Canadian firearm ownership

[sdh1911]

Could any of you fellows north of the border explain to me what are the restrictions on gun ownership in Canada, i.e. Semiauto, handgun etc. Many thanks-SDH:cool:

[mitchell]

id tell ya all of it but im too lazy to type all the BS down:D It would be a very long explanation our laws are very confusing and retarded. Ill tel you semi auto restrictions for i do not know the barrel restriction lengths for handguns.

Non restricted centerfire semi autos are ones that have a barrel length of 18.5 inches and below that they are restricted.
Some semi autos that have a barrel length longer than 18.5 inches could be restricted because they look scary... AR15
Converted autos are prohibited
semi auto centerfires can only have 5 round magazines except for garands and i think the rare weird enfield out there
rimfires have no round limit.

I think i got most of it... im sure the other guys can fill u in if i forgot some

[tiriaq]

Probably best if you went to the official website. The laws and regulations are complex. www.cfc.gc.ca.

[Cantom]

Could any of you fellows north of the border explain to me what are the restrictions on gun ownership in Canada, i.e. Semiauto, handgun etc. Many thanks-SDH:cool:

It's so complex that almost nobody understands it.

We have never been able to carry handguns here, pretty much ever. Some people used to handgun hunt long ago...
However, if you do everything right, you can still own lots of neat stuff...:)

[Claven2]

For handguns, barrel must be longer than 4.25" and can not be .32 or .25 caliber. Make sense? It shouldn't. Those restrictions were brought in because the feds calculated it would take about 50% of all handguns off the legal market and see them turned in for destruction. They were generally correct in that assumption.

Almost anything else in a handgun we can own, but can only shoot them at the range.

To sum up rifles: Anything semi auto with a bbl shorter than 18.5" is restricted. All AR15's are restricted. Some scary looking stuff like FN-FAL and AK47 are prohibited.

Prohib = you had to have one before it was prohibited in order to still own them and acquire them today.

Restricted = almost anyone can have them if they pass screening and belong to a shooting club or officially collect.

Non-restricted = anyone with a basic firearms license can acquire and use it.

[sdh1911]

Boy, do I feel stupid. I was always under the impression that you guy's had it real bad, kinda like here in my home state of New Jersey! The only thing I'd have problems with is the AR thing, I must admit, I love playing with the mouse gun. How's the situation for a genuine schooled and licensed gunsmith?-SDH

[Cantom]

Boy, do I feel stupid. I was always under the impression that you guy's had it real bad, kinda like here in my home state of New Jersey! The only thing I'd have problems with is the AR thing, I must admit, I love playing with the mouse gun. How's the situation for a genuine schooled and licensed gunsmith?-SDH


We do have it real bad, just not as bad as England or Australia.

[tiriaq]

There are gunsmiths who are able to make a decent living. Others do some gunsmithing, working from a retail sale business. I ran a little part time shop for over twenty years. It was never going to replace my regular job.
As far as federal law goes, the US situation is better. Once state laws are considered, the Cdn. situation may not be too bad in comparison to some jurisdictions.

[cannonball]

Excuse me, gentlemen, ..on the risk of getting bashed. The regulations in Canada sounds quite sound. You can own almost everything if you pass the license exept saturday night specials and sprayguns. The world don´t consists of gunenthusiasts alone. After all we are not talking about toys.
Wolf

[Claven2]

cannonball, I don't want this thread to become politically charged, but I will put forth that the premise behind our gun laws can be seen as flawed. Essentially, the government is passing laws to restrict freedom to the most law abiding segment of society, that being the ppl who have successfully undergone restricted weapons screening, have complied with all the storage regs, and belong to registered shooting clubs, etc.

What I mean to say is that criminal types don't register anything and don't care what caliber their handgun is or the length of the bbl. In fact, most criminals actually prefer 9mm and up and use Glocks, so if the Feds wanted to deprive criminals of handguns, they chose the wrong criteria ;)

Realistically, our gun laws are not about "crime prevention", but are much more about the slow social engineering taking place to eliminate guns from popular culture completely over time. History shows these restrictions get more restrictive with each successive Parliament, not less so. It's not rational, but banning guns buys urban votes, regardless of how ineffective the policy is at curbing crime.

And by the way, what exactly IS a Saturday Night Special? That term was bandied about alot in Canada to say .25ACP & .32ACP = BAD, INACCURATE thug calibers. Then someone pointed out to the gov't that our Olympic teams shoot .32 ACP because it's so accurate. Some MAJOR backpedalling happened to specifically exempt the models of guns the Olympians use. Also, some very high quality guns were caught in the ban, like any S&W with a 4" barrel. That's hardly a thug gun or a cheap spanish hand grenade ;)

[sdh1911]

My hat off to Claven2, They are not interested in crime control, they are interested people control. I hate to use such an old example, but, What was Chancellor Hitlers first agenda? To disarm the masses. This makes the masses controllable. In the area where I live there is strict gun control and yet the criminal element has no problem in finding weapons, why, because they are criminals, they do not care about any laws. By disarming legal persons we sacrifice our means to defend our selves or god forbid our nations. Those who forget, repeat!. Nuf said-SDH

[cannonball]

Claven, I agree with your arguments against regulations and their ineffectivnes to prevent crimes. But, IMO, not the regulations is the problem, its the lack of acceptance by the society. You remember the joke, where the director of the madhouse said, he could easily release half of its inhabitants, he just don´t know which half. Most of the registrated gunowners are decent guys but it happens once and a while....
And I simply have to concede, that some fellow citicens are scared to hell from certain types of weapons. They have the right to live without fear.
Imagine, what happens if I ask the authorities to grow marihuana in my backyard. I promise, I wouldn´t deal with it and when I smoke, I don´t inhale. Its just that I love those funny plants. Society says NO its not acceptable. Well, I guess I have to live with it.
Wolf

[green]

The purpose of the Cdn gun laws are not crime control or public safety but the step by step confiscation of firearms from the law abiding citizens. In the last election the incumbent Prime Minister made confiscation of legally owned handguns a major election promise. If his Liberal party had been reelected Canadians would have had their legal handguns seized by now.

[Claven2]

Claven, I agree with your arguments against regulations and their ineffectivnes to prevent crimes. But, IMO, not the regulations is the problem, its the lack of acceptance by the society. You remember the joke, where the director of the madhouse said, he could easily release half of its inhabitants, he just don´t know which half. Most of the registrated gunowners are decent guys but it happens once and a while....
And I simply have to concede, that some fellow citicens are scared to hell from certain types of weapons. They have the right to live without fear.
Imagine, what happens if I ask the authorities to grow marihuana in my backyard. I promise, I wouldn´t deal with it and when I smoke, I don´t inhale. Its just that I love those funny plants. Society says NO its not acceptable. Well, I guess I have to live with it.
Wolf

By that logic we should ban cars and alcohol :ugh:

If someone's going to snap, the gun is just an inanimate tool that could easily be replaced by a bat, a crossbow, a kitchen knife, an automobile or even a fist. You cannot prevent that with legislation. Period. A psycho doesn't care about legal consequences.

Just as a hardened criminal doesn't give the contents of the Firearms Act a second thought.

[cannonball]

We have regulations for cars and alcohol and still have fun with both. But not at the same time ;-)

[Claven2]

We have regulations for cars and alcohol and still have fun with both. But not at the same time ;-)

Yes, but the regs don't tell you you can't have a sports car because it's faster and theoretically could hit more people before stopping if you drove it into a crowd.

And the government doesn't limit the size of cases of beer to only 5 cans...

There are common sense gun regs, such as screening out criminals, ppl with confirmed psychological problems, keeping them away from small children, etc. and then there's just punitive stuff. I think few Canadians have a problem with the basic laws, it's all the senseless parts that don't add to public safety which shooters take issue with.

With that in mind, I'm locking this thread because it's straying too far into the realm of political discussion which according to forum rules is off topic.

If you'd like to continue discussing the politics of Canadian firearms ownership, please visit www.canadiangunnutz.com - this topic is very much on-topic there and if you PM me, I'd be happy to participate in another debate on same.

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Post Edited by Administrator (Badger)....

Claven2 is correct. This thread was starting to wander somewhat away from this site's mandate.

What was the agreement I said "YES" to when I joined? (click here) (http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=172)