SUPREME COURT OF CANADA RULES. Is this is new news and how this affects us?

[waylander]

Originally Posted by Enthusiast

Just found this on the supreme court website:

http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/case-dossie...aspx?cas=35599

http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/factums-mem...-the-Queen.pdf

I just read through both documents.... man what a bunch of over written gibberish...

I see that the Respondents Factum was linked but why not the Appellants? Some of the statements made by the Respondent ("The Queen") are a bit concerning as they definitely are out to lump "medium powered air gun" and "high powered air guns" in to one category (ones that shoot under 5.7j and those that shoot over 5.7j) and apply all of the CCC to both categories. Particularly this statement:

102(1)
Making automatic firearm: Parliament has wisely seen fit to prohibit the creation of what is colloquially called a "machine gun" either through unlicensed manufacture or alteration. This section makes it an offence to alter a firearm to make it automatic. Medium and high-power airguns would no longer be captured by this section in the absence of a present intention to use the automatic airgun as a weapon.

The assumption on the part of the crown seems to be that it's already an offence to have an automatic medium power airgun. Now as one side in a court battle of course they will interpret as they see fit in order to get the judgement they want so not too worried....

I'm not crying the sky is falling but some of the assumptions made are concerning. Yes, court cases are different from the CCC but courts can and will interpret legislation how they deem it necessary, the whole point to having courts.... so could this impact us? I think it could.... Will it impact us? I don't think it will.

Appellants Facum:

http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/factums-mem...opher-Dunn.pdf

[L473ncy]

Hey Saint, just wondering but what are you up to these days anyways? You doing a PhD or gone onto business or what?

BTW guys, I've done the calculations already (maybe in this thread, maybe in the other one) but using a standard .177 cal pellet weight you can get anywhere from 340-370 FPS when converting to .20g BB's 366 is probably around where it is so nothing really has changed. Velocity doesn't mean anything on it's own, velocity with a mass is what really matters because like I said, you can get a 700+ FPS air rifle by using hyper velocity pellets or slow down an airgun enough if you use heavy ass 11 grain .177 pellets. I'm probably the drunkest idiot here so if I can figure it out others should be able to too....

[RainyEyes]

Originally Posted by Skeletor

I still don't believe that follows. The CCC unequivocally states that, for the purpose of the criminal code and the firearms act, weapons firing under 5.7J/500 FPS are not firearms.

Yet this case states that anything firing over 214 FPS (regardless of energy involved) is a firearm for the purposes of the CCC and the firearms act. Which is it? It cannot be both, since one directly contravenes the other.

Suppose you have a barrelled device that propels a projectile at 205 FPS but at 5.9J of energy. The courts would, by the own precedent, have to admit that it is not a firearm (by that bare-bones 214 FPS delineation of firearm/not firearm). Yet the CCC would consider that to be a firearm, since it accounts for the velocity rather than just the speed of the projectile in question. Which is it?

Unless this is all some extreme cognitive dissonance on the part of the government and the court.

The consensus so far is that FPS and energy are only two of three things that are being emphasized. According to the Courts, in conjunction with Parliament:

[59] Crown counsel provided a particularly good example. Section 86 of the Code makes it an offence to, among other things, use, carry or store a firearm in a careless manner or without reasonable precautions for the safety of other persons. If an airgun that otherwise meets the definition of “firearm” in s. 2 because of its dangerous nature and its capability for causing injury, is not found to be a firearm because it does not also meet the use and intended use requirements in the definition of “weapon”, it escapes regulation under s. 86. It would be lawful to leave such a dangerous object in an area where children might have access to it, or to shoot it in a dangerous manner. Liability would attach only if someone actually was injured or killed. Such an interpretation would not be consistent with the public safety objective of the legislation.

[60] Both the context of the legislative provisions respecting weapons and firearms and the legislative history set out earlier suggest that Parliament has intended to treat firearms as a special subset of weapons, subject to stricter regulation because of their inherent dangerousness. To require proof that barrelled objects, that are sufficiently dangerous to cause serious injury or death, are also weapons by virtue of either of paras. (a) or (b) in that definition, would frustrate Parliament’s intention.

Source: http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc...13onca539.html

I predict the courts will have Parliament amend these criminal code provisions. Technically the courts' interpretation of the legislation is consistent with Parliament's intent, but due to other technicalities, some things might change.

[Memphishills]

Originally Posted by The Saint

Your major issue remains that you think Dunn v. SCC actually changed something. You're in a panic and trying to interpret the CC as if things changed. But Dunn v. SCC changed absolutely nothing, it simply reaffirmed what was already a fact of life.

This. 1000x this. End of discussion.

[podpharmer]

I just came here from cgn and read the whole thread and found it quite informative,

I just wanted to add that some feel that the firearms community would throw the airsoft/paintball community "under the bus" well I can wholeheartedly say that the exact opposite is true. the firearms community will gladly take as many people on our side as we can get screaming for common sense firearms laws. and throwing airsoft exc under the bus would only serve to divide and conquer us. we want more numbers not less.

there seems to be a wealth of legal knowledge here and I would like to ask a question.

I am an unpaid volunteer that assists coaching a juniors (youth) air pistol program. would the recent SCC case affect the legality of air pistols (.177 cal). in any way (transport,storage exc) I am no lawyer but I really need to be as educated as I can be. when a youth asks me a question I want to make damn sure I have the right answer.

thank you in advance for any help.

[Memphishills]

Again, since all it was was a ruling, no laws have been changed whatsoever.

A ruling does not a law make.

[Dracheous]

ALERT TO ALL! I have restocked ACME umbrellas! These are guaranteed to protect your Wile E. Coyote from all falling boulders and skies! Get your order in fast before they sell out. And they always go fast when these new laws come out! NOTICE: do not attempt to reuse umbrella after impact, will not be affective against bear attack, shark attack, or children under the age of 5.

[Cameron SS]

Originally Posted by Drake

For airsoft purposes, the lower limit would mean more guns could be imported -- namely a lot of pistols. Maybe its a coincidence, maybe its by design, but the 366 fps limit (airsoft) makes a lot of the pistols illegal to import. And I think pistols are the main type of weapon law enforcement is concerned with where gangs and convenience store robberies are concerned (nobody is knocking over the corner gas station with assault rifles, replica or otherwise).

Could I order a 325 fps pistol and argue a CBSA seizure using this ruling? I wouldn't bet any money on it.

Based on that I can see why some airsofters would think this is a good deal, but I am not optomistic that the legal team at cbsa is going to read "Firearms do also not need to be considered a weapon for the purposes of part 3 of the criminal code", and all of a sudden open the floodgates on previously prohibited pistols. I guess we will see. Perhaps this is a silver lining to hope for.

Magazines which exceed the 5/10 round limit are "prohibited devices" which are illegal to own (section 91) but the CCC states section 91 does not apply to low power airguns. Magazines are arguably linked to the gun they fit in, as for determining their capacity (e.g., 40S&W mags which fit in 9mm versions of a pistol and can hold more than ten 9mm rounds are still considered legal because they're linked directly to the 40S&W version of the gun).

Your logic is perfect, however that just isn't the way it works. Like I said, many people have licenses to own prohibited weapons, but the mags are all still prohibited and illegal to own because there is no license for a prohibited device, regardless of the legal status of the firearm it was designed for.

Magazines are not firearms, and are not covered under any exemptions. The 'link' to the firearm ends with the consideration of what firearm TYPE the magazine fits into.

Remember, the RCMP just determined that all ruger 10/22 mags are subject to the limits for pistol mags, because they FIT into pistols. No law changed, no legal rulings, but all of a sudden the RCMP thinks these mags are prohibited, despite the fact that most of the guns are non restricted. The RCMP has no idea who owns these mags, or how many of them there are. Just like if they tried to come after airsofters, it would be impossible to find them all. They are dealing with this problem by mostly ignoring it, or leaving it to other agencies to enforce. First up, CBSA is no longer approving these magazines for import. Definitely the Canary, as someone already point out.

A Red Ryder BB gun from Canadian Tire and Walmart holds 650 copper BBs. If Red Ryder BB guns become illegal I'll give it more thought. But as it stands, magazine capacities for sub-500 fps airguns have never been an issue (most semi-auto air rifles have 8 and 12 round "mags," many .177 BB pistols have 16-round stick mags, some less common guns like the Baikal Drozd have a 30 round mag -- and the Drozd fire full auto to boot). And paintball. How do you define a paintball "mag?" I could stick any piece of tupperware in lieu of the hopper.

Correct, and ridiculous. Better still how do you 'PIN' a peice of tupperware to only hold five rounds? These are the laws that we have. That are terrible, and they were not written with sufficient strength or generality to regulate all of the items that can be caught it in its web. 20 years ago the gun orgs predicted that a definition of Firearm that didn't make reference to fire, or gun powder, would be problematic. And here we are.
[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by The Saint

Heh. If you're trying to suggest I'm ignoring what or how the RCMP does things, or that I'm burying my head in the sand, you're sorely mistaken.

Haven't suggested anything of the sort.

After I clued in how firearms are defined in Canada and realized where airsoft guns truly fell (and that RCMP wasn't out to get us), I had to make sure that that didn't actually make things worse for us. It didn't and it won't. I didn't just take the RCMP's words for it, I went forwards and backwards over the CC and anything else official I could find. Everything corroborates the RCMP's position, because in this case it's set out in law and jurisprudence, and there's not a lot for the RCMP to have a position on other than to provide a scientific figure for serious bodily harm.

Well, without reviewing the entirety of your research, I'll take your word for it that you did good work. I hope you published it so others can benefit. The legalese section on the gun forums is robust. I haven't yet found anything quite like that here, but maybe its in the AV section.

Are you familiar with the term 'confirmation bias?'

The RCMP in general, do good word, I have no ill will. The RCMP firearms lab is a technical institution who was put in the position of determining on a technical basis the meaning of legislation, which makes them a quasi judicial body. In 2006 when they became responsible for interpreting these issues, everyone thought it would be a good deal for gun owners, because the RCMP firearms lab has technical expertise and resources that the previous civilian organization may not have had. With the RCMP at the helm, in the past 8 years, more guns have been reclassified, prohibited and confiscated from gun owners than at any point in the last 30 years. More guns have been restricted or prohibited from import and sale as well, never making it to the Canadian market. The whole business about low power airguns being replicas and therefore prohibited devices, that was the RCMP that made that determination. I'm not going to go full tin hat on, but today, right now, two years after the long gun registry ended the RCMP is STILL telling people in Quebec they have register their firearms, despite there being absolutely no legal basis to do so.

Maybe some day airsoft guns will require licensing, registration, semi-only, 5 round magazine limit, whatever. But that's not feasible under the current wording of the law.

Agreed.

Your major issue remains that you think Dunn v. SCC actually changed something. You're in a panic and trying to interpret the CC as if things changed. But Dunn v. SCC changed absolutely nothing, it simply reaffirmed what was already a fact of life.

If you think the Supreme Court of Canada makes rulings that don't change anything, than I don't have much else for you. The Ontario Courage of Appeal ruling was issued in 2012, and specifically amended and modified the impact of several significant rulings, and reaffirmed others.

Specifically, far too many people here think INTENT has anything to do with the use of airsoft guns. The definition of firearm is based on potential for harm. The definition of weapon is based on intent of design or use. Up until this ruling an airsoft gun HAD to be considered a weapon before you could be charged for a firearms related offence. Now, it only has to be a firearm, and regardless of intent of the user, it is a firearm and you can charged with all of the firearms related offences in the criminal code that apply to them, recognizing that it is exempt from some of them, like licensing, registration etc.

If you had a time machine, and you went back and asked me what the decision of Dunn v. SCC would be back 2009, I'd have told you exactly what the decision would be. In fact, that was one of my recommendations at the end of my paper.

If you could have predicted that in advance, good on you. Not sure what line of work you are in, but you certainly should be taking advantage of these skills.

I am assuming that the 'pigs eye test', or so called objective standard that you advocated for, was not used prior to 2009?

Given your research, I hope you should be able to readily demonstrate the legal basis for the term "non controlled firearm". I can't seem to find any reference to it. All firearms are controlled by the criminal code. Some more so than others.

Unfortunately, many things are prosecuted despite any danger posed to any victims, and the law was written specifically to not require any danger posed in order to prosecute. Where is the danger posed to what victim if I forget my firearms license at home?

Lets go back to section 87 of the criminal code for a second. Pointing a firearm, regardless of whether the firearm is loaded or unloaded. There is absolutely no harm in pointing an unloaded firearm. Why is it an offence?

I'll tell you why. Because there is broader 'public safety' considerations that the legislation tries to address outside of the harm to any one individual.

Look at section 34. Self defence. If you believe that threat of force is being used against you, you are not guilty if you use force to defend yourself. Even if YOU know your gun is unloaded, if I don't, I will allowed to use force against you to protect myself. The prohibition on pointing an unloaded gun is done for the reason of ensuring that no one else has access to self defence unnecessarily.

This is also the deal with replicas. If it looks so real that someone else could mistake it as a gun, then it is treated as a gun for the purposes of threats, carrying to a public meeting, pointing etc, and all of the other social situations where the presence of a gun was assumed to be a game changer.

The Judges in R v Dunn, and the supreme court agreed, that any object which can cause harm and resembles a firearm ought to be treated as such for the criminal code, and airsoft guns can now be subject at the whim of RCMP enforcement, to all the baggage that goes with it.

And the above is from 2009. Yeah, I'm in the camp that if you maliciously use any toy gun, you should get nailed for it.

I too am in the camp that any object used maliciously, and you should get nailed for it. Unfortunately the vast majority of the gun laws in this country were designed to discourage gun ownership, and criminalize a wide range of behaviours despite an obvious lack of maliciousness.

Originally Posted by waylander

I just read through both documents.... man what a bunch of over written gibberish...

102(1)
Making automatic firearm: Parliament has wisely seen fit to prohibit the creation of what is colloquially called a "machine gun" either through unlicensed manufacture or alteration. This section makes it an offence to alter a firearm to make it automatic. Medium and high-power airguns would no longer be captured by this section in the absence of a present intention to use the automatic airgun as a weapon.

The assumption on the part of the crown seems to be that it's already an offence to have an automatic medium power airgun. Now as one side in a court battle of course they will interpret as they see fit in order to get the judgement they want so not too worried....

I'm not crying the sky is falling but some of the assumptions made are concerning. Yes, court cases are different from the CCC but courts can and will interpret legislation how they deem it necessary, the whole point to having courts.... so could this impact us? I think it could.... Will it impact us? I don't think it will.

The thing that is important to remember, is that the crown attorney who believes that automatic airsoft guns are prohibited, will continue to argue that notion every chance he gets. We have seen in other instances where a crown attorney had an agenda for getting the safe storage regulations applied to ammo so that people could be charged for careless storage of ammo. At least six different cases went to trial where an individual was clearly innocent of what they had been charged with, but the crown wanted to argue in it in court. The first 5 tapped out and plead guilty because they didn't have the means to defense themselves, and paid dearly for it. The last one settled it once and for all, but the guy had to pay upwards of 60k in legal fees.

Originally Posted by RainyEyes

The consensus so far is that FPS and energy are only two of three things that are being emphasized. According to the Courts, in conjunction with Parliament:

I predict the courts will have Parliament amend these criminal code provisions. Technically the courts' interpretation of the legislation is consistent with Parliament's intent, but due to other technicalities, some things might change.

In not hearing the appeal, the supreme court can not order parliament to do anything. That parliament needs to step in and do something is apparent. Will they? who knows. Many legal issues in the firearms community have been ongoing for decades without resolution, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

Originally Posted by Memphishills

Again, since all it was was a ruling, no laws have been changed whatsoever.

A ruling does not a law make.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how law works in this country.

[Skeletor]

Last I checked, the SCC has no power to enact or enforce law. They interpret it only. It's up to Parliament to make legislative changes, if they see fit.

[Dracheous]

CameronSS I'll give you a special on ACME umbrellas, clearly you believe you need a crate of em to survive the week.

No matter how you try to argue this you are forgetting that your precious toys still fall into "Unregulated Firearms". Which means "nothing changes." That's how any lawyer is going to defend paintball leagues that are sanctioned and pay big taxes to operate such businesses!

Kokanee already told you everything you need to know and understand about both this legal situation and arguing on ASC.

[venture]

Cameron, didn't you acknowledge that low power air guns are exempt from the firearms act and some of the cc? In that case, would the mag limits also be exempt?

[waylander]

I do have to agree with Cameron SS on one thing. While laws may not be changed, the courts, and the Supreme Court of Canada in particular, have the duty to interpret the laws and how they believe Parliament meant for those laws to be applied. So yes, a Supreme Court ruling can have an affect on everyone as they are the final arbiter of how a law is to be applied until and unless the law is changed due to other factors.

As far as I'm aware, the Supreme Court can have a law changed if they find that it's unconstitutional but otherwise all they do is interpret the written law to confirm how it will be applied.

Unless you live in Quebec, the courts consider precedent (called common law) and can and will apply old decisions to new cases, that's why there was so much dialogue on previous cases.

http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/just/03.html

Again, I don't feel like there's going to be any drastic changes to airsoft but to say there is no concern is also wrong as well.

[Dracheous]

SCC can't "change" law at all. They can only enforce it as per interpretation of the government issued policies. They can "strike" a law down based on the legal definitions of that law in regards to its constitutional application.

Nothing in this "ruling" is new. And if you think this is contrived you should look at some bylaws around the country. In Ottawa by application of the cities definition of "firearm" a nailgun is prohibited from discharge with in city limits!

[Enthusiast]

@waylander

Quebec dont use the common law, it use Civil code. But this is only aplly to civil cases. We have the same criminal code as every others provinces.

[Ricochet]

This ruling is meaningless anyways. The guy is arguing and interpreting law, that in his eyes, makes our airsoft guns a completely different classification, and with them, more restricted rules of ownership. If it was true, the court case wouldn't be needed for that. Many of us remember when airsoft was illegal, or at least in the grey, how they couldn't be imported, retailers getting busted, clear receivers, etc. The laws were/are amended to give airsoft its own set of standards, so we can exist in Canada. Things have become less restricted and not more, period. This court case happened because some guy allegedly threatened another human being with an pellet gun, and therefore committed a criminal offense, and they are making sure the appropriate repercussions are met. That's what the court case is about, not airsoft. Then some guy from CGN comes over here and posts information that we have gone over, in fine detail, for over a decade, and isn't intuitive enough to realize that we airsoft owners exist in Canada legally for a reason.

.....FU$&@IN' DOH!!!