If You Hate the Gun Registry, How You Can Get Involved

Quote to Note:

To this end, Citizens Centre chairman Link Byfield and four other gun owners have started the process of turning themselves in to the authorities for being in possession of unregistered firearms.

Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy May 14, 2004

Oscar Lacombe found guilty

Link Byfield and others will now accuse themselves of breaking the law.

[. . . . Oscar Lacombe] was found guilty of both -- bringing a gun to a public meeting, and being without licence and registration for the deactivated .22 rifle he brought to a Legislature press conference on January 1, 2003.

[. . . .] As for his half-century-old single-shot Cooey, he told the judge that as he was not going to register it, the government of Alberta can keep it.

[. . . .] It seems increasingly plain, however, we need more test cases in the court system, to keep up the legal pressure on this foolish, unconstitutional, wasteful, intrusive, unpopular, deplorable gun law.

Up until now we have left it up to Oscar. It's time for fresh volunteers.

To this end, Citizens Centre chairman Link Byfield and four other gun owners have started the process of turning themselves in to the authorities for being in possession of unregistered firearms.

The four others are members of the Canadian Unregistered Firearms Owners Association, headed by Dr. Edward Hudson in Saskatoon. Three of the activists are from Saskatchewan, and one from Nova Scotia.

If Oscar is guilty, why are they doing this?

Because if they are charged, they can attack the gun registry legally and weaken it politically.

And if they are NOT charged, they can attack the registry politically and weaken it legally.

[. . . . ] The legal system has resisted prosecuting any firearms registry violation that appears to be a test case. Since January 2003, numerous Canadians -- Ed Hudson, Jim Turnbull, Ken Palmer and other good people -- have tried and failed to be prosecuted. (The law is only enforced -- sometimes quite harshly -- against people who are more likely to plead guilty than to Charter-challenge it.)

In fact, it's clear from Oscar's trial and verdict that if he had NOT brought a gun to the Legislature, he probably wouldn't have been charged either. The gun brought out the national media, and the national attention eventually (after six months of dithering) brought the charge -- unfortunately under the Criminal Code rather than the Firearms Act, but let's thank heaven he got charged for something.

Meanwhile, it remains important to persuade provincial attorneys-general to STOP PROSECUTING the licensing-and-registration section of the Criminal Code, and leave it to the feds to prosecute violations under the Firearms Act. So if you haven't asked the AG in your own province to do so, click here (www.citizenscentre.com/action.html).