The Long Gun Registry Ressurected

For years we, in the gun community, knew that the C-71 Shadow Registry would one day appear.   That day is rapidly approaching.  On May 18th, 2022 the future purchase of firearms will be tracked and recorded.  For those who have never read a history book, registration ALWAYS leads to confiscation.

C-71 was a law passed years ago by Crime Minister Trudeau to require 2 things:

1) That all business sales be recorded with the identity of the purchaser

2) All private sales require a transfer authorization number from the registrar of firearms.

Through an inefficient network of transfer numbers leading back to the business point of sale, all guns will eventually be captured in this new registry.

You need to understand 2 critical points.

Firstly, all the guns you own before the registry are still legal.  They do not need to be registered.  They will only end up in this system if you sell or buy after the 18th.  If you want something; you have only days to buy it.

Secondly, this is not actually about what type of guns you own.  This is about how many you own.  If you buy 6 and sell 2 (under this system), the expectation is you will have 4 guns.  If the CFO inspects your storage (permitted under the firearms act) and the numbers don't match up, you could be in a lot of trouble.   This is especially true if the numbers are less than expected.  

If you have had your license prior to this system, a larger number is expected.  But that number will be corrected should an inspection take place.

What should you do?

1) If there is something you want, buy it right now.  Do not hesitate; get it.

2) If you are inspected by the CFO and have guns from pre-C71 your total number will be corrected.  You will be trapped in the system.  I strongly suggest storing your one or two favorite non-restricted guns away from the rest to protect them from government scrutiny and eventual seizure.

Liberals Say FU to Court Regarding OICs

You have probably heard that in the Order In Council case, where the government banned thousands of firearms, the government has refused to hand over documents related to their discussions leading up to the ban.  They have classified them as Secret and thus denied the judicial order to produce them.  

Buy why?  Is it a game?  The commonly held theory is that the delays and denials are designed to run out the clock and reach the end of the amnesty before the court can reach a resolution.  In running out of time, with no injunction, everyone loses the banned guns.

But I have a more sinister theory.  I think the documents were made secret under Section 39 CEA not for the purpose of maintaining the gun ban but because those documents hold plans that have not been executed yet.  

I am increasingly convinced these documents hold planned enforcement actions.  I think they have one of the following items in those documents (perhaps more):

-Arrest lists designed to shape the public’s view about “evil gun owners” and punish political rivals.  Can you imagine if those documents had planned raids against Sheldon Claire and Rod Giltaca?  What about gun owning Conservative MPs?  With free speech about to be silenced with bill C-10, many people would simply disappear into a hole and never be heard from again.

-The immediate seizure and auditing of gun businesses who have dealt in the now prohibited goods.  We all know from other government inquiries and fact finding missions, that this process takes years.  How many businesses can be shut down for a few years and survive?  I expect that real political agitators such as K&S Tactical Supplies will somehow… take longer.  And if they really wanted to smash the entire industry in one fell swoop, they could target importers like Korth, North Sylva, IRG and so on… choke everyone off from supply.

-Reconstruction of long gun registry records.  Arrests of last known owners unless they can produce records or names of where the guns went.  Police will level your home with bulldozers and sledgehammers to find what they are looking for.  Ask Bruce Montague. 

Any one of these, would cause an outcry that even CBC would be hard pressed to put a happy spin on.

The Shadow Registry and Specter Arms

The new bill, C-71, is poised to create a nightmare scenario by establishing a Shadow Registry.  It is essentially a registry jointly maintained by both the government and licensed firearms dealers as a condition of their license.

So what is the purpose of the Shadow Registry?  Firstly if we think the registrar will follow the letter of the law and not ask for the make and model (like the law suggests) we are deluding ourselves.  But let us assume that they follow the law to the letter.  With private transfers, there is nothing to say that non-restricted transfers need a model or serial number.  Just a verification that a transfer has taken place.  This allows for the government to accurately determine how many firearms are owned.  Inevitably this will help prevent enterprising individuals from using methods to obscure the Shadow Registry kept by gun dealers.  You might ask “what value does knowing that a gun has been transferred with no other attached information?”  To get the answer you need to look at the inferred and stated goals of Canada’s gun control scheme; disarm everyone.  By recording how many people had firearms transferred to them and how many went out, the government can accurately determine the real amounts of guns owned by new generation shooters.  When it comes time to send the door kickers to take the guns, they either get them all or arrest the gun owner because the numbers don’t match up.

And then there is the lie that gun records from retail businesses will need a warrant to access.  Retail records do not need a warrant.  This is a holdover from the old Long Gun Registry (LGR) (which became irrelevant when it was abolished).  Although it is said the records will require a warrant, it does not repeal the section that permits “looking at the books” and making copies whenever they want.  It is not common knowledge but a firearms business is given their ledger to record firearm sales.  This ledger is provided by the Chief Firearms Officer of the province they are operating out of.  This alone is a subtle reminder that you don’t own the ledger or the information within.

What does this mean for Specter Arms?

Specter Arms has built its business on the philosophy that information and privacy are valuable.  As soon as the LGR was abolished, we stopped keeping this information.  We would check if the license was valid yes, but never did we hold on to that information.  Our sales literally rose over 1000% when the LGR was gone.  What once was a struggling business became viable with our annual growth (post 2012) at 13% per year.  Why was this?  Well, privacy was the big thing.  Pre 2012, there was no reason to buy from anyone except a large retailer.  There was no privacy because of the LGR and buying from a large online retailer was convenient.  This sentiment is mirrored by the fact that from the inception of the LGR to its demise, gun businesses evaporated to only 1/6th of their previous numbers.  Post 2012, new businesses flourished.

Over 99% of SA revenue comes from gun shows.  Without the means to transfer non-restricted firearms on the weekends (CFO offices are closed), the gunshow is destined to die.  No gun shows, translates into a projected decrease in revenues of over 99%.

We at SA have a sneaking suspicion that the large gun dealers and importers are happy with this scheme.  It only serves to drive more business their way by resuming the LGR trend of wiping out small and medium business competitors.  It wipes out the gun show and all the private and grey market dealers as well.

With the new Shadow Registry, we at SA need to re-evaluate our business model.  If we are unwilling to change, we will die a swift death along with the hundreds of new small firearms businesses that are destined to die.

SA has always subscribed to an intelligence driven model which uses social media, statistics and online forums to predict trends and follow those trends.  The Shadow Registry is not a surprise to us and we started transitioning away from sales to manufacturing.  This plan is uniquely the safest but also the most dangerous; it is quite the oxymoron.  It is safe because re-investing in inventory for sales is bound to leave us caught with thousands of dollars in inventory that will never be sold.  It is dangerous because if we can not get the S3 and S5 rifle projects to market before the money runs out, we will be finished.

It is a gamble but the alternative is to close down and wait for a friendly government to undo this damage.  We will not go down without a fight; who dares, wins.