Published in the Laissez Faire City Times, August 20, 2001
In a recent Laissez Faire City Times article[1], I explained how, since the 1991 and 1995 so-called laws, Canadian firearm owners are forced, every five years, to beg again for the "privilege" of owning their firearms (even hunting guns), and to answer obscene questions about their private lives.
My own license was to expire on August 9, 2001. Since the last "law" came into force (the last term is well chosen) in 1998, I had purchased hunting firearms, which had to be registered before I took them out of the gun shop. "Registered" means identified, with their owner, in the new central registry that replaced the registries that were previously maintained by gun shops. The police therefore had evidence that I owned these guns, and I would have been an easy target if I had not taken some steps to renew my license.
For the second time in my life, I filled in the obscene form. At 53 years of age, I was asked again with whom I slept. In order to reclaim my individual dignity and to prepare future actions, I refused to answer two questions and wrote unrequested comments on the form. Moreover, I put on the web[2] the entire form and accompanying documents (including the first page of my Canadian passport) in order that everybody may see what is a Quiet Tyranny.
Recall from my former article that question 26 forces the applicant to identify his legal or common-law spouse. And question 19f asks: "During the past two years, have you experienced a divorce, a separation, a breakdown of a significant relationship, job loss or bankruptcy?" I did not answer this question and, as can be verified on the web, I wrote, "My love affairs are none of your business." Actually, I did not really answer question 26 either.
I embellished their form with two stickers. One recalls that "French Canadians have owned firearms without asking permission during four centuries." Another one, inspired by the famous TV series The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan, says, "Be seeing you! A message from Police Canada." I call Police Canada the bureaucratic cartel that enforces these so-called laws, i.e., the Canadian Firearms Centre, alias "Royal Canadian Mounted Police" (RCMP), alias "Sûreté du Québec" (SQ). The SQ is the Québec provincial police and does the feds' dirty job in this province. The RCMP is the feds' official praetorian guard, and enforces the so-called laws in most other provinces.
I sent the form with requested documents on June 29. I knew that if Police Canada did not renew "my" license (as one says "my cancer") before August 10, I would be an official criminal liable to ten years in jail.
On August 1, 2001, it seemed that I had forced the tyrant to back off on my main symbolic point. A praetorian who had phoned me one week before, and whose call I had not returned, phoned again on that day. He obviously wanted to settle the matter amicably, if I can use this term. He was concerned about question 19f.
"You replied, 'My love affairs are none of your business'," he cleverly noted.
"Yes, and this is still my answer."
"The reason we ask these questions . . ."
I immediately interrupted him: "I know the reasons you give, and you should read what I have written about this. I am even willing to meet you on a personal basis to talk about it, not in my house where the police are not welcome, but some place where we could have a drink. But for now, I don't want to hear your pidgin ethics."
"This puts me in a difficult position . . .", he said.
"I certainly realize that you are in a difficult position," I interrupted again, "because your so-called law will be in trouble when it is realized that you criminalize people who don't want to tell Police Canada about their love affairs."
He said he would forget about this part, and asked me if I would accept to verbally answer the other parts of the question (about "job loss" and "bankruptcy"). I had previously asked him if our phone conversation was recorded, and he had assured me that it wasn't ("not in the habits of the house," he added).
While lecturing him on the unacceptable character of the whole process, I thought I could yield on this as I felt I had won the main guerrilla engagement. I told him I could not lose my job because I don't have one; and that, since I am honest, I was never bankrupt, and the only reason I could ever declare bankruptcy would be the outrageous taxes that the tyrant forces me to pay and then uses to control me.
"I will be able to issue your license," he said.
"I hope you don't expect me to say 'Thank You'."
"No, Sir."
To finish the conversation, he said something like "Have a nice day!" and we hung up.
That was the gist of the conversation, which lasted a good 15 minutes, and was pretty tough (on my side). He was trying to play it very cool, even replying to one of my derogatory remarks about cops that he was not a cop, but "a civilian." I lectured him on a couple of points. I also had him answer a personal question: his age (42).
In order to show how a fine psychologist he was, and how the tyrant is nice, caring and efficient, the praetorian said, at some point during the conversation: "Some individuals show, in their answers, that they have suicidal or homicidal tendencies. This is obviously not your case." I must have bit my lips not to reply that I suddenly felt a strong tyrannicidal urge.
The little glitch is that, by August 10, the license had not arrived, technically turning me into a criminal. I did not know if the problem was only bureaucratic, or if they had changed their mind. One reason for changing their mind could have been the fax I sent the praetorian two days after our conversation. It was a short, half-a-page letter that lectured him on two of his statements that I had not properly addressed -- that we live in a democratic society, and that he was a civilian. On this last point, I wrote to him: "The ordinary cop in uniform, at least, renders useful services from time to time, even if this happens less and less frequently. Your despicable bureaucracy is only good at crushing individuals and destroying our liberties."
During the month of July, I had written a manuscript entitled Confessions d'un coureur des bois hors-la-loi ("Confessions of an Outlaw Wood Runner"), which my Montréal publisher had agreed in principle to rush to publication for late September. I put the last hand at the manuscript while I was an official criminal during the few days following August 10. On August 13, Le Devoir, the smallest but most intellectual of the Montréal dailies, published a few pages of excerpts, entitled "Civil Disobedience, Yes, Sir!" I was a proud outlaw.
Then, on the same day, August 13, the "permis de merde" ("crappy license," as I say in my book) arrived at my P.O. box at the village. You can actually see it on my website. Note that some small bureaucrat can cancel these licenses without any judicial process.
Don't count on me to be proud of this shameful license, as many are when they get it. I am happy about my small victory, but I am ashamed to be licensed while hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Canadians are criminalized, and while a few Canadian heroes are openly defying Police Canada.
I think my guerrilla action was useful. We now know that we can harass them, refuse to answer some questions, and force them to back off. How could they refuse a license to somebody who would fill in the form exactly as I did (and my forms are for everyone to see on the web)? It is true that they can choose the test cases they want, but their system is still fragile. (We are in Canada where, fortunately, the tyrant is young and not as self-righteous as elsewhere.) It seems to me that we can use this breach to create other breaches, and destroy this fascist system. This battle also forced me to write my Confessions where, indeed, I confess other crimes (but not all) against their so-called laws.
Libertad o muerte!
[1] Pierre Lemieux, "Telling the State about Your Love Affairs," Laissez-Faire City Times, June 11, 2001, at http://www.zolatimes.com/V5.24/love_affairs.html.