RCMP Publishes Expanded List of Guns Ordered for Confiscation

TheGunBlog.ca — The RCMP, which controls private gun ownership in Canada, published an expanded list of the rifles and shotguns it’s preparing to confiscate from federally licensed owners and businesses.

The list of roughly 9,500 models follows rising criticism of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for secretly using its Firearms Reference Table to ban guns beyond the governing Liberal Party’s May 1 confiscation order.

Armalytics.ca has counted hundreds of new prohibitions that aren’t in the 1,500 models marked for destruction by the Liberals.

The RCMP bans new hunting and sporting guns every few days, instantly putting the owners at risk of prison.

Confiscation List Details

The RCMP’s hard-to-access, 839-page PDF ban list covers about 12 models per page.

Different makes, variations, calibres and barrel lengths of a given design appear as separate entries.

For example, the RCMP’s broadened, detailed table includes:

• hundreds or perhaps thousands of models of AR-15 target rifle
• more than 100 kinds of Springfield Armory M1A
• almost 50 versions of Ruger Mini-14
• about 20 variations of CZ 858
• 6 types of Smith & Wesson M&P 15-22 in .22LR

Why It Matters

• More than 100,000 of Canada’s 2.2 million adults with a federal firearm licence risk jail if they use the listed guns, or fail to surrender them to police by the deadline.
• Many hunters, farmers, ranchers, sport shooters and collectors don’t know if they are targeted or not.
• The confiscations specifically seek to criminalize the owners of 105,000 previously “Restricted” rifles, plus an unknown number who had previously “Non-restricted” rifles and shotguns. The Liberals and RCMP have declared their blacklisted models “Prohibited.”
• The ban order violates fundamental principles of ethics, justice and governance. At least four lawsuits have been filed to stop it.

What Is Listed

• Mostly centrefire rifles and carbines, more than a hundred shotgun models, and dozens of .22LR firearms that the RCMP said are “affected” by the May 1 confiscation decree.
• The ban list is a subset of the FRT.
• The RCMP said the list includes all the models to be seized as of May 26.

What Isn’t Listed

• New models that are being added.
• Other guns identified by the Liberal ban order, including more shotguns, any firearm “capable of” firing a projectile with more than 10,000 joules of energy. Legal experts say that includes 12-gauge shotguns, and almost every other firearm.

New Ban: Derya MK-12 Shotgun

• John Hipwell, the founder of Wolverine Supplies, said on Canadian Gun Nutz today the RCMP prohibited the popular Derya Arms MK-12 12-gauge shotgun. Hipwell is fighting the bans in court.

Minister of Confiscation

Minister Bill Blair, in charge of confiscation, has said repeatedly that the Liberal crackdown exempts shotgun owners.

Blair continues misleading hunters and Canadians on the secret ban of firearms – including shotguns. See details here: https://t.co/ItkXpvRdus#medhat @InfoCSAAA @CCFR_CCDAF pic.twitter.com/yQRx6d6I96

— Glen Motz (@GlenMotz) June 3, 2020

FRT Isn’t Law, But Has Force of Law

• While the FRT is a private catalogue that has no basis in law, the government, businesses, customs agents and the police use the database as if it were law.
• Stores consult it to decide what they are allowed to sell. Government staff and police use it to block exports, seize imports, confiscate firearms, and arrest and imprison the owners.
• The way the FRT is used violates basic principles of justice, such as the separation between lawmakers and law enforcers, as well regulatory clarity, predictability, transparency and accountability.

How to Download the Ban List

The list is hard to find and impossible to open without sufficiently powerful hardware and software.

Here’s how to get it from the RCMP:

1. Go to the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program web page for the Firearms Reference Table.
2. Under “Access to the FRT for the public,” click the link to download the 162 MB PDF of almost 100,000 pages.
3. Open the PDF. Note: Many computers will freeze or crash at this stage and will fail to open the document.
4. Go to page 2 of the PDF, and click the link that says: “Click here to view the newly prohibited firearms.”
5. This opens the 3.8 MB PDF confiscation list.

RCMP Comment

The Ottawa-based RCMP didn’t respond today to questions about when the expanded list was published and if a more accessible version will become available.

Catherine Fortin, a spokeswoman for the federal police, did respond by e-mail on June 12 to TheGunBlog.ca’s questions on the new prohibitions:

It is important to note that the Firearms Reference Table (FRT) is not a legal instrument but rather an administrative document created by the Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) firearms experts who have, based on criteria in the definitions found in section 84 of the Criminal Code and the supporting “Classification Regulations” (Regulations Prescribing Certain Firearms and other Weapons, Components and Parts of Weapons, Accessories, Cartridge Magazines, Ammunition and Projectiles as Prohibited or Restricted SOR/98-462) conducted technical assessments of firearms to assist law enforcement officers, customs officers, and officials responsible for the regulation of firearms with the identification and classification of firearms.

The FRT contains approximately 187,000 individual records and is updated regularly. The CFP has been working diligently to ensure that the FRT is updated to reflect all of the classification changes resulting from the Order in Council issued May 1st. This includes assessing variants of the newly prohibited principal models which, the CFP’s technical experts’ may determine to meet the new legal classification created by the Order in Council. The CFP is working as quickly as it can to ensure that these classification determinations are completed and that any changes be published in the FRT.

Any classification question on a specific firearm can be addressed by calling 1-800-731-4000.

[Source: RCMP, E-mail to TheGunBlog.ca, 12 June 2020]

RCMP Confiscation List at 26 May 2020

Related

• RCMP Deletes ‘Grandfathering’ Option From Web Page on Gun Bans
• Trudeau Just Killed My Trust in Government, the RCMP and the Law
• TheGunBlog.ca’s page on the Liberal Gun Bans
• Our coverage of the FRT

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Updates (Toronto Time)

• 19:40: Adds link to download PDF.
• 20:15: Adds RCMP comment.