• Home
  • About
    • About Christopher di Armani
    • Disclosure Statement
    • Code of Ethics
    • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Gun Laws 101
  • FPO Violators
  • Store
  • Donate
  • Hire Me

Christopher di Armani.com

In Praise of Individual Rights and Freedoms

  • Top 25
  • Big Brother
    • Access To Information
    • Bureaucratic Incompetence
    • Bureaucrat’s Rule #1
    • Censorship
    • Feeding at the Government Trough
    • Lemonade Freedom
  • Common Sense
    • Expressions of Gratitude
    • Good Samaritans
    • Good Stuff
    • In Memoriam — Remembering our Heros
    • Life
    • Personal Responsibility
    • Politically Correct Madness
  • Courts
    • Abusive Prosecutions
    • Civil Forfeiture
    • Human Rights Tribunals
    • Judicial Corruption
    • Justice Denied
    • Justice System Abuses
    • Police Sentencing Double-Standards
    • Prosecutorial Misconduct
    • SLAPP Lawsuits
  • Crime
    • Abuse of Trust
    • Canadian Mass Murders
    • Firearm Prohibition Orders
    • Human Depravity
    • Immigration Issues
    • Racism
    • Restraining Orders
    • Sexual Predators
    • Violent Criminals
    • Wrongful Convictions
  • Guns
    • Concealed Carry
    • Dial 9-1-1 and Die
    • Firearms Act
    • Fun Gun Stuff
    • Gun Control
    • Gun-Free Zones
    • Gun Politics
    • Gun Registration
    • Negligent Discharges
    • Target Shooting Competitions
  • Islam
    • Canadian Islamic Disgraces
    • Islamic Terrorism
    • Radical Islam
    • Sharia Law
    • The Religion Of Peace
  • Police
    • Abuse of Police Authority
    • Filming Police
    • Great Police Officers
    • Officer Down
    • Police Brutality
    • Police Corruption
    • Police Misconduct
    • RCMP Accountability
    • RCMP Hall of Shame
    • Warrantless Searches
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Ethics in Politics
    • Political Antics
    • Political Corruption
    • Social Justice
    • Stupid Human Tricks
    • Union Bay Improvement District
  • Rights
    • Charter of Rights and Freedoms
    • Constitutional Violations
    • Freedom of Assembly
    • Freedom of Religion
    • Freedom of Speech
    • Property Rights
    • Privacy Rights
    • Self-Defense
    • Unreasonable Search and Seizure

When two Government Agencies can’t get their act together it’s always the law-abiding who pay the price

Published October 20, 2011 by Christopher di Armani Filed Under: Bureaucratic Incompetence


This is the classic example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing with a law-abiding citizen being harassed and placed in handcuffs because of the total incompetence of one or more government bureaucrats.

It’s absurd, asinine, stupid, moronic… I could go on but you get the point.

Some jackass bureaucrat at the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) made a decision on a product being imported into Canada for sale.  Said bureaucrat stamped the item “INSPECTED AND APPROVED FOR IMPORT” and the shipment of bb guns was sent on to its intended recipient, Ontario distribution company North Sylva.

North Sylva then resold them to numerous sporting goods and army surplus stores across Canada, including Mississauga store owner Tony Messina and his sporting goods store North American Blade.

Tony Messina is a businessman.  His business is buying and selling sporting goods, which happens to include bb guns.  He does NOT sell firearms and has no desire to.

He DOES sell bb guns in a variety of configurations just like hundreds if not thousands of other Canadian businesses do, including such giants as Canadian Tire.

What has landed Tony Messina and other legitimate businesses across Canada in hot water with the RCMP is the fact he was selling bb guns that had been inspected and approved by one or more bureaucrats from the CBSA.

The bb gun the RCMP is so concerned about (and let me be clear, I am NOT saying they shouldn’t be) is one that looks like an AK-47 and can be, the RCMP claims,  transformed into a live-firing  gun just by swapping out a few parts.

If that is indeed the case, the RCMP may have a legitimate reason for wanting to get these things off the street. Their job is supposed to be protecting the public, and sadly we human beings will often find creative ways to harm one another, and that includes taking a bb gun and converting it to fire live ammunition.

The AK-47 is classed as a prohibited weapon under current Canadian law, which means only those who have owned one or more firearms in that class prior to 1979 may legally own them in Canada.

Canadian firearms law being a bit bass-ackwards, as it were, “prohibited” does not mean “illegal“, it merely means you must have the correct paperwork in order to own these firearms.

I had a conversation with a senior RCMP member a few years ago (one of the really decent RCMP members, too) who was concerned about another imported bb gun or flare gun, I can’t remember which, that could easily be converted to firing live ammunition.  He was very concerned about them being on the street because they had found a number of them at crimes scenes where the converted version had been the murder weapon.

As someone whose job description includes attempting to prevent murders, he felt it was his duty, his obligation even, to get these things off the street.

The RCMP has a similar concern with these AK-47 look-alikes.

Now, do I believe the RCMP’s public statements that say these can be converted to live fire simply by replacing a bolt and barrel?  Of course not.  I suspect there will be to it than just swapping out two parts.  That being said, the conversion is probably not very difficult, hence their concern for these bb guns being on the street.

While some will read this article and say I’m siding with police… well, perhaps… but if I am it’s only to a point.  That point would be where they place law-abiding Canadians in handcuffs when they KNOW these citizens have not committed any crime.

The items these store owners are selling, while the RCMP may not like it, are 100% legal to sell in Canada.  The Canadian Border Services Agency has already said so.

That is where I get my knickers in a twist… when the RCMP treats honest citizens like criminals when the RCMP knows full well they are not.

The people the RCMP ought to be placing in handcuffs are the morons at the CBSA, if they need to place anyone in handcuffs at all.

The CBSA is, after all,  the agency responsible for insuring that goods imported into Canada meet Canadian legal requirements,  and a host of other regulations.

According to a CBC news report, despite the RCMP investigation into these bb guns, the morons at CBSA can’t even find the paperwork for these shipments.

How typical.

Messina and the other store owners have done nothing wrong.  They were selling items that the government itself had declared legal for import and resale to Canadian consumers by the Canadian government.

Placing Messina and other store owners in handcuffis like common criminals is outrageous and will be, I trust, the basis for several lawsuits against these overzealous thugs from the RCMP for false arrest or whatever the most appropriate title of the lawsuit should be.

The people the RCMP should be arresting are the morons down at CBSA who let these bb guns into the country if they are, as the RCMP alleges, easily able to be converted into live firearms.

The RCMP has now seized all the inventory of these bb guns that it can find, and is now trying to track down anyone who may have purchased one of them.

Tony Messina stated the obvious when he said

“The [CBSA] should have checked things out before they actually allowed them to be sold. Somebody messed up. I’m just hoping that in the near future they can and will hire somebody who knows what’s coming into the country.”

Exactly.

Just prior to arresting one or more imbecilic CBSA employees for dereliction of duty and any other charges that may be necessary, the RCMP needs to personally and publicly apologize to every single store owner they placed in handcuffs and harassed like common street criminals.

It’s just the right thing to do for an organization that already has way too many black eyes as far as the public is concerned…

 

Author

  • Christopher di Armani
    Christopher di Armani

    Christopher di Armani is a freedom-loving Amazon bestselling author and current events commentator from Lytton, BC, Canada, who strives to awaken the passion for liberty inside every human being.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Tags: bureaucratic incompetence, Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), North American Blade, Tony Messina

Did you find value in this article?

If you found this article useful or it contained valuable information and you want to thank me, the best way is to buy me a coffee or two.

1. Send an Interac eTransfer to author @ christopherdiarmani.net (remove spaces)

2. Send via PayPal using this link: https://www.paypal.me/ThatLibertyGuy

3. Use your credit card in my online store to support me with a one-time donation, a monthly recurring donation, or an annual donation. See these links for all the details about the thank-you gifts I offer my supporters.

Comments

  1. Michael Kaye says

    January 26, 2012 at 11:10 pm

    And the story continues…

    I was one of the lucky resellers of the BB shooting AK47 in question and I was visited not only by a handful of police but rather an entire SWAT team and at least 20 police cars to my personal home where I run my website blog and airgun store from. Like many others I was arrested and because this was mid-day and at my home, my entire family, included 2 young children got to watch Daddy get put in handcuffs and hauled away to spend the evening in jail.

    They took everything I needed to run my business and they kept it for 3 weeks, I had to go out and purchase thousands of dollars worth of computer and networking gear just to get back up and running. I was never charged with anything because I never did anything wrong and I was never offered an apology of any kind.

    It’s now about 3 months later and the police seem to be actively confiscating these airguns from anyone who purchased one of these BB riffles that I had a record of, and who do you think the police are telling them to go and ask for their money back from… That’s right it’s me! I’m apparently on the hook for the mistake of the CBSA. That’s the pudding on the cake, absolutely no accountability! We need a police for the police.

    I used to be on their side and often backed the police when my YouTube subscribers would bad-mouth them, but now I like to sit back and watch the show. I don’t make waves but I certainly don’t suppress the waves anymore either.

    Thanks of this article – you nailed it!

    Mike
    ReplicaAirguns.com

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to my commentaries

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Latest Tweets

Follow @ThatLibertyGuy

Christopher di Armani 🇨🇦 🇺🇸
@ThatLibertyGuy

  • New comment: Canadian Gun Laws: A Primer for People Who Don’t Know Much About Gun Laws christopherdiarmani.com/15213/guns/can…
    about 2 weeks ago
    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • New comment: Blake Harvey’s Murder Proves We Don’t Value Children’s Lives christopherdiarmani.com/17398/police/g…
    about 2 weeks ago
    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • New comment: All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing christopherdiarmani.com/8275/human-rig…
    about 2 weeks ago
    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • New comment: Paul Rogan Passes: The End of an Era christopherdiarmani.com/18908/common-s…
    about 2 weeks ago
    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • New comment: RCMP Sergeant Douglas Smith appeals conditional discharge for illegal handgun christopherdiarmani.com/2439/police/ab…
    about 2 weeks ago
    Reply Retweet Favorite

Most Popular This Week

  • All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing
  • How did Live-Streaming Rape Become a ‘Thing’?
  • Dale Merle Nelson’s 1970 Murder Spree in Creston, British Columbia
  • Officer Down: LAPD Officer Fernando Arroyos
  • Yvon Mercier: From RCMP Depot Trainer to Double-Murderer
  • Officer Down: North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper John Sumter Horton
  • Florida Police arrest a 12-year-old for farting. Have they lost their minds?

Most Popular This Month

  • All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing
  • Dale Merle Nelson’s 1970 Murder Spree in Creston, British Columbia
  • How did Live-Streaming Rape Become a ‘Thing’?
  • RCMP Sergeant Douglas Smith appeals conditional discharge for illegal handgun
  • Yvon Mercier: From RCMP Depot Trainer to Double-Murderer
  • Florida Police arrest a 12-year-old for farting. Have they lost their minds?
  • Officer Down: LAPD Officer Fernando Arroyos

© 2004–2023 ChristopherDiArmani.com | All Rights Reserved

Close

Buy me a cup of coffee

A ridiculous amount of coffee was consumed in the process of writing these articles. If you enjoy my work, please buy me a coffee or two to keep me going!