Words By: Wally F.          Photos By: Wally F.

……….Member of Parliament Glen Motz for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner took the time out of his busy schedule to come to Calgary, not even remotely close to his riding to open a dialogue with Firearms owners regarding the current state of firearms in Canada.

……….Sponsored by the Canadian Coalition For Firearms Rights (CCFR) and hosted at the Calgary Shooting Centre (CSC) this open house which was held on Wednesday August 7th was conducted to a full house of concerned firearms owners from all stripes and walks of life.  I noted people from farms and rural areas in attendance, urban dwellers, blue collars folks, lawyers, other politicians, business owners, hunters, old, young, male, female, former law enforcement and so on.  A good cross section of Canadian firearms owners.

……….MP Motz quickly introduced himself and his brief background.  Growing up on a ranch near Hanna, Alberta and a 35 year career in policing he grow up around firearms and carried one most of his adult life as a tool for his law enforcement job.  As the Official Opposition Deputy Shadow Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Motz is the ideal candidate to keep the current government in check when comes to firearms legislation.

……….Post introduction he mentioned that earlier in the day he had already had a meeting with the Calgary Police Service to discuss the gang crime issue.  He transitioned his opening to ensure that this issue is not a Rural versus Urban, East versus West, or even a Hunter versus Sport shooter concern, the issue of firearms legislation spans across the whole gamut of firearms owners.

……….MP Motz quoted lawyer Solomon Friedman who he quickly noted that as a former police officer had no love for lawyers, but noted that Friedman had done some very good and in-depth analysis on Bill C-71’s lack of crime control measures and not a single mention of how to stem gang gun violence, also the misuse and misrepresentation of selected statistically data to further a general political agenda instead of forwarding the interests of actual public safety.

……….While the majority of firearms owners are fairly well versed with the laws surround gun ownership, at every single one of these town halls I attend I learn something new every time.  Topics such as how far back the RCMP conducts background checks is actually not set to just five or ten years but could run the gambit of your whole life as it is right now.  Much vaunted statistic reference years such as 2008 and 2013 are selected for specific reasons to skew data on presentation to the ill-informed.  Selective numerical trickery some have said.  Points were made of monies promised to combat crime in urban areas such as Toronto, the lower mainland in Vancouver, etc… with little mention of rural crime, regardless zero dollars to date have been allocated.

……….A piece of information I found interesting is that if a firearm is recovered by law enforcement in the commission of a crime with the serial numbers removed, whether it be by filing, scrapping, welding, stamped out, acid etched, etc… regardless of where the gun came from ie: The United States, that firearm is designated as a domestically sourced firearm, further inflating the statistical number of “Canadian” firearms recovered after a crime.  Even though fairly simple methods are used to recover serial numbers by way of steel etching gels or liquids or electron microscopes.  Not new technology either and it is proven technology that has been used to identify stolen vehicles and car parts for many years.  This method works on steel, aluminum, copper, even some plastics.

……….The topic of straw purchases were brought up by MP Motz and this clearly brought a sharp reaction from the crowd.  The idea that law abiding firearms owners are legally purchasing guns to sell to non-PAL or R/PAL holders is a preposterous idea to begin with because the extreme risk to the originating buyer and how firearms are already tracked literally lays all responsibility of purchased firearms on that person regardless of who uses the firearm.  MP Motz even threw out the number one or two thousand straw purchases, but when pressed for origin or source of that number, it could not be produced or verified.  That number would also be tracked and recorded as well with little effort by law enforcement, it’s just a matter of collating the data.  Seeing all two million plus PAL and R/PAL holders in Canada have their records checked in CPIC systems (Canadian Police Information Centre) every 24 hours why would a legal firearms owners risk a straw buy/sell relationship, especially since black market and street prices for firearms is significantly lowered than retail in most cases?  There is no advantage.

……….Points were brought up again that I have heard over and over again at other venues, discussions, and town halls, of the frustration with how the R.C.M.P. (allegedly) over reach legally when classifying and enforcing the Firearms Act.  Many people at the town hall were vocal on this topic, as they have been everywhere else.  Again checks and balances need to be explored and proper over sight put in place as discussed.

……….Mental health, education, prevention, gangs, and guns were all discussed to varying degrees.  It was generally agreed that a multi-disciplinary approach needs to be taken and that solution needs to be longitudinal over many years for it to be truly lasting as opposed to ram-jamming legislation ahead of an election.  While some in attendance were weary of distributing more funds to law enforcement, others agreed that money put back into subjects of hunter education, conservation, and safety, and even putting firearms safety as program back into a school curriculum like it used to be fifty plus years ago in Canada would help demystify what firearms actually are.

……….The CSC were a great host for providing a venue for this town hall in their Cinema Range.  The CCFR were excellent in hosting and actively moderating the discussion so it didn’t go off the rails.  Keep in mind that there are 98 Conservative MPs working for Canadian Firearms Owners interests as well.

……….The last point I wanted to bring up was an interesting idea brought up was from a business owners perspective on supply and demand of firearms and how it might be a more effective approach for law enforcement, law makers, and business owners to developed a better system that benefits everyone.  How we get to that end state is up in the air but as firearms owners it’s also up to us.

For your regular cravings in the firearms world in Canada and beyond be sure to follow TV-PressPass on Facebook and myself Wally F. on Instagram.

Reporting for TV-PressPass

Wally F.

Words by: Wally F.     Photos by: CCFR, Tracey Wilson, and Shaun Arntsen

……….I recently had the great pleasure of having an extended conversation with Tracey Wilson. Tracey is the Vice President of Public Relations for the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights or CCFR for short. The CCFR is an organization dedicated to giving Canadian firearms owners a voice in government and advocating for responsible and reasonable legislation for law abiding owners to continue to hunt, compete, and training in shooting sports.

……….Unlike the National Firearms Association (NFA) and the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA) who have been established and around for decades the CCFR are the new kids on the block. Only a couple of years old the CCFR has been plowing a straight line directly to government to advocate on firearm owners behalf by meeting directly with members of the current government such as the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness as well as people from the official opposition such as Michelle Rempel who is also an outspoken advocate for firearms owners in Canada.

……….Tracey and I spent well over an hour and a half talking shop, covering her background, the landscape of firearms ownership in Canada past, present, and future, what having a voice directly in Ottawa does for regular Joe Canada gun owner, what the CCFR is proactively doing in the firearms community, education, promotion, and new initiatives on the horizon. Tracey is so passionate about being a positive voice to firearms owners that it would be impossible for me to capture the essence of our conversation in just one article. So I’ll be rolling this out in multiple parts. Here’s some of that conversation below.

Wally F.: Tracey what is your history and background, how did you get involved in firearms before the CCFR?

Tracey Wilson: I am the only in house registered lobbyist for gun rights in Canada and I’m the VP of Public Relations [for the CCFR]. I’ve been shooting for about twenty years now… we’d go shoot our rifles and shotguns… hunting is only a certain season right, and especially in Quebec the season is pretty short for [hunting]. The more I got in to it, I started thinking you know I’m a small person I’m 5’2” and I find sometimes these guns are not designed for smaller people… I got together with some friends and started going to the range and I was trying their handguns. It’s a lot harder than it looks, gang bangers in movies doing their drive-by shootings and I always laugh… it’s not that easy, it’s really difficult to hit your targets sometimes right.

WF: It’s hard enough to hit a man-sized target on a square range consistently let alone in a moving vehicle.

TW: Oh yeah, it’s pretty out there… So I started shooting handguns and I basically had no formal training in it at all. So Trevor Furlotte he runs Slam Fire Radio and also a big gun guy in the community and a CCFR director, he was running a Black Badge course in New Brunswick and I thought I’ll go try that. It was a lot of work. We had to practice for days and days, because here I am taking a Black Badge with limited experience. But I got the hang of it and I really loved this.

TW: The whole thing that got me into advocacy was… I was living on the Ontario side in Ottawa and my hunting cottage was out in Quebec. I would be driving with Ontario plates up to the cottage in Quebec with firearms in my truck. I would always be targeted by [law enforcement] in Quebec and I started getting really annoyed with it. So I started to get involved with the NFA and CSSA and there was a big group of us that felt there was a big void in advocacy… we found there was no big push on public image or public relations and even the lobbying was really cold. We started with tinkering with the idea of creating a PR arm for the firearms community. We started pulling people in, I’d like go out and head-hunt the most innovative people, I didn’t want it to be the same old song and dance, we’ve kind of had 30 years of bad branding. I head-hunted Rod Giltaca and Michael Loberg and Jamie Elliott. People we found, and saw what they did. Rod is an excellent instructor, so rational and so likeable so easy to talk to so believable that I think that this is really something.

TW: We started small, we incorporated in August of 2015. We spent a lot of the time building our by-laws [and] putting out a set of public facing policies [that] nobody else has done. So that way when people [ask] where does the CCFR stand on concealed carry I can literally just pull out a link [online] and say ‘Here you go!’ this is our official stance. We did that for a number of topics. There’s fifteen policies in total. We wanted to put that whole framework together because there had been a few other attempts by people in the community to do these little start up organizations but without a solid foundation and a network… You’ve got to have a plan. We started small we open the doors for memberships in October of 2015 and we’ve gone to a size comparable to the other organizations. This is purely organic because a lot of the memberships in a lot of the other organizations are club memberships. My CSSA membership, I’m forced to buy that as a condition of being a member of my club. It’s pretty easy to accumulate large memberships when you’re capitalizing on the entire gun range [memberships] some have 1500 members or more.

WF: So you’re artificially inflating their membership based on just where people can shoot.

TW: That’s 100% right, so when they talk about the strength of their organization literally the vast majority of their members are forced to be members just for insurance purposes through their range.

TW: We want to do things a little differently, so we created the Explainer videos. Here’s the thing, you can have an organization and have a figure head and they’re the voice of your community and you assume they are out there representing you well and speaking for you and speaking on behalf of you, but it’s a lot more powerful to have hundreds, thousands of those. So we thought we want gun owners to be able to have the tools in their toolbox to advocate and debate effectively on their own. We are also a voice for them, but this has got to be a group effort, you can’t rely on one person or one board of directors to advocate for 2.2 million people right?

TW: So we started with the Explainer videos it was completely Rod’s baby it was his dream child he thought them up. We put those into production, they were extremely expensive, but these are the kind of projects that I think finances should be allocated to. We’re able to do that because we’ve kept it largely volunteer based, we have one staff and that’s me. Everybody else volunteers their time, we have that benefit of being able to allocate the majority of member dollars right in projects that literally [and] directly benefit them. So it’s a little bit [of a] different mindset, it’s hard because when people are volunteers you can only demand so much of them. We’ve got people that are putting in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of hours on [working] for free. …It’s a completely different thing when you jump in to it yourself and see what it’s all about.

……….This is just scratching the tip of the iceberg with my conversation with Tracey. It was very apparent to me early on in our discussion that she is laser focused like a PEQ-15 on clear representation of gun owners with the government, pushing a transparent mission statement, and actively working on educating not only non-firearms owners, but gun owners as well on what the CCFR is all about and they can do for Canadians. To take a more in-depth look at the one of the many resources that the CCFR provides such as the Explainer videos check them out here: http://gundebate.ca/ .

……….In the next part of my interview with Tracey we’ll be discussing the current work she’s doing lobbying the government, working as one of the few if not only females in the firearms community, public misconceptions about guns, and winning over Canadian’s one person at a time towards responsible firearms ownership.

For your regular cravings in the firearms world in Canada and beyond be sure to follow TV-PressPass on Facebook and myself Wally F. on Instagram.

Reporting for TV-PressPass

Wally F.

They’ve got two announcement videos, one with lots of content and one with lots of shooting, but here’s the core concept of the setup:

Your safe is still safe, your semi is still a strictly mechanical milspec trigger pull, but your third safety position puts the trigger into digital mode. In digital mode, the grip safety must be engaged, and the trigger pull is ~1lb with no take up. You can also set the digital mode to a “shot on pull” and “shot on release” mode.

If you’re on the Push & Release mode, and don’t want to fire that second shot, holding the trigger depressed for six seconds stop that followup shot from being discharged.

So the digital system is battery powered, the the two buttons on the rear of the grip set your single shot or Push & Release mode. The grip safety also has to be engaged before the trigger in pulled in order for the gun to fire.

I’m sure the ATF is wetting their pants right now, but this isn’t all that dissimilar from the Push & Release mechanical triggers we’ve seen before.

Currently we’ve got no MSRP, and no official release date, although there is a mailing list signup open. It looks like the company made their first online appearance as recently as November 7th this year. I’d bet my month’s earnings that we’ll be hearing more about this system at Shot Show 2017.

What do you think users? This definitely strikes me as a different look at the “electronic smart gun” concept. I appreciate that the core mechanical system of a proper trigger is retained, but I can just imagine people trying to hack these apart and enable a true full auto mode. Or who knows, maybe in 2017 we’ll see a repeal of the Hughes Amendment and a firmware update pushed live to all these guns enabling full-auto fun-times. A man can dream…

Like the Vz58, the Type 81 is chambered in 7.62×39 and might resemble a Kalashnikov from a few hundred meters away. But this hybrid rifle is actually closer to the venerated SKS than the quintessential AK, and as a result has been deemed not a variant of any currently prohibited rifles.

The original Type 81 was the issued assault rifle of the Peoples Liberation Army in China, but this new civilian made variant is a dedicated semi-auto produced by Norinco, and destined for the Canadian market.

Developed in the 1980s, the Type 81 features a last round bolt hold open, a short-stroke piston system, and a barrel designed for spigot-style rifle grenades. While it does use a proprietary rock-and-lock magazine, rumour is that these rifles will function with AK pattern magazines at the expense of the bolt hold open feature.

So far Tactical Imports and Canada Ammo have both confirmed that they will be importing versions of the Type 81, but I suspect we’ll see many more dealers coming on board with these new red-rifles.

No, I don’t know the MSRP, so you are free to guess wildly at possible price points. Personally I’ll be very curious to try this new rifle out next to the Vz58s and compare.

My buddy Alex over at The Firearm Blog recently got his hands on one of the few Type 81 prototypes that slipped into the USA before the Clinton ban shut down all Chinese imports. He takes a close look at the internals in this video:

And if you’d like to read a huge magazine feature on the Type 81, Timonthy T. Yan has authored this great piece from Red Star Arms

www.redstararms.com/type81.pdf

I was wondering how my shotgun would be affected with the announcement back in December that the Derya Mk10 was non-restricted. The Akdal is almost identical to the Derya, but was listed as an AR variant for the last several years. Here’s my video review after a few seasons of 3-Gun.

Now, when you check the legal notes in the FRT database relating to the Mka 1919 you see the following:

“While the exterior of this model resembles the AR “family,” there is no direct lineage that this is exclusive to the AR15/M16 design. This model design could also easily be linked to the Armalite Division of Fairchild Aircraft AR10 design.”

That little snippet is doubly interesting, because it may have implications for the AR10 platform as a whole. I don’t want to jump the gun here, but I get a sneaking suspicion this is not the only firearm moving towards deregulation. The original AR10 was a very different firearm than the M16 successor, and modern firearms that can draw a linkage back to that original design might be in for some good news.

Until we know more, I’ll be taking my Akdal outdoors for some winter camping and skeet blasting.

A flurry of announcements yesterday solidified for me the idea that’s been floating around for years: all of the coolest shotguns in this country and coming out of Turkey right now. They’re doing things that no one else is, making them at an affordable price, and exporting them.

The big reveal is that the RCMP has ruled several versions of the Uzkon BR99 to be non-restricted. Expect to see guns from Trigger Wholesale, O’Dell Engineering, and Corwin Arms all coming out in 2016.

The BR99 is a piston driven semi-auto 12 gauge shotgun that feeds from a detachable box magazine. The idea is to bring the advantages of rifle controls and manipulations to a shotgun platform. The fact that it’s a non-restricted firearm is just icing on the cake. These guns are excellent options in 3-Gun competitions. The simple reload and semi-auto speed are crucial advantages when the clock is on.

Additionally, Trigger Wholesale has confirmed that their AS46 family of pump guns are good for import too. The AS46 are a series of short barrelled box mag guns, offered with a variety of stocks. The big news is that as a manual action firearm, there’s no restriction on magazine capacity for them. Trigger Wholesale is planning on including 10 round magazines, and I’ll bet even bigger ones are a possibility.

Looking at the wide range of interesting things coming out of Turkey, I’m struck by two major questions: First, are they all using a consistently standard pattern of magazine? And two: my Akdal Mka 1919 appears to use a very similar gas system to these new guns. Is it still restricted as an AR-15 variant? I’ll have to wait to get my hands on a BS99 and see how similar they really are.

But even looking past those new guns, the Turks have been sending us cool stuff for years.

I already own an Akdal Mka 1919, the 12 gauge shotgun that is restricted as an AR-15 variant. I’ve also got a SAP-6 in the safe: a compact, modular shotgun with capacity that far outstrips anything else on the market. Yes, even the Kel Tec. With a magazine coupler and 11 round mags, you can be sitting at a full 23 rounds of 12 gauge on and in the gun.

The former Ottoman Empire is also behind the UTAS dual tube pump-gun. Regardless of whether that unusual critter is your cup of tea or not: you have to admit there’s some serious outside the box thinking coming together to make that gun come together. What’s more, it’s got the high profile looks to make it a popular choice in Hollywood. I was pleased to spot one getting eaten in Jurassic World this summer.

The diverse base of manufacturers in Turkey definitely have a grip on the tactical market. Some of their products (specifically ironsights) are a little rough, or a little over the top, but they’re definitely headed in the right direction. I find it interesting that after years of US companies like Winchester selling us Turkish guns with US names on them, that we’re starting to go direct to the source and tap into the wide range of options.

Owners of expensive Italian shotguns often decry Turkish manufacturers as being “low-grade” and compare them to Chinese guns in terms of fit and finish. But I think that’s a massively unfair characterization, and that the range of options and affordable price vastly outweighs most issues of final polish. If I were suggesting a shotgun to a new shooter, I don’t think the old standard of “Mossberg or Remington” applies anymore. Not when you can get twice the gun for half the price.

I’ve got a few in the safe already. But I’m excited to add a few more and see what these new offerings out of Istanbul are like.

Despite some recent social media surrounding Beowulf magazines, the CSAAA is confirming that no ban on the sale of these magazine in Canada has been issued by the R.C.M.P. or the Minister of Public Safety at this time.

All six 50 Beowulf firearms FRT numbers remain listed as legal with a five round capacity and retailers should continue to sell this product at this time:

#121656 Alexander Arms
#124566 Alexander Arms
#128962 MGI
#122716 Stag Arms
#136602 VLtor Arms

A recent letter from the R.C.M.P. addressed to Aztech Armoury in response to a denial of their International Import Certificate for these magazines was shared via social media and has caused widespread speculation that the magazines themselves have been banned. This was a private letter to one company regarding one shipment, not a Special Bulletin.

The CSAAA continues to work with the office of the Minister of Public Safety regarding this issue and will release further updates as needed.

Original Post

Well, that was awfully quick. Less than 30 days into a new government and things are moving.

Credit for this little burst of bad news goes to Calibre. It’s worth heading over there to read it.

http://calibremag.ca/home/2015/11/rcmp-prohibit-50-beowulf-magazines/

The raw text of the RCMP letter to Aztech Armory explaining their position is here:

In the case of AR platform rifles chambered for 50 Beowulf calibre, the magazine is adapted from the original 5.56×45 NATO version of the magazine, generally by one or more of the following: widening the space between the magazine lips, changing the angle of the magazine lips and changing the feed angle of the magazine follower.

The adaptations more efficiently feed the much larger diameter 50 Beowulf calibre cartridge. However, the original ability to contain and feed 5.56×45 mm NATO cartridges has not been deleted and the magazines remain serviceable for that purpose.

The 50 Beowulf cartridge is centrefire and the AR platform rifles which use that calibre are semiautomatic. Thus, cartridge magazines for 50 Beowulf calibre firearms are prohibited if more than five 50 Beowulf cartridges can be contained in the magazine (subparagraph ii, as above).

Magazines for the AR platform which contain four or five 50 Beowulf calibre cartridges present a more complicated situation. Such magazines will generally contain 11 and 14 cartridges respectively of 5.56×45 mm NATO (or 223 Remington) calibre.

Since the 50 Beowulf calibre magazines are adapted from the original 5.56×45 mm NATO design and the ability of the magazine to perform as originally designed has not been compromised by the adaptation, such magazines are prohibited if they contain more than five 5.56×45 mm NATO cartridges. The magazines are in effect dual calibre magazines and will be prohibited if they exceed five shots capacity of either calibre.

Magazines have recently been manufactured in, or imported into Canada bearing markings suggesting they are exclusively designed for 50 Beowulf ammunition, and at four or five shot capacity, are non-prohibited magazines. This is simply not the case. All magazines for 50 Beowulf calibre AR platform firearms presently on the Canadian market are prohibited devices.

AR Platform Upper Receivers

You had also asked about 50 Beowulf calibre AR upper receivers. Your understanding is correct that they are not prohibited.

Yours Sincerely,
Manager,
Specialized Firearms Support Services
Firearms Investigative and Enforcement Support Services Directorate
Canadian Firearms Program
Specialized Policing Services

I wanted to expand on that a little bit with the actual text from party platforms as far as firearms are concerned…

The Conservatives:

This comes from their policy declaration in November 2, 2013.

96. Firearms

A Conservative Government is committed to cost-effective gun control programs designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while respecting the rights of law-abiding Canadians to own and use firearms responsibly.

Measures will include: mandatory minimum sentences for the criminal use of firearms; strict monitoring of high-risk individuals; increased enforcement and prosecution of smuggling; safe storage provisions; firearms safety training; a certification screening system for all those wishing to acquire firearms legally; and putting more law enforcement officers on our streets.

We recognize the legitimacy of private ownership of firearms and will resist any domestic or international pressure to the contrary.

From the Conservative Party 2015 campaign plan:

The Penalties for the Criminal Possession of Firearms Act will restore mandatory minimum penalties for the illegal possession of a loaded prohibited or restricted firearm, such as fully automatic weapons, sawed-off rifles, or handguns, for the purpose of committing a serious offence or in a place where there is a real risk of harm to innocent bystanders. This will apply the full force of the law to offenders who engage in serious criminal behavior while exempting law-abiding gun owners who store their weapons legally.

The Liberals:

There’s been a lot of good deconstruction of this platform already. I’ll let the document speak for itself.

We will take action to get handguns and assault weapons off our streets.

We will take pragmatic action to make it harder for criminals to get, and use, handguns and assault weapons. We will:

• repeal changes made by Bill C-42 that allow restricted and prohibited weapons to be freely transported without a permit, and we will put decision-making about weapons restrictions back in the hands of police, not politicians;
• provide $100 million each year to the provinces and territories to support guns and gangs police task forces to take illegal guns off our streets and reduce gang violence;
  modify the membership of the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee to include knowledgeable law enforcement officers, public health advocates, representatives from women’s groups, and members of the legal community;
• require enhanced background checks for anyone seeking to purchase a handgun or other restricted firearm;
• require purchasers of firearms to show a license when they buy a gun, and require all sellers of firearms to confirm that the license is valid before completing the sale;
• require firearms vendors to keep records of all firearms inventory and sales to assist police in investigating firearms trafficking and other gun crimes;
• immediately implement the imported gun marking regulations that have been repeatedly delayed by Stephen Harper;
• and
  as part of our investment in border infrastructure, invest in technologies to enhance our border guards’ ability to detect and halt illegal guns from the United States entering into Canada.

We will not create a new national long-gun registry to replace the one that has been dismantled.

We will ensure that Canada becomes a party to the international Arms Trade Treaty.

The NDP:

The only reference to firearms in the NDP official 2015 election platform is contained in their safe communities section:

The NDP’s plan for safer communities starts with an investment in more front-line police officers.

It is boots on the ground that help to fight crime, not empty Conservative promises.

Stephen Harper’s plan is failing and despite years of his ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric, the number of police officers per capita in Canada has been on the decline.

For example, this past spring Stephen Harper promised the people of Surrey, BC, additional RCMP support to help address the city’s increasing concerns over guns and gang violence, but he has failed to deliver.

To help police protect our communities, the NDP will:

Work with provinces, territories, municipalities and Indigenous communities to provide stable, ongoing funding to put 2,500 new officers on the streets and keep them there.

In addition, the NDP will boost community safety in Canada by:
Providing the Canada Border Services Agency with additional support to make our borders more efficient for travellers, and secure for all Canadians. Ensuring that communities have the resources they need to invest in crime prevention and anti-gang programs – especially those designed for youth – by investing an additional $30 million.

Giving police the tools they need to do their job by tackling the backlog in the Canadian Police Information Centre database, known as CPIC, a national tool for police and prosecutors to check the criminal history of suspects and those charged with or convicted of new offences.

The Libertarians:

While I don’t think the Libertarian party is about to form a government anytime soon, they’re position is one of a kind.

Gun Ownership:

The official position of the Libertarian Party of Canada is to remove the prohibitions and legislative obstacles for the ownership of guns by peaceful citizens for the purposes of recreation, self-defence and hunting.

If elected, the Libertarian Party of Canada would:

• Repeal section 91 and 92 of the Criminal Code to make responsible gun possession legal
• Revise the legal definition of weapon and firearm to reflect that guns are tools when in the hands of qualified civilians
• Eliminate the provincial and territorial Chief Firearms Offices as a cost saving mechanism and transfer responsible gun ownership to a certification based system
• Eliminate the unfair search and seizure provisions under the Firearms Act and reverse the onus provisions so that citizens are not labelled criminals before their day in court

The Green Party makes zero reference to firearms in their 2015 policy document, but as mentioned in the video, have gone on record recently with a surprisingly positive position.

That’s it! Make sure you vote!

This new rifle is a joint project between Wolverine Supplies in Virden Manitoba and Česká zbrojovka in the city of Uherský Brod, Czech Republic. With two major additions, they’ve improved the rifle and tailored its design to Canadian law.

You can read the rest of my review on The Firearm Blog…

It does share some design concepts and even some components with the AR, but one could easily argue that it also shares concepts with the M14 (one bullet after another) and even more with the Brown Bess Musket (making a small piece of lead go very fast in one direction.) The point being that comparing guns is a rabbit hole that can easily go in circles. It’s part of the issue we face when Canadian law talks about things like “variants” but doesn’t define them.

But the Modern Hunter differs from the AR in some key ways. A side-folding charging handle, a proprietary gas block, and a proprietary bolt all integrate into the unique upper and lower system that means no part of the Modern Hunter can interface with an AR-15 upper or lower.

 

How exactly did this rifle qualify as non-restricted?

The RCMP compared the Modern Hunter to an early model AR-10, and a late model Armalite AR-10, and noted where they are similar and where they differ, and published an inspection report.

The Modern Hunter uses an AR-10 modular trigger pack produced by Timney Triggers. This drop in system means that the Modern Hunter does not have a trigger pin hole in the receiver.

The RCMP notes that the Modern Hunter shares things like the bolt release, magazine release, safety selector, and recoil buffer system. But those things aren’t the deciding factor: uppers and lowers are.

Rather than using an AR-15 hinged design, the Modern Hunter upper mates to a tapered trunnion inside the lower receiver. The upper slides onto the trunnion, and a cross pin up front holds it in place. So rather than punching pins and the upper lifting free, the Modern Hunter requires you to pop the front pin, break the suction on the trunnion, and slide the upper forward and up.

 

This means you no longer get the speedy bolt access by punching the rear pin of an AR-15 and flipping it forward, but it also means that no AR upper or lower can mate with the Modern Hunter. The placement of the trunnion inside the Modern Hunter lower will block the rear take-down lug of an AR-15 upper.

The sloping profile of the receivers also means that the Modern Hunter upper cannot fit onto an AR-15 lower. This saves it from the fate of guns like my Akdal MKA1919, a gas operated shotgun that shares no AR parts, but can be forced to fit onto an AR-15 lower.

 

The Modern Hunter uses SR-25 pattern mags, and ships with a Magpul .308 Pmag. Theoretically it is also compatible with the XCR-M pistol magazines imported by Wolverine Supplies. ATRS has no plans to produce a pistol variant of their own. In fact, they are explicitly shunning short barrels and build-it-at-home parts kits to ensure that no restricted variant ever needs needs to be registered with the RCMP.

It is not some miraculous stroke of luck that this rifle meets the non-restricted requirements in Canada. The Modern Hunter is an example of exquisite design carefully tailored to Canadian law, changing the way we think about black rifles and variants.