Article published in The Ottawa Citizen, May 4, 2000, p. A-17; also available in a French version.
Thank You, Commissar!
One man's odyssey through the labyrinth of Canada's gun control bureaucracy
by
Pierre LemieuxLet the reader beware! Much worse could happen to him. Especially if he is part of the invisible minority of peaceful individuals who just want to be left alone.
My sin was to purchase a revolver in 1981, thus exercising what the 1689 Bill of Rights called my “true, ancient, and indubitable right.” Actually, my ancestors also had the right to keep and bear arms in New France and, after the 1789 Revolution, in old France too. But, in 1981, I needed the benediction of the powers that be. Following bill C-51 of 1977, I had to produce a “Firearms Acquisition Certificate” (FAC), which is a polite name for an administrative authorization. Moreover, handguns are centrally registered since 1934, and the registration process for my revolver took two months. Finally, to bring the gun from the gun shop to my apartment, I had to ask for an ad hoc “Authorization to transport restricted or prohibited weapons,” which took a few more days.
Legal harassment did not stop. The 1991 bill C-17 forced me, like anybody who wished to keep whatever remained of his “true, ancient, and indubitable right,” to submit to a weekend of government-mandated “courses” – in fact, a sort of reeducation camp (see my Le Devoir article on this, at www.pierrelemieux.org/re-RKBA.html). Then, I had to fill an obscene form that questioned me on personal matters, like my love sorrows. After waging a little battle against the Sûreté du Québec, who was asking for ID papers that it could not legally require, I finally got “my” FAC renewed in August 1996.
Passing over a few more permits and licences, I decided, in June 1999, like a grown man, to move – actually, to the country, in the middle of nowhere. Yes, there was a time in Canada when, except if one was on parole, one could change his address without telling the police. Not anymore. The 1995 bill C-68 imposes this requirement to anybody who owns even a single hunting weapon. Of course, handgun owners have had to do it for decades.
So, in a June 2 letter, I notified the police that I was moving, gave them my new address, and asked for a a special authorization to transport the six-shooter to my new residence. After a cop phoned me (the long arm of the law), I got the special “Authorization to transport.”
I also had to ask for another permission, i.e., an authorization to transport my revolver from my new residence to a shooting club – the only place, apparently, where one can now shoot a revolver. For reasons known only to Kafka, I still haven’t received this licence more than ten months later.
Perhaps they want to enforce the 1785 Virginia law, which said: “No slaves shall keep any arms whatever, nor pass, unless with written orders from his master or employer, or in his company, with arms from one place to another.”[1]
In any event, the last cop on the phone had mentioned that their most recent law, C-68, forced me to re-register this revolver, which had been registered for 18 years. A very decent fellow, he kindly said that he was sending me the “application to re-register previously registered firearms.”
I should have waited until the last legal deadline, i.e., January 1, 2003, before registering this thing. Like a simpleton who cannot distinguish a tyrant from a rocking chair, I stupidly filled in the form, and sent it to the Canadian Firearms Centre. Yet, I must humbly confess that I expressed a politically incorrect opinion on the form, just after my signature: “Tyranny.” But all the rest was filled picture-perfect, as only a docile subject can do.
Four months later, on November 12, I got a strange letter, with a double letterhead – from Police Québec and from Police Canada. It was called “Request for licence application,” and claimed that I did not have the required licence to register my revolver. Did I miss one of the numerous new licences required by C-68?
Now, all these laws – I should say, “their laws” – are not pious wishes. They are sanctioned by jail terms – up to ten years for a non-criminal. And their laws are enforced by armed men, without warrants in many cases.
So, on November 19, I wrote to the Sûreté du Québec, which administers these “laws” in the province on behalf of the federal Big Brother, and copied my letter to the Director of the Canadian Firearms Centre. I asked them what exactly was the problem. I never got a reply. (Okay, I confess that my letter, though polite, did not always use a tone totally consistent with the station of an obedient subject.)
More than two months later, I received, direct from the RCMP, a “replacement copy” of the old registration certificate, this one bearing my new address. But no letter, no explanation, no answer to my query about the missing licence and re-registration. A bureaucratic blunder? Perhaps.
But then, who knows? So, on February 18, 2000, I made a freedom-of-information request to the Québec Department of Public Security, to which the Sûreté du Québec reports. I wanted to obtain all documents related to my bureaucratic adventures in this matter, statistics about the letters the Chief Firearms Officer (more aptly called “Contrôleur” in French) answers or not, as well as possible documents pertaining to “bureaucratic or other strategies that would aim to, of have the effect of, inciting people to get rid of their legally acquired firearms.”
With its well-known, deep concern for the protection of our liberties, the Department of Public Security immediately asked the agency that enforces the “freedom of information” act an authorization to ignore my request, claiming it was “abusive” under section 126 of the law.
For Henri Guisan, the Swiss commander during World War II, the right to keep and bear arms was the distinctive mark of a free man. So, in the wake of these events, remorseless and decided to get guns to the very extent that the state wants to forbid them to me, I again pulled up my FAC from my holster and, on March 9, bought a rifle. After all, who, except a common law criminal or a tyrant, could have any interest in my not having guns?
Now, since C-68, anybody who transfers any kind of firearm has to obtain a prior authorization from the police. The cop on the phone asked the gun shop to transmit a message to me: “You have to make an address change for your revolver.” Kapitch, Ivanov?
Then, on April 18, an envelope arrived at my new address from Miramichi, N.B., the dirty name of the infamous Canadian Firearms Centre’s hometown. It contained the new “registration certificate” for my revolver, which they now have put in the “prohibited” category. The “date of verification” written on it is February 29, 2000. So, after all (with the exception of the authorization to transport to my shooting club), I did have all the licences required, all my papers were “en règle.” Thank you, Commissar!
1. Quotation available in poster form on this site.