MacPherson: RCMP making criminals of responsible gun owners

Les MacPherson

Canada is a nation of laws made by our elected representatives, unless you’re a firearms owner, that is. For you, police make the laws, as they do in a police state.

With the imperious stroke of a pen, the RCMP has turned into criminals thousands of law abiding gun owners who were doing their best to obey the law. They now are afoul of a police-imposed prohibition on a common accessory for the most popular of .22 rifles. Now deemed illegal are magazines holding more than 10 rounds for the venerable Ruger 10/22.

It so happens I have one of these rifles. My wife gave it to me for my birthday 37 years ago. I remember because it was the first year of our marriage. The Ruger clinched it. A dandy little rifle for gophers, crows and, especially, tin cans, it is enormous fun to shoot. It also is ubiquitous. Not too many firearms enthusiasts don’t have a Ruger 10/22. I would be surprised if any of Canada’s Olympic shooters, for instance, have not had one in their gun safe. Among farmers, ranchers and hunters, it is almost standard equipment.

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The 10/22 comes with a 10-round magazine. A lot of owners, maybe most of them, buy extra magazines of various sizes up to 50 rounds. While one person shoots, another can be loading the extra magazine. If you don’t think it’s fun to send a tin can flying with 50 rounds as fast as you can pull the trigger, you haven’t tried it.

Extended magazines for the 10/22 have been on the market for decades. You could buy them in almost any hardware store in the country. Your Uncle Bob might have picked one up on a whim at Macleod’s, put it away somewhere and forgotten all about it. Now he’s a criminal and he doesn’t even know it. At least his pension will go further in jail.

There was no big announcement from the RCMP when they made the magazines illegal. No public service ads were placed, no letters sent to licensed gun owners. There was no consultation, no discussion, no public debate. It all happened behind closed doors. That’s what happens when police make the laws.

Notification after the fact was limited to a posting on the RCMP’s Canadian Firearms Program website. When the criminal law is dropped on unsuspecting citizens, you would expect a little more. A notice on a website nobody looks at is no notice at all.

Whether the RCMP even can do this is not clear. The force has specific authority only to prohibit centerfire rifles and accessories, not rimfire .22s. Center fire rifles typically are much more powerful. That’s why Parliament made the distinction that police now appear to be ignoring. Whatever prohibitive authority the RCMP has was to deal with new and potentially worrisome items coming onto the market, not to go after what has been legal and used responsibly for decades.

Oddly enough, extended magazines are available for makes of .22 rifle other than the Ruger, but these, inexplicably, have not been prohibited. We don’t get explanations when police make the rules. They don’t have to run for re-election.

Owners of extended magazines for their Ruger .22s now are expected to turn them in to police and hope they’re not arrested. With no legal exemption to protect them for trying to do the right thing, they will be as vulnerable as anyone confessing a criminal offence to police. You wouldn’t expect the RCMP to file charges but then you wouldn’t have expected them to break into peoples’ homes and steal their guns when High River was evacuated, and get away with it, incidentally.

Recreational shooters don’t get a lot of sympathy in Canada, not until they win an Olympic medal or something. We’re used to being treated like a menace for embracing Canadian family traditions. But this isn’t about shooting. This isn’t about gun control or rifle magazines or the public safety. This is about who makes the laws in this country, the people we elect to make laws or the hired help.

lmacpherson@postmedia.com

SOURCE:  The Star Phoenix

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