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.

Alberta Government Doesn't Want to Steal Guns

Recently the news has been filled with the jubilant announcement from Tyler Shandro that Alberta would not assist the federal government in the gun grab.  This news has been met with joy and a dangerous amount of complacency from the gun community.  The prevailing thought is Alberta is now a safe haven for gun owners and it is time to break out the ol' M305 for hunting trips again.

This is great news but the battle is far from won.  Naturally, with my background as an analyst, I began to ponder how the government could get past this setback aside from the obvious and draconian measures such as calling in the army.  I asked questions to subject matter experts in policing to help brainstorm what course of action the Trudeau regime can take, now that the RCMP have been closed to them.

But how could they do the gun thefts without the RCMP?

Firstly the RCMP "rental" agreement states that the province can direct the RCMP to not enforce certain laws.  That is true.  But the bulk of our population is not found in RCMP controlled areas; they are in the cities.  Calgary Police have already stated they are in favor of enforcing the ban.  Unlike the RCMP, they have the discretion to cooperate enforcing the Crime Minister's petty ban.  Also, the Calgary Police (and Edmonton and Camrose and so on...) are not police just inside their own municipality, they are considered police officers for all of Alberta.  It is legal for a Calgary Police member to operate in High River or an Edmonton member to operate in Sherwood Park.  It may be frowned upon, but it is legal.  This is a potential work around and with virtue signaling fart suckers like Gondek or Sohi in charge of 2 of the most well equipped, powerful forces in Alberta, the odds don't look good for provincial resistance.  The CN police have the power to operate for any law enforcment purpose provided it is 1km from a rail line.  Most small towns are built around a rail line.

But I am not suggesting that the municipal police forces are going to be used in lieu of the RCMP.  It is likely that misuse of police resources will result in a funding cut from the province.  All I am suggesting is that, although unlikely, it could be a method of last resort.  So what is most likelty?

The government has never relied on mass arrests except for the FLQ crisis.  Instead, they have consistently made an example out of one person.  Usually this is in the form of a highly publicized arrest (to show the public), or in the case of Rodger Kotanko, a barely publicized execution (to quietly terrify the gun owners).  It stands to reason that after 30 years of engaging in this successful tactic, they would not switch it up now.  If they could continue to engage in terror operations against the gun owning public, that same public could be forced into complying while the province overtly is not.

Using the premise of compliance through terror, it is most likely that a series of high profile people will be targeted for charges (or a Kotanko style execution if no crimes can be proven).  In our legal system, any person can go to a courthouse and lay an "information".  This is an accusation that a crime has been committed.  Then a crown prosecutor (who is not under the control of the province) can proceed with charges.  No police are needed to actually lay a charge.  The Communication and Security Establishment (Canada's version of the NSA) routinely spies on Canadians and could quickly determine if someone had a harmless rogue Mini-14 squirreled away and lay that information themselves.

Federal level policing organizations such as the National Weapons Enforcement Support Team (NWEST) exist solely to take guns away. They are also under the command of Ottawa; not any individual province. Right now they concentrate on illegal, smuggled guns...an honorable task... but they could turn their attention to a few good targets for a CBC broadcasted raid at the command of the Trudeau Regime.

Moving forward, we have to expect that terror will be leveled at the gun community.  The dream of mass door to door confiscation may be dead but the insidious evil that is the Trudeau Regime will not simply shrug and give up.  Now is the time to press our advantage.  Contribute to a gun organization of your choice and keep up the fight.