurisdiction.
The court said Ottawa is rightly entitled to do what it wishes with the long-gun registry. This ruling does not sit well with Quebec. It has already served notice that it is taking the fight to the Supreme Court of Canada. Many in Quebec are questioning whether a mini version of the Quebec long-gun registry is worth it?
Ottawa’s long-gun registry has been gone for a while. Over the past 17 years, the gun registry cost Canadian taxpayers a whopping $2-billion. When Canadians handed the Tories, headed by Stephen Harper, a handsome majority, the first thing Ottawa did was to get rid of the gun registry.
Harper had vowed to get rid of the registry and had repeatedly stressed the registry will die. And it surely did until Quebec decided to set up its own registry with data from the federal registry. The costly registry would have been history had Quebec not challenged Ottawa. It took the matter to Quebec Court of Appeal and lost. It remains to be seen what the Supreme Court will ultimately decide.
For some reasons, Quebec is determined to establish its own registry. Quebec is stressing that Ottawa’s determination to destroy the registry runs counter to the principle of co-operation. This argument may hold some water.
Why can’t Quebec – on the same principle of co-operative federalism – remain a bilingual province instead of making a huge deal of only French in Quebec? Does it really make sense for Quebec to establish its own registry with or without the benefit of the information gathered by Ottawa? What is the cost of creating a provincial registry? Is it really worth spending so much money when the same money could be used to repair and improve roads and other infrastructure which are crumbling?
Quebec considers the long-gun registry an essential crime prevention tool. This controversial issue will now end up before the Supreme Court. I have always been opposed to the long-gun registry and the sheer waste of tax dollars. (By Sultan Jessa — Seaway News [Cornwall ON] — July 11, 2013)
——-
MEDIA IGNORES FAVOURABLE FIREARMS STUDY IN U.S.: In January, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, President Obama issued a “Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence,” along with 22 other “initiatives.” That study, subcontracted out to the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, was completed in June and contained some surprises for the president.
Obama had announced at the beginning of the year his push for three major gun control initiatives – universal background checks, a ban on “assault weapons,” and a ban on “high-capacity” magazines – to prevent future mass shootings, no doubt hoping that the CDC study would oblige him by providing evidence that additional gun control measures were justified to reduce gun violence. On the contrary, that study refuted nearly all the standard anti-gun narrative and instead supported many of the positions taken by gun ownership supporters.
For example, the majority of gun-related deaths between 2000 and 2010 were due to suicide and not criminal violence: Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States.
——
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
The CSSA is the voice of the sport shooter and firearms enthusiast in Canada. Our national membership supports and promotes Canada’s firearms heritage, traditional target shooting competition, modern action shooting sports, hunting, and archery. We support and sponsor competitions and youth programs that promote these Canadian heritage activities.
To join or donate to the CSSA, visit: http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/membership.html
——
To subscribe to the CSSA-CILA E-NEWS, send email to: [email protected] or visit http://lists.cssa-cila.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cssa-cila-e-news.
To unsubscribe send email to: [email protected]
To change your address or manage your subscription options, visit: http://lists.cssa-cila.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/cssa-cila-e-news
——-
CANADIAN SHOOTING SPORTS ASSOCIATION / CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION
116 Galaxy Blvd, Etobicoke ON M9W 4Y6
Phone 416-679-9959, Fax: 416-679-9910
Toll Free: 1-888-873-4339
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website www.cdnshootingsports.org