The upcoming deadline for CA's "Assault Weapon Registration" has weighed heavily upon my thoughts for some time. The blank registration form sits on my desk, staring back at me every time my eyes wander away from the screen. Registrant Last Name, Registrant First Name, Registrant Middle Name, DOB, Sex, Height, Weight, Eyes, Hair, Physical Residence Address, Mailing Address, CA Driver License or ID Number, Telephone Number, and, of course, Right Thumbprint. ("The registrant's right thumbprint impression of fingerprint identification quality must be provided in the space indicated. If DOJ identification specialists determine the impression quality is unacceptable, the application will be returned unprocessed. Local police and sheriffs' departments provide quality fingerprint impression services.") The Fall 2000 issue of the JPFO's Bill of Rights Sentinel contained the following article on Canada's C-68. Balancing my own cynicism against the authors' bit of Pollyannaish rhetoric, it seems there are at least a few brave Canadians willing to openly thumb their noses at their Firearms Act on January 1, 2001. What will happen when January 1, 2001 hits CA? Probably not much. I strongly doubt that even a single individual will be bold enough to present himself, unarmed, in public (much less his local police station) and exclaim, "Hear that, CA DOJ? I tore up your little card and I didn't turn in my gun!" Refusal to cooperate with the census seemed almost fashionable this year. My census form met its untimely demise in my paper shredder. No doubt many other forms, both Cypherpunk and Sheeple alike met more creative ends. How many Californians have publicly announced their refusal to cooperate with the fascist Assault Weapon Registration? How many op-ed pieces have been written encouraging citizens to "Just Say No" to this precursor to confiscation? How many outside the state are wringing their hands in dismay that their legislatures will soon follow suit? What sane person would engage in civil disobedience in this climate of trendy gun-grabbing? Likewise, what *fool* would actually register his "assault weapons"? What to do, what to do... "Peace where freedom is compromised isn't peace - it's surrender. In a compromise between poison and food, the only winner is death." ------------------------------------- [Bill Of Rights Sentinel, Fall 2000, JPFO, Inc. www.jpfo.org] Civil Disobedience in Canada: It Just Happened to Be Guns by Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne Eisen "One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust...is in reality expressing the highest respect for law... We will not obey your evil laws..." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. In a representative government, and in an ideal world, those elected to public office are expected to act selflessly, and always in the best interests of their constituents. And they are trusted to do so, until the evidence of betrayal is undeniable. Sometimes, that betrayal takes the form of an unjust law, one which is both dangerous and costly to society. That's exactly what befell Canadians in 1995 with the passage of C-68, the Act Respecting Firearms and Other Weapons (generally referred to as simply the "Firearms Act"). As of January 1, 2001, Canadians who currently own a firearm, or who wish to own one are required to obtain a license from a Chief Firearms Officer. And although the Canadian government has required registration of handguns since 1934, as of January 1, 2001 all other firearms lawfully owned must be accounted for by a registration certificate. By that date, the Canadian Justice Department will thus possess a registry of all gun-owners and their guns, if all goes according to plan. But the result of the Firearms Act has been massive civil disobedience. R. Bruce Hutton, formerly of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP, Canada's national police force), formed the Law-Abiding Unregistered Firearms Association (LUFA) in November 1998. Since then, Hutton has been traveling throughout Canada urging non-compliance with the Firearms Act, and exhorting fellow gun-owners, "Come to jail with me." More than twenty thousand Canadian gun-owners had taken Hutton up on his challenge as of July 15, 2000, openly declaring their intent to disobey the law by not complying with registration. When gun-owner populations are compared, that translates to the U.S. equivalent of almost 400,000 American gun-owners, conservatively stated. Hutton's anger has clearly resonated among fellow Canadians, proving that an ordinary man can make an extraordinary difference. When January 1, 2001 rolls around, LUFA's members are prepared to stand unarmed in front of RCMP offices and submit, as felons, to their 5-year prison terms. LUFA's projected membership that time will be enough to overwhelm an already strained Canadian criminal justice system. An equivalent action by American gun-owners would probably have the same effect. Hundreds of thousands of other Canadian gun-owners have made known their intent to delay registration until the last possible moment. Their forms will arrive all together in the last few weeks, throwing the entire bureaucracy into disarray. On June 15, 2000, Canada's Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Firearms Act and finally pushed some Canadians over the brink. The provincial governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have dumped both the administration and the enforcement of all federal gun-control laws -- including the 66-year old handgun registry -- right back into Ottawa's lap, throwing the Canadian government into civil war, one fought on paper for the time being. Interesting times lie ahead to the North of us. Why are our usually obedient neighbors to the North acting out of character? C-68: FALSE PROMISE AND LIES Various rationales have been articulated to explain civil disobedience in response to the Firearms Act. A good deal of discussion has focused on the skyrocketing costs of administration. But none of these explanations account for why Canadian gun-owners are increasingly willing to disobey their government, and suffer hefty fines and serious jail-time. The real answer seems to lie in the fact that, although the Firearms Act mandates firearm registration, it is not "just another" gun-control law, and the defiance it has elicited is not just about guns. When it was enacted into law, the Firearms Act did far more than implement firearm registration. It provided for the confiscation of more than half of all registered, legally-owned handguns in Canada -- without compensation -- an action which Canadian gun-owners rightly interpreted as a blatant disregard for traditional property rights. The Firearms Act also empowered the government to profoundly infringe upon rights that all Canadians cherish. According to Canadian Researcher Dr. Gary Mauser, "these infringements should frighten any civil libertarian. The Firearms Act expands the grounds for warrantless searches, reduces restraints on issuing warrants, and requires people to testify against themselves." In fact, Dr. Mauser noted, the Firearms Act "vastly extends police powers" in Canada, and that "such sweeping police powers...authorize police procedures that [would] violate the US Fourth Amendment's protection against warrantless searches and the Fifth Amendment's protection [of] due process." During the debate on C-68, and upon its implementation, the Canadian government made a number of promises and claims. In discussing some of these (see sidebar [see end]), Canadian journalist Lorne Gunter observed, "perhaps the Liberals do not have as their ultimate goal the disarming of the civilian population. But registration would make confiscation easier by telling the government where all the guns are." Why all the lies, both to facilitate the passage of C-68, and to perpetuate the government's false promises? Addressing the 11th Annual Community Legal Education Associations conference in January 1996, Senator Sharon Carstairs made a telling admission when she thought no one else was listening: the Firearms Act was intended, from the outset, to be integral to her party's plans to "socially re-engineer Canada", something the Liberal party of Canada has set about doing for the past 30 years. Disarming the citizenry and creating a utopian pacifist society is integral to this "social re-engineering". Wrote Lorne Gunter in a March 14, 1996 column: "...the Liberals knew that when they promised C-68 would reduce crime, Canadians would naturally assume the government meant rounding up criminals and throwing them in jail, preventing murders and holdups... when all along, what the Liberals really meant was that they believed C-68 would re-engineer Canada (and especially male gun owners) making its citizens more docile... [But] when lawmakers trample centuries-old liberties without offering an overwhelming social good in return...then respect for the law dies and the rule of law along with it." SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN OTTAWA Garry Breitkreuz is a Member of Parliament from the province of Saskatchewan. He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1993, and re-elected in 1997. Columnist Peter Worthington of the Sun chain of newspapers referred to Breitkreuz as "the one-man wrecking crew when it comes to federal gun registration". Recounting his earlier experience with the Justice Department concerning a secret research project designed to evaluate the effects of a restrictive gun law enacted in 1997, Breitkreuz commented: "This statistical analysis was supposed to evaluate the effectiveness of [previous] firearms legislation. After a thirteen month investigation, the Information Commissioner has confirmed that the government knowingly and without any authority whatsoever withheld information from Members of Parliament. The information concerned public safety and was vital to the debate of the federal gun control legislation (Bill C-68) and yet the Justice Minister and his officials effectively hid it from the public and Parliament... If a Member of Parliament can't get information from the government what hope does the average citizen have?" Why would the Canadian government keep this information secret? Could it be that the 1977 law did not work, as advertised, to reduce violent crime in Canada? And could it be that this information might jeopardize its agenda now? Who stands to gain when a government deliberately withholds information from its own citizens? In an attempt to understand the practical implementation of C-68, we went to its actual text. Despite our own familiarity with a wealth of U.S. gun laws, we found C-68 to be an almost undecipherable maze of words. One of the documents we received from Breitkreuz's office shed light on our difficulty. Prepared by the Research Branch of the Library of Parliament, and dated April 18, 1997, it stated the following: "...the sheer volume of regulatory authority can make it extremely difficult for Parliamentary bodies to envisage the final scope of the Act. OR FOR MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE LEGISLATION MAY IMPACT ON THEM. [emphasis ours]. Bill C-68, the Firearms Act, might well be described as an example of such legislation... The combined effect [of its provisions] is to invest the Chief Firearms Officer with an extremely large, if not unprecedented, degree of discretion." In fact, according to Dave Tomlinson, President of Canada's National Firearms Association, C-68 allows the government to "legally confiscate all guns at any time." Now we also know the answer to the question of why Canadians are acting out of character: THEY AREN'T! They are beginning to read the "fine print" of the Firearms Act, and are expressing -- according to Martin Luther King, Jr. -- the "highest respect for the law", in their own way. NICS: A BETTER MOUSETRAP? Contrast the Firearms Act with NICS, our own National Instant Check System. While Canadians refer to th Firearms Act as outright registration, American proponents of NICS have painstakingly avoided any reference to the term, or characterization of NICS as a system of gun or gun-owner registration. Yet NICS may more effectively accomplish what the Firearms Act has openly set out to do -- register law-abiding gun-owners and their guns. The machinery for registration was set in place by the very design of NICS: Americans, and the guns they buy, are automatically -- and illegally -- entered into a Department of Justice database, as an immediate consequence of the instant check provision required for purchases from licensed dealers. Unlike Canada's Firearms Act, however, registration via NICS is essentially passive on the part of gun-owners. Its architects have cleverly removed registration as an option from American gun purchasers. Except for one small detail, that is. The Brady Law's provisions apply only to sales from licensed dealers, and private gun sales are therefore currently exempt from "instant-check"-style registration. But private gun sales account for approximately a third of all gun acquisitions in this country, which leaves a huge chunk of firearm transfers unaccounted for by a government paper trail. The reason then becomes perfectly clear why Bill Clinton and the rest of America's anti-self-defense politicians have relentlessly pushed for a background check on ALL private gun transfers, even at gun shows. Witness the so-called "gun-show loophole" mantra which drones on incessantly from a biased, firearm-hostile mainstream media. Now we know exactly what Bill Clinton had in mind when he announced during his weekly Saturday radio address on February 3, 1999, "No background check, no gun. No exceptions." While registration in the U.S. will take longer with NICS than the published timetable for Canada's Firearm Act, if the "gun-show loophole" is closed, a more complete listing of gun-owners and their guns will likely result. The Canadian experience amounts to a crash-course on registration and confiscation. And it should serve as a wake-up call for gun-owners here in the States." ---- ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Dr. Paul Gallant practices optometry in Wesley Hills, N.Y. Dr. Joanne Eisen practices dentistry in Old Bethpage, N.Y. Lorne Gunter is a columnist for the _Edmonton Journal_, one of Canada's largest daily newspapers. His columns on politics, society, government, the environment, the law, and economics appear three times a week. [References omitted] SIDEBAR: LIES MY GOVERNMENT TOLD ME by Lorne Gunter Mark Twain said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." The Canadian government used all three to ram through its latest gun controls, which came into effect on December 1, 1998. Among the lies: federal politicians promised that point-of-sale registrations, which must now be completed before a buyer may take his firearm home, would take "only" 10 to 15 minutes over the telephone. Some have taken weeks, many other three months or more. Those of less than an hour are exceedingly rare. The mail-in registration of previously unregistered shotguns and rifles was to be accomplished on a postcard. The form actually contains 135 Questions and is as complicated as a tax return. there were the damned lies -- lies the government still refuses to admit are false. The registry was to cost no more than $85 million over five years. to date, the government will admit it has registered fewer than one-in-five gun owners with just five months remaining to the December 31 deadline. And instead of 200 employees, it has over 1,400, including hundreds of frontline police officers who have been rerouted from crime-busting to gun registration. Canadians were assured the registry would not divert funds from other Police operations. But the Mounties have all but lost their organized crime and white collar crime divisions, while the registry grows and grows. Then there were the statistics. The Department of Justice overestimated (likely knowingly) the number of gun crimes in the country by nearly 10-fold and exaggerated the cost of treating gunshot wounds by nearly 100-fold to create the appearance of a national emergency. Even the nation's police chiefs tried to help justify over half of all guns recovered at cime scenes were long guns. What the chiefs' failed to mention was that most had been stolen from their lawful owners before being used in a crime or had not been involved in a crime, merely recovered at the scene.