If a legal opinion on the Liberal government’s 20mm maximum bore diameter is interpreted the same way as the RCMP’s Canadian Firearms Lab has ruled in every other case involving removable chokes, the answer is unequivocally yes.
Yet on May 1, 2020, Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair promised Canada’s hunting community he would not take away our guns.
“I want to assure hunters and farmers and target shooters in this country that nothing that we are doing today or will do in the future is intended to interfere with this lawful, responsible and legal activity,” Blair said.
“Either Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Blair are too inept to comprehend the scope of their new regulations… or they lied,” wrote Tony Bernardo, Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA) in a May 5th press release.
The CSSA issued a press release jointly with the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association’s (CSAAA).
“In the legal opinion of Edward Burlew L.L.B., one of the foremost experts in Canadian firearms law, Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair banned almost every modern 12-gauge and 10-gauge shotgun in Canada with removable chokes because they exceed the maximum bore diameter of 20 mm as defined in SOR/2020-96.” [Download PDF of Burlew’s legal opinion]
Bill Blair’s Order in Council says banned guns include:
“Any firearm with a bore diameter of 20 mm or greater.”
The RCMP has long ruled removable chokes are not part of the bore – the largest internal diameter of the tube through which a projectile travels, excluding the chamber.
Therefore, when you remove the choke and measure what’s left, the threaded barrel, in most cases this now exceeds the 20mm maximum diameter mandated in the government’s Order in Council banning a wide swath of previously Non-Restricted and Restricted firearms.
Oops.
Telling hunters “nothing that we are doing today or will do in the future is intended to interfere with this lawful, responsible and legal activity” after you issued an Order in Council banning over a million hunting shotguns guns is either a big fat lie or it’s gross incompetence.
Either way, Trudeau and Blair’s latest foray into “gun control” just dumped a truckload of “Unintended Consequences” at their feet.
We will see how the Liberal government’s dynamic duo copes with the big steaming pile of crap they created in the days, weeks and months ahead.
(Unintended Consequences is also the title of an excellent book by John Ross)
Anything Trudeau and his band of cronies says can only be perceived as outright lies. The liberals can’t open their mouths without a stream of BS spewing forth. They clearly have no idea about firearms or anything else for that matter, Trudeau talks about equality for all people and then drops this firearms list of prohibs on the firearms community and yet lets other groups of people keep these same firearms for the same reasons that we use these very same firearms. Is this “racist “? I think so!! I may have to give my firearms to our Native communities seeing they will be able to keep them. I will not let the government steal my property.!!
This is a red flag. As soon as it is released and everyone who hunts screams bloody murder the Liberals will back track and reverse this decision and state that “we are attempting to accommodate and are responsive to the voices of our voters” or something alone those lines. The original legislation with remain intact in which no one will be the worse in their view. The powers that be will of course continue to lie and device but remember one thing right now many promises of dollars are being put on the table and eventually these dollars will be called upon for pay back with interest. Perhaps the so called “buy back” may be underfunded, so your $2000-3000 gun will be worth? But only if in good, functioning condition, which begs me to ask… for another discussion.
Funny that our side does not know how to play that game. This is why we should be demanding that government fully repeal all non-victim gun crime laws (the entire Firearms Act as the Criminal Code already deals with actual crimes) and why a future Conservative majority should table such a bill. Then they can play this game of ‘overasking’ and for example keep firearms training, ideally as a high school curriculum course.
No, instead we ask for the minimum (e.g. please let me keep my AR) and then are disappointed we don’t even get that.