By Staff
August 14th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
Did you know that Burlington has a Rifle and Revolver Club? It is located on the upper part of King Road in Bayview Park.
David Bot, president of the club, is one of the applicants involved in a challenge in Federal Court to the Government of Canada’s order prohibiting firearms designed for sporting or hunting.
Gun and rifle club located in a safe isolated location. A city park with a fabulous view.
Competitive shooters, gun ranges and businesses based in Ontario and Québec have launched a challenge in Federal Court to the Government of Canada’s order prohibiting firearms designed for sporting or hunting.
On May 1, 2020, the Government of Canada enacted Order in Council 2020-298 that made Regulations reclassifying as prohibited a large number of previously non-restricted or restricted firearms. The Regulations broadly refer to nine models and their variants as well as two categories of firearms based on bore size and muzzle energy. Over 1,500 models of firearms are now prohibited, meaning that several hundred thousand sporting and hunting firearms are unusable and now worthless.
The applicants bringing the challenge include the following:
The individual applicants know each other through their lawful competitive shooting activities. All are members of gun clubs responsible for the operation of their respective federally approved shooting ranges as well as the International Practical Shooting Confederation, which operates worldwide.
Competitor at a shooting competition in Burlington.
The business applicants have suffered direct foreseeable losses as a result of the challenged regulation and each of the owners of those businesses are competitive colleagues of the individual applicants through their respective sporting activities.
Lawyers for the applicants, Eugene Meehan, Q.C. and Thomas Slade of Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa, filed the application for judicial review in Federal Court on August 11, 2020.
“Parliament makes it clear that firearms reasonable for sporting or hunting cannot then be prohibited by Cabinet regulation. Just as Canadians have to follow the law, so does Cabinet,” said Meehan. “Many of the newly prohibited firearms have been imported, sold, regulated, and used for years for sporting and hunting. It is inauthentic to say otherwise. Urinating on somebody’s leg and calling it rain is constitutionally indefensible.”
Bay View Park has a skyline view that is probably the best in the city.
“The number of challenges to the Regulations are a sign of their dysfunction. This particular challenge is designed to complement rather than conflict with those other cases. We specifically are not bringing a Charter challenge, but instead are focusing primarily on the fact the government overstepped its statutory mandate. The government’s narrative keeps changing. The facts don’t,” said David Bot, President of the Burlington Rifle and Revolver Club.
The Executive branch of government can make regulations by way of Orders in Council. Executive legislation, however, is not subject to the same high scrutiny as laws passed by Parliament. For this reason, it is important that the government is careful in making regulations and ensures they adhere to limits established by Parliament and Parliament’s legislative intention.
The guns that are to be restricted are mainly AR-15 variants. Ie the bushmaster used in Sandy Hook. And the Sig mcx variants. These are rifles that look like they belong on a battlefield. I highly doubt there are “several hundred thousand “ of these in Canada. If we had a gun registry, you could look it up. (Just kidding, I’m opposed to a registry)
These are not your everyday hunting rifle like a Marlin lever action, a Ruger bolt action or a Remington semiautomatic. There is no mention of restricting the widely used 12 gauge shotguns. You’re inferring a bit too much.
No hunter or farmer needs a high capacity clip or an “assault rifle” , like the ones targeted in the legislation. Fire one shot and every animal within hearing distance is headed in the opposite direction.
As for personal protection: you can’t carry them with you, unless they are unloaded, have a trigger or chamber lock and are in a case. Only in the field or on the range can they be loaded. If you’re slinging a bushmaster over your shoulder, no one will bother you, other than the police. This isn’t Texas.
If you’re on the range, there are more accurate options.
People buy those guns for the same reason they buy rugged SUVs that never venture off road. It’s all image.
Grandfather the existing ones in. When the current owner no longer wants it, melt it down. It will be registered, just like all other restricted and prohibited firearms.
I have never understood why it is necessary to have a semi-automatic weapon to do target shooting, or why anyone who calls themself a hunter needs to be able to get off five or ten shots at a time. On the other hand there are places where people pay big bucks to fire an AK47 or other machine gun. Connect the dots…..
Re “Urinating on somebody’s leg and calling it rain…” – that seems like a very silly thing to say, makes no sense at all, and is neither clever nor funny.
Obviously our legal system requires changes and updates as our social, political, economic, cultural, demographic, etc. conditions change. That’s life; better get used to it….