What Is a Hunting Firearm? Video Chat With OFAH’s Matt DeMille on His New Report to Federal Court
TheGunBlog.ca — What is a hunting firearm?
It’s a simple question with high stakes in Canada.
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is threatening hundreds of thousands of hunters and other government-approved gun owners with criminal charges, police raids, and jail over the answer.
- Six groups of people targeted by Trudeau are fighting him in Federal Court over the answer.
So what is the answer?
DeMille: ‘You Can’t Generalize’
“You can’t generalize, you can’t stereotype,” Matt DeMille, Director of Policy and Programs for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH), told TheGunBlog.ca this week in a video interview.
DeMille spent 15 months researching the question for three of the cases in Federal Court to stop Trudeau’s May 2020 mass-criminalization Order in Council.
OFAH submitted DeMille’s 68-page report to the court in September, and shared it publicly two weeks ago.
From Simple to Sophisticated
“What is a hunting firearm? Well a hunting firearm is a firearm that’s used for hunting,” DeMille said. “That’s the simple answer.”
The answer didn’t satisfy him, so he kept digging.
- He analyzed the design, mechanics, function, size, legality, and other criteria of the firearms used by hunters across Canada.
- He also looked at their ammunition, including calibre, load, propellant, bullet construction, availability, and price.
He found the hunters targeted by Trudeau own rifles and shotguns that are “reasonable and proportionate” for hunting in Canada, challenging statements by the prime minister.
“What a hunting firearm is is so big and broad, and so subjective depending on everyone’s own experience, and where they hunt, what they hunt, how they hunt,” said DeMille.
“It’s important to not generalize,” he said. “Keep an open mind.”
For the Court and the Hunting Community
“This report has been filed with the courts to inform the court proceedings, but I also hope it can help to change the public conversation, including right here in the hunting community,” DeMille said.