Fuck Facebook; Specter Arms is done with it.

Over the last few weeks every single Facebook post about our products, events, projects that have been developed or are being developed have been ruled to be against “Facebook community standards.”

Today was the last straw when our post saying we would be at the Dawson Creek gun show was removed.

Specter Arms does not post cat videos or affirmations about the greatness of Trudeau Socialism, we are a gun company.  We try to post what we think our followers would like to know about and none of those posts are making it through. 

So Specter Arms is abandoning Facebook. 

This blog will see a slight change in its format.  In addition to political and survival articles, we will start to write about products we have developed or are developing.   

Magazine Ban?

 Recently the new public safety minister announced that he would be banning any magazine with its capacity blocked by a rivet.  This method has been used since the mid 1990s to comply with Canada's stupid magazine restrictions.  There are 10s of thousands of these magazines in Canada.

I have deliberately avoided commenting on this news while I thought it over.  I left the obvious commentary to others.

What isn't being asked is what this ban will actually look like.  I think I have it figured out and it does not look pretty.

Long before I started my business back in 2008, I was forced to shop at places like P&D and Milarm.  I was trying to help my friend get magazines for his brand new AR-15 (one that I actually traded to him in exchange for a car).  We stopped by P&D and bought some metal AR-15 mags.  After opening what I can only describe as a "homemade" package, we discovered that the side of the magazine had been cut out.  When you inserted round #6, it spit it out the side. 

In addition to compromising the structural integrity of the magazine, it made it collect dirt, snag on everything and come to think of it, those magazines were more expensive to buy in pre-2008 then they are today with rivets. $40 of 2007 money versus $25 of 2023 money.

Real inflation (not government bullshit numbers) suggests that real inflation is 11% per year.  But let's pretend they are what the government says they are (I don't want to give anyone a heart attack).  If we make the premise that $40 was the cost to buy and cut the side out of the magazine in 2007, then adjusting for inflation that same magazine will cost $54.91 in 2024.  

But that is not all...

Any magazine going through this alteration will require a fixture to mount the magazine while it is milled open.  Each type will require its own fixture.  Magazines that are less common will simply disappear.  As an example, I will certainly not make a fixture for modifying P320 magazines; they are too uncommon to be economical.

Plastic magazines modified in this manner will eventually shatter unless babied.  Metal ones will bend.  Both will have their springs exposed to the elements.  Spring steel rusts very quickly.  If you can find magazines, they will need to be replaced often at the painful inflated price.

It was Inevitable: A Liberal Inflicted Woe

 So the inevitable has happened.

Strained gun businesses have reached the breaking point.  Excessive regulations, bans destroying product lines and rampant inflation ruining the import power of the Canadian dollar are all to blame.  And, of course, these things can be attributed squarely and directly on failed economic and safety policy by ideological idiots.

2 firearm related businesses folded in Alberta in the last 14 days.  One is a small hobby sized business selling accessories and the other is a medium sized one with employees and a storefront.

I always pay attention to what other businesses are doing.  This weeks survivors (including myself) are struggling.  They are offering sale after sale to keep cash flowing taking often an unsustainable 2 to 5 percent profit.  Even with sales, no one is buying.  People are starved for cash as their food and mortgage bills have exploded; they can't buy guns.  

The industry is in dire shape.  These last 2 weeks combined with the other gun business failures over the last year show, very clearly, that the collapse has begun. 

CSAAA Betrayal

For those who have not heard, a gun industry advocate , the CSAAA, has opted to assist Crime Minister Trudeau's gun ban and confiscation. 

They sheepishly say it remains a bad idea but the facts are clear; they have made a rational and conscious decision to publicly and overtly help in a crime on an industrial scale.

This is absolutely and unequivocally the immoral and incorrect thing to do;

1) It ends the fight for those unwilling to surrender; robbing them of personal choice.

2) It legitimizes the crime about to be committed.

3) It ends the gun industry and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people.

Now there are dissenting views on this matter.

It was argued to me that a business will get back the value of their inventory.  People holding this view fail to realize is all of the banned guns are likely to generate 50% to 100% of additional value, over their initial price tag, through customized options such as sights, scopes, spare magazines, lights lasers or aftermarket parts. It also fails to acknowledge the lost sales from future models of that gun.  I also consider it likely that businesses will only be paid their wholesale costs (typically 20-22% less than what the consumer pays).

But what was really stolen was hope.  Without a gun industry Judas, this plan could of never got off the ground.  There was hope that the government would change. That the resurrection of our industry was forthcoming.   That we would only need to suffer these trials and tribulations just a bit longer before we got to the end of this dark tunnel.

The finalization of this plan, aided by the CSAAA, ensures there is no bright future forthcoming for the industry. 

The businesses members of the CSAAA that voted for this action, opted to abandon the fight for justice and get their golden payout.  Id go so far as to suggest they were likely near retirement anyway and see this as a selfishly easy way to terminate their businesses and spend their lives holding down a chair at the old folks home in comfort.

Millions of gun owners and businesses that are willing to fight and endure were thrown under the bus.

They unilaterally made a choice on our behalf robbing the rest of us the right to fight for our livelihoods.

Alberta Firearms Act

The Alberta Firearms Act is a sad smokescreen sold to gun owners as a means of protecting our lawfully owned property.

Having read it, it seems that half the bill sets the stage for all the relevant restrictions to be set by OIC.  OIC is fine when you have a friendly government as Danielle Smith's UCP seems to be.  But she will not be in power forever.  What if a less friendly person took the head of government?  Without needing to repeal Bill 8, they could simply loosen restricitons through the OIC channels set up in the bill.  Overnight, protections could evaporate with the stroke of a pen.  When Tyler Shandro sells it as "being flexible" what he is doing, is setting the stage for a future hostile government to scoop the guns up.

The Alberta bill is weak and offers no protection compared to the Sask firearms bill.  The Sask Firearms Act is full of bite, laying out an impossible scenario for confiscation agents to follow requiring hundreds of years to execute and tens of millions of dollars in new infrastructure.  To remove it, will require it to go through the legislative process which could buy gun owners critical months to mount resistance to the bill.

The Alberta Firearms Act, is not cause to celebrate.  In fact, I see it as a means to make us complacent and easier to victimize when we least expect it.

Beating The Shadow Registry

The Shadow Registry is diabolically clever when you consider that the end game is to simply take all guns.

But there is a way to hide what you buy from the government without breaking the law.  These 3 points need to be satisfied:

- Firstly, for this to work you can only buy from a private seller or a grey market seller (no licensed businesses).  This is because the law requires all the information to be stored on the purchase by licensed dealers.

- Secondly, the gun being purchased must have been in private seller hands before May 2022.  After May 2022, it likely entered the Shadow Registry via dealer and is unsafe.

- Thirdly, you need to have been licensed to own firearms before May 2022.

Sales between private sellers do not require that you tell the registrar what you are selling or buying.  Without the link back to a licensed dealer, the gun truly can not be tracked.  Yes, your total has gone up by one but if you have been licensed, pre-registry, they don’t have a starting number to begin with.

No matter what the person (registrar) on the phone says; you do not need to tell them what you are selling.  DON’T VOLUNTEER INFORMATION YOU ARE NOT LEGALLY REQUIRED TO GIVE.

Defunding The Police

For the leftists that cheer for this idiocy, know this: a new enforcement agency will be created to take the place of the defunded police.

Unlike the police, their job will be to enforce laws that go against the will of the state only.  So instead of having police that protect you from crime using the law (which is somehow racist), this new agency will exist to protect the state from you, using the law.   

No more investigating the guy who broke into your house or beat up your daughter.  Their efforts will be tracking tax evasion, unregistered guns, smuggling and vaccine enforcement.

Our policing services are far from perfect but beware, defunding the police will spark the next evolution of law enforcement.  That evolution will be dystopian in nature.