I'm Travis Bader and this is The
Silvercore Podcast.
Join me as I discuss matters related to
hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits
with the people in businesses that comprise
of the community.
If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to
check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where
you can learn more about courses, services,
and products we offer.
As well as how you can join The Silvercore Club,
which includes 10 million in North America wide
liability insurance, to ensure you are properly
covered during your outdoor adventures.
Before we get rolling with this episode, I'd
like to do a little bit of housecleaning and to
that end, I would like to remind everybody
that if they're enjoying The Silvercore Podcast,
if they like what they hear, let us know, leave
a comment, click like, subscribe, tell your
friends, you can find The Silvercore Podcasts
on all major podcast providers out there.
We're also on YouTube and you can find us
social media and speaking about different social
media platforms, we're also on clubhouse now,
so if Silvercore Club members are interested
partaking in a live podcast on clubhouse.
We'd asked for two things; number one,
let us know, number two, let us know
how to use clubhouse so we can do this.
Now without further ado, today I'm joined by the
director of directions for International
Barrels, the makers of high quality
premium grade rifle barrels, Ryan Steacy.
How's it going?
Ryan, welcome back to The Silvercore Podcast.
Thanks.
As well, we've got the publisher and owner of
Calibre Magazine, Calibre Magazine's going into
its 10th year producing Canadian firearms
content, top drawer, premium quality magazine.
If you're a member of some organizations,
I believe the CSSA is one of them, you will
already be getting the Calibre Magazine.
Thank you for joining us today, Daniel Fritter.
Hey Travis, long time no talk.
Yeah, it has been a while, hasn't it?
Yeah, I mean, it's been like years, man, when I
was going down there and dropping off magazines
back in the day.
I remember that.
In fact, right, we're talking off air here,
but our first meeting happened right here
in the podcast studio, that was my office.
Before we turned into the podcast studio.
Yeah.
And for those that are listening to maybe
not know, Silvercore, obviously based at
a Delta and Calibre started up based out
of Delta as well.
And our office was, I think about 10
minutes away from your guys's office.
And about 12 minutes away from the brewery,
that's down the street from your guys's office.
Yes, good times.
I need one of those near IBI.
Yes, you do.
Hey, you talk to those Four Winds guys
around the corner from Travis' place, they
make some good beer.
Well, I'm really glad to be able to
be chatting with you again here, Daniel.
It's bill C-21 particularly that
kind of got us talking offline here, and
then we thought.
You know, you've got some pretty good insight.
You're a sharp cookie, you're a smart guy,
you got some good insight that I figured
that The Silvercore Podcast listeners
would like to hear.
And Ryan and I are both affiants on
the order in council firearms prohibition
and have a little bit of insight from that
perspective; providing the court's information
so that they can make the best available
decision with all the information available.
And I guess.
You know, Dan, you were, you spoke at the
Senate about bill C-71.
So I'm going to have to throw in a big
old disclaimer at the front of this.
None of us are lawyers, but we're going to spend
some time just sort of openly discussing
different ideas, different viewpoints
in regards to some of the recent legislation,
policy regulations that have been coming down
the pipe, and then we'll just see it from a few
different perspectives and see if we can kind of
get ourselves caught up on, up to where C-21 is.
Sounds good.
Well, I mean to take it back to C-71, I
think, you know, the problems there.
Uh, I mean, as you said, we're none of
us are lawyers, but Ian Runkle is one.
I think we've all seen a lot of his content and,
uh, I think we can all probably say with some
degree of confidence that the people responsible
for drafting this bill, maybe weren't the best
of lawyers, if they were lawyers at all.
Um, or conversely, you know, cause I'm, I'm
aware that there will be some lawyer out there
that works for the crown that may watch this and
goes, wow, that Dan guys' a dick, I worked really
hard, but that other guy.
He sucked!
He wouldn't give me any lee way.
Um, cause I think that's probably closer to
the truth is, uh, with C-21, I mean I've done
a video already, but for those that don't know,
my personal attitude is that, um, it comes down
to a scheduling conflict.
Cause this bill was introduced, I haven't
checked the calendar as of right now, but we're
still in the latter half of the month.
So it should be sitting months.
So for those that don't know the parliamentary
calendar for the house of commons, generally
they seat, or they sit half the month.
Uh, it's typically been the last
half of the month.
Um, and before everyone says, Oh,
lazy parliamentarian, they're actually very
hardworking people, even some of the liberal
MPS are incredibly hardworking individuals
that serve their constituents very well.
And to do so that requires spending time
in their constituency.
So they spend half their time back home and half
the time in Ottawa.
So it makes total sense.
Um, but that means that they only get
half the time to actually do government
business in Ottawa.
They can't vote or debate or have parliamentary
procedure progress without the parliament
actually sitting.
And obviously even with these weird hybrid
sessions that they're having the calendars,
the calendar, they can't take days out
of that calendar.
It's actually part of the way the
parliament is managed.
When Justin Trudeau announced C-21, there was
only 55 days left in the parliamentary calendar.
Um, There's less than we're into the
forties now, I think.
Um, so it's dwindling.
They said that second reading is going to
happen sometime later this week, which I
will confess, you know, obviously as a gun
owner, I don't think there's any gun owner
up there that wouldn't be able to get out of
a psychologist chair without at least some
degree of generalized anxiety diagnosis.
Um, but I mean, I hear these headlines and you
get the little heart flutter of, Oh shit
maybe it's real, but um.
Oh, can we swear on this pathway?
Is that allowed?
Swear away.
Okay.
It might happen accidentally, but we'll
keep it to a minimum.
Um, yeah, it may not happen, uh,
or might happen.
But then I think the reality is 55 days for
those that don't know.
So you got your first reading in the house of
commons, second reading in the house of commons.
Typically not much happens between those
two, especially with government bills
because private members bills and government
bills, government bills are backed, but the
government probably member's bills or smaller
bills that a private member puts out that
the government may or may not have consulted
on dramatically.
Typically private member's bills
don't make it.
Government bills are the big ones that are policy.
So this is a government bill, they've got lots
of background on it.
So private member's bills being first and second
reading, they do see some degree of editing.
Because someone may read it and go, someone
across the isle will go, you're an idiot, this
is unconstitutional, illegal, whatever, and
they'll make a change and they'll give it a
second reading in the house just to say, I'm
serious about this.
I've made the edits right.
Now it'll be read the second time.
Obtaining a second reading is very easy
on the calendar.
It gets really tricky to get the third reading
because between second and third, and you have
the committee stage.
Where the parliamentary committee on, um, I
believe the parliamentary committee is the
national national security public safety.
Um, I think parallels the Senate committee.
Uh, and that committee is comprised of MPS,
the makeup of it reflects that of the
house of commons.
So it is a minority committee with
liberals chairing it.
Um, but this is where it'll get messy is
because, you know, even if they can get
the second reading, which they obviously
will this week, it's just a scheduling
thing, they don't have to discuss anything.
But once they put it into the committee, uh,
the committee schedule actually, for example,
WE, the, WE scandal's a great example of this.
Remember how, like we were seeing all those
headlines progress and progress and progress,
and then it hit committee and it stopped.
Like it just, you heard nothing else about, WE.
Same as SNC, it was committee committee
committee, and then it just stopped because
although the liberals do control the committee
and they can bring things to a stop,
they don't have the majority to, to progress
things beyond that.
So things just get parked in committee.
So like the WE scandal is still being heard in
the committee because the liberals can't move
on, but they have enough people to stop progress.
And we're going to see the same thing here,
because I mean, this is the bill that determines,
this is a multi-billion dollar buyback, the
government has to know this at some level.
None of the scheduling makes sense.
So, you know, to go back to the main point, you've
got 40 days to get this through a committee where
the Bloc Québécois will try and be painting the
Liberals into a corner to say, if the gun
buyback isn't mandatory, it's not a buyback.
So the Liberals will have to be doing some
kind of politicking with the Bloc.
The NDP doesn't know how they're going to stand
because they're probably pulling on it still to
figure out, you know, where do we, is it bad.
Because in the political scheme, basically, you
got the three levels of rollback, which is
what the CPC wants to do is roll it back,
stop the buyback.
Then you've got the liberals that are,
it's a buyback, but you can keep your stuff.
Um, and obviously for gun owners, we look at
that and go, well, maybe we get to keep it down
the road, who knows?
Um, and then the other one is the
mandatory buyback.
And then the last one beyond that is
mandatory seizure.
Right.
Of no compensation seizure.
Now that is an, that's a thing.
Gun owners need to realize there are people
out there that want that, so like, don't forget
that's on the table.
Cause people do start to, they shift the goalpost
and they forget like, no, the goal was always
this wide guy's, like.
Right.
We've got to worry about those things.
Um, and because there's the rumored election
coming up in June or the fall and minority
governments only last 450 days on average,
this one's already passed the average
minority government expiry date in Canada.
No minority government, I think actually one
minority government has gone the full four
term, but it was once and it was like in the
forties or something, extremely extenuating
circumstances.
So long story short, I just don't see this
bill beating Justin Trudeau's next election
writ because he has his, when you think of Justin
Trudeau's priorities, winning the last
election is like here.
And you've got your hand up high.
Actually banning guns, way higher.
Yes.
Um, and then his actual gun stuff is way lower.
So this is just to get votes.
So what I think he's going to do, uh,
this is just my, this is conjecture.
From someone who's watched politics on guns
for 10 years, what I think is going to happen
is they're going to run this thing through as
close as they can get.
They're going to put as much effort into getting
it as close to the finish line, and then they're
going to drop the writ and they're going to
try and drop the writ on some sort of leverage
legislation or policy to try and make it look
like the Liberals are not the ones asking
for this election.
Then they're going to campaign on the notion
that the Conservatives demanded the selection.
The Conservatives killed off the gun ban bill, the
Conservatives canceled the buyback and you got
to vote Liberal to keep the buyback on rails is
what I think they'll do.
Because I think this because also too, when
you look past this and you go, where do
they go beyond this?
What's the next selection promise?
If they pass this law, what do they promise the
anti-gun people next?
Because they're not going to just let
those people swim away from the voting block.
Like they're there in the sales funnel for
the Liberal party.
They're not just going to be like, okay, well
we're done with you, you can go vote for
whoever you want now.
They have to keep those people on the line.
So, and there's nothing past this, they
can't ban handguns, the bill's too big.
There's 2 million of them, it was too much,
it's just not worth it.
Like, I don't think any government wants to go
down that road of buying 2 million handguns.
Like the bill would be huge, but just
fundamentally it's, it's something on the
balance sheet no one wants politically.
Well, the, on the balance of probabilities here
and on that spectrum that you've already
pointed out, buy back might not be necessary.
I mean, it depends on when you say it, cause
you always have to look at these, whenever I look
at stuff now with the gun laws, it's the question
of, do you look at it from the perspective of
what will this do from a legislative / punitive
/ enforcement perspective versus what will this
do at the ballot box?
Because so much of the legislation and
policy that's come out of this government.
And I'm not just saying this, this isn't, I'll be
totally blunt, I'm not an overly partisan person.
I'm not a big fan of the liberals because I
work in the gun industry obviously and I don't
like the way they govern our country in general.
But, um, so don't, I don't want people to
think this is a partisan snipe, but generally
speaking, this government has not been terribly
effective at governing for the last five years.
We have not passed many actual laws.
They have not actual, like I mean, they
haven't changed much.
Gun owners are a prime example of like, I know
our lives will change dramatically and it's
a huge, huge concern and we are at, we are
at the brink of losing all of our guns, but
I'll be blunt, it took six years to get here.
Like six years.
This government has been promising to do
this for six years.
It took them six years to do this, you know?
There, they don't too much, very
quickly do they.
No.
Um, So it's one of those kind of, this idea
that the government is suddenly going to go from
a government that has passed, you know, some of
the smallest volumes of legislation in history to
passing the largest and most sweeping and most
expensive piece of gun control legislation in
Canada's history in less than 40 days, during a
global pandemic strikes me as far as far fetched.
Is there any way that they can push it through
with a different method other than, uh, I
mean, obviously you can't do the OIC again,
but is there another way they can do it?
He can't OIC this, cause technically speaking
on the, uh, legally, uh, they can OIC things
that are regulation.
So they can OIC the AR-15 because it's, it's
a reg like the document is called regulations.
Uh, it's not legislation, it's not an act.
They can OIC acts as well, but the thing
with OIC's is you can't OIC anything that
involves procurement.
If there is a dollar bill attached value,
it has to go through the house of commons
because, OIC's are intended to change typos.
That's OIC's legal intention for the
Parliamentary procedure was literally, cause
all of Canada's laws are passed in English and
French, and sometimes when they do the French
translations, the words don't quite match up.
And you can end up with laws that say like,
you can't ride your horse down the street,
meaning you can't ride your turtle down the
street or something stupid like that.
Obviously I don't speak French cause someone
to Quebec, those words mean nothing alike.
Um, BC guy.
Um, but like that's what OIC's are supposed to be
for, cause they didn't want to have the host
of common sitting and having 338 paid MP's go
like, yeah, we want to correct the typo on page
284 of the criminal code.
So they said the privy council was supposed
to have the right to just change small,
inconsequential things in general, and then that
expanded out into this regulatory framework,
but it hasn't expanded into procurement.
And thankfully the one thing people also
should think about, um, the only reason that
Justin Trudeau can't do this is because the
Conservative party and even the NDP even, but
mostly the Conservative party made a massive
issue out of the Liberal party, trying to pass
that bill early on in the pandemic that would
have given the Liberal party, both taxation
and spending powers.
Because what it would take for Justin Trudeau
to pass this unilaterally would be essentially
the modern version of the war measures act,
which is what they were looking at, passing
early in the pandemic.
And the government basically said, we're
going to pass this, but we're not going to give
you the spending ability and the taxing ability
to just tax and spend however the government
wants because that's that's pretty crazy.
Um, but if he had gotten that, then yes, this
bill could have just been a essentially, an
executive order of I'm going to spend 5 billion.
And the only reason, so people, if you're
watching this going well, how can you spend
so much money so quickly on pandemic response?
We fast track stuff in the house.
Um, pandemic response bills were
given fast track.
So it's a whole, those bills, do go through
that kind of more war measures type framework.
It still does replicate the parliamentary
framework, but it's been streamlined.
Um, for emergency purposes, but anything
that isn't pertaining to COVID response has
to go through the normal framework and it isn't
given the benefits of all those pandemic stuff.
So if anyone's listening and wondering why there's
a disconnect there and why I'm saying they can't
pass this, but they can pass, CERB response in
two days, it's one is an emergent thing and one
is a long-term policy.
You know, shockingly Westminster parliaments
don't give government the ability to pass anything
they want just because there was an emergency.
Shockingly.
Good.
So.
Close though.
A little bit too close I think we can all say.
You know, I'd agree with that.
Now The Silvercore Podcast is shooting,
hunting outdoor adventures.
There's going to be people who listened to
this, who don't have a firearms background,
aren't interested in firearms, but should
probably still be concerned about some
of the things that have been proposed and
can you speak to that?
Oh, can I, um, there's where to start?
Well, I mean, first off, for anyone that's
listening to this and who is thinking, and I
mean, it's doubtful um, because I mean, they're,
they're seeking out gun podcasts probably with
other kinds of folk.
But if they're talking to someone, if they
find someone in their life that goes, you
know what, Dan, it doesn't matter to me.
Like, I don't know how many AR-15 and I've
had people, like I have people, I own a gun bags
and I have people in my family that think that.
Don't know the point, all that kind of thing.
Those people, you should just tell them
that if C-21 passes, it will mean the end of
guns in Canada period.
Because functionally, what it will do, um,
is, is the framework that it provides for is,
um, almost completely replicating much of the
framework that was put in place by a former
Liberal government to remove alcohol and
tobacco from the main stream consciousness.
Now I'm not saying guns are the same as those
two things, because as someone that drinks
very sporadically and minimally, because of
health reasons that are personal to me,
um, I don't think either of those things
are terribly healthy.
I do think guns are actually perfectly
healthy product.
So before anyone misunderstand that I.
I would disagree on rum.
I would honestly disagree.
I could totally make the argument that a nice
scotch lead tonight is a very healthy thing
for me on certain times when I have a gutter
shoe, that means I pay for it the next day.
So unfortunately it's a like, uhh,
pick and choose.
Um, but I worked in the car industry, back when
they were kicking tobacco of everything, uh, and
alcohol and people will remember that we used to
have a thing in Canada called the Molson Indy.
And the clue to why it went away might
be in the name.
Um, and they're doing the same thing.
Obviously C-21 has an advertising ban,
it won't actually impact our business.
So if people think this is me being,
self-interested it, won't no one advertises guns
from a self-defensive perspective in our
magazine really.
And those that do will have no problem
with switching it.
It's usually us advertisers that are just
trying to save money on graphic design that, have
a budget, to be blunt.
It doesn't say self-defense.
It says violence.
Violence in general.
Most of them are just listing.
Does that count as violence against animals?
Right.
I don't think so, cause when you actually read.
Like what are we're talking about here.
The law, I think it says violence perpetrated
against persons, is actually in the, cause
I know the parliamentary summary says that, but
in the actual legislation says against persons,
because I remember thinking like what
about bear defense.
Cause Marlin's always run some big
bear defense ads.
Just hunting in general really.
Kind of violent animal.
Um, my bigger concern, however, is that in a
really fundamental way, like let's, let's say
a C-21 Liberals win.
This is what's going to happen.
If the liberals win C-21 would likely be expanded
to include additional things because they
won't just roll the same thing out post-campaign.
They'll need to give some fresh meat to
the base to try and get them on next time.
So there'll be something else, something
stupid and bad.
Um, probably some kind of handgun limitation,
something around there.
They won't buy 'em back, but they'll try and get,
handguns are still the thing that are not on the
table for the Liberals.
So they'll find some way of putting them
on the table and, but moot point anyways,
at the end of the day, the municipal handgun
gotten ban, right?
What's the one thing that every gun club
has a problem with in Canada right now?
It is real estate development encroachment,
and the encroachment taking the form of
noise complaints.
You see it nationally.
Port Coquitl- like, there's not a major
urban center where, and major urban centers
are the fastest growing areas in Canada.
So the cities are expanding faster
than the rural areas.
They're encroaching onto where the gun
clubs used to be out in the boondocks.
And now the developers who just by virtue of
having a lot of money and being in a world
where they have to interface with municipal
politicians on a daily basis to get zoning
permits, those have been disposed developer.
Those real estate developers are closer
to municipal staff and council, then gun club
executive is, and when you read these things and
you go, okay, well, if the municipalities can
shut stuff down, right?
What, how long has it, I mean, before every city
council in Canada decides that it's just easier
to allow the gun club to go bankrupt by shutting
down handguns, because most clubs make their
money off of restricted ownership, right?
Like if you have a restricted gun license,
you don't technically have to have a gun
club membership, but most people it's the
easiest way, so most people just maintain
a gun club membership because they have a
restricted license.
If they get rid of municipal handgun
ownership, the local clubs that retain
membership because that's what the local
restricted owners belong to to maintain their
hand gun possession.
They may only shoot three times a year, I
was that guy, when I first got into shooting,
I got a hand gun.
I belong to the Abbotsford Fish
and Game Club.
I shot like three times a year, but I
still was a member.
I paid my 200 bucks because I owned a handgun
and I had to have it.
I had to have a license at our club
on my license right.
If they pass the municipal band, the
officer fish and game club can't operate
because Abbotsford fish and game, abbotsford
city council says no more handguns.
The Abbotsford Fish and Game Club will lose its
membership within years.
Like the restricted guys that currently make up
the cohort of Abbotsford Tactical Shooters and
all the handgun stuff, all the IPSC stuff, all
those core cohort of guys that you always
see at the gun club when you go shooting.
The guys that used to shoot the AR-15's there,
they shoot the handguns there now, they won't be
there, and that means the gun club won't be there.
And when you look at the larger, I mean real
estate is still the fastest growing and the
only economic sector that is growing at a time
when Canada's economy is basically looking like
it's going to crater.
So in what world do you see city councils putting
gun clubs over real estate developers with
millions of dollars of development potential?
Like you've got a club of maybe three to
400, maybe five, 6,000 people, 12,000 people,
if you're Burlington and Ontario, and you're in
the densest area, what do 12,000 people paying
a few hundred bucks in a sport that, if you're
a politician looks like it's on the dying edge
of things, versus a real estate developer saying
I can put in on an 80 acre plot, how many
towers can they install?
How many, how many apartment buildings
at $600,000 per unit can they build.
Gun clubs do not have a chance against
that kind of might.
And I'm one of those people that if you put a
bad thing out there and you make it possible for
it to happen, eventually it will happen.
Every day, the universe hits reset, Groundhog day
runs over again, and that might happen again today,
and eventually it will.
So if they pass this law that saying of every
hammer, when you're a hammer, everything
looks like a nail.
Every gun club will eventually
look like a nail.
And it, I don't care if you're the Burlington
Gun Club peel.
If you're right in the middle of a downtown,
urban, Southern Ontario area, or if
you're in Fort St.
John, at some point that city that you live in,
that you drive out of to get to your gun club.
If they pass this ban to get rid of your gun club,
you'll never get it back.
And once the gun clubs are gone, I mean that
doesn't even get into the issue around gun shops.
I mean gun shops in Canada, we don't get
the benefit of the big box stores that
have the support of selling fishing gear.
Like Cabela's can sell less guns because
they sell fishing gear and boats and
all this other stuff.
So if they ban one gun, Cabela's just
sells more Gore-Tex jackets offset it.
But our local gun shops, the guys that we
all love and rely on.
You know, those independent shops.
If they been handguns in the city of Vancouver,
we all know of various gun shops that would
probably really have a hard time making
that work, you know.
Um, they would probably be able to
keep the lights on.
We see that in Australia, a lot of shops did manage
to stay open, but there was a massive reduction
in overall volume.
Um, and I think that's where, like this isn't,
we're not looking at the guy that has
the 30-30 Winchester that goes, this
doesn't matter to me.
Like you're not going to have anywhere to
sight your rifle in.
You're not going to have anywhere to
shoot sporting clays.
You're not going to have a retailer to
bring in the latest version of that ammo
that you wanted.
Like, we will become a third rate nation of
gun owners that just get stuff because you
know, for a little while there, it was nice.
We were climbing, the market was climbing, we
were getting more stuff out of the US and we all
saw we'd go to SHOT Show.
Readers may not know this , listeners rather,
but like, we all go to SHOT Show every year
and we talked to US distributors and it was
finally reaching a point under primarily Trump
because the US sales were kind of leveling
off that earlier.
That Canada was getting some respect
from the US market.
And we were starting to see some product come
out more timely fashions and were seeing little
things like product managers would start to
send emails to Canadians and say, Oh, look at
this new thing that's coming out of America.
Um, now with this new law, we're just going
to become another ulcer because that's
what they thought of us as though we're the
weird country that you can't own an AR-15.
And then once we started to adopt these modern
firearms and adopt modern shooting and go
like, Oh yeah, 3Gun is a perfectly viable sport.
People start loving it and doing it a bunch.
Ryan Stacey I mean, I remember Ryan.
I mean, I've known Ryan for years, like
predating even Calibre.
And when he was shooting for the BCRs, like,
I remember thinking like, who does this
weird obscure sport?
This is going back probably
14, 15 years now.
Yep.
And I was like, who does this?
Now, it's super main, it's not mainstream per
se, but it's way more mainstream than it was.
Yeah.
Like I'm sure when Ryan tells I'd be
curious, right?
Like when you talk to people, your backgrounds
and you're shooting Bisley and stuff.
Now, when you first got into it and you
first started being successful, like 10,
12, 14 years ago with the PCRs, like has, have
you, have you noticed like a shifting attitude
amongst the general population when you
talk about what you do?
I think so.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a lot more acceptable um.
By the time I was.
Cause if you like the John Wick, the Jerry
Mitchellick videos, the.
Oh yeah, totally.
I mean.
All the Terran videos that are out
there, everyone has.
Yep, media has a huge.
What's it called?
Keanu Reeves.
Yeah.
The Keanu Reeves shredding video like.
I mean, that's not even really what
I do, but, uh.
No, but I think that's what, like you say, they
have a comprehension.
Yeah, they understand it now more than
they did before.
Because I think before, if you told people I do
competitive shooting, I don't think they
even had a frame of reference of what
that would look like.
Like obviously what you do, doesn't look like
what taran does know, but I don't think people had
any idea of what it was.
I think if you said that you were, you're a
competitive shooter and you used an AR 15 people
would look at it like 'what?' That, isn't that
just for military people?
And I think that relates to like, I mean, with
the OIC, which you guys are both applicants on
and, and the, the, um, the recent decision there
for the injunction and I, that was relating
to culture right.
And I remember when that came down and I heard
about it, I thought about the culture
argument, and I thought, you know, like, It's
really interesting.
Like, it's really interesting to me
that the courts are saying that they're
not seeing a culture here that's being.
They're just not looking hard enough.
Reduce.
I mean.
It's there.
I mean, it's, it's, I all say for me, like
it's a bit tragic because it feels like a bit
of a two-time thing, because like I said, like
I'm a, I'm a car guy.
I like guns, but I'm a car guy first
and foremost, I don't hide that.
Um, always have been, always will be.
And for me, it's really sad too.
I came out of the automotive sector
after the end of the Molson Indy.
I used to, I used to work Molson Indy, I was
press, I went down there.
It was like the greatest weekend of my life.
Like we spend all weekend in a race
paddock is great.
Um, and I remember the same arguments because
the city council of Vancouver, ironically
municipal politics game, and the advertising ban
around alcohol and all those things are all,
we don't want these sponsorships of tobacco
and alcohol in the public eye, was leading to the
exact same discussions of, well motor sports
isn't really a sport.
We really shouldn't be promoting, this
is bad for the environment, so noisy.
Literally the exact same arguments that I'm now
hearing around guns.
And it's so tragic to me that the people
in the gun community aren't seeing it
because the thing that's happened to cars.
Car guys will understand this, in the lower
mainland, for example, there was a Westwood
Racing Circuit.
It was big enough that Al Unser Sr
race there, it was a global racing circuit.
It's currently a real estate development on the
top of Port Coquitlam, a little bit down from
the Port Coquitlam Fish and Game Club.
If you actually look on Google maps at
Westwood Plateau Real Estate Development,
if you look at the perimeter, it looks like
a racetrack because it is the old racetrack.
Hmm, interesting.
The exact same things are happening.
And Port Coquitlam Fish and Game Club is on the
same freaking road as Westwood was and they're
looking at closing because of real estate
development encroachment.
Because again they're, it's a cultural thing
because I hate to say it, gun owners are not
doing themselves any favors with this rapid
leap angry rhetoric.
We have to reach out, we have to recognize
we are the minority.
We don't have the power to change the massive
amounts of people's opinions by simply
saying, you know, we own guns and like, it's okay,
we're not a problem.
It's not enough to say that.
Because I've seen it a lot, it's something
I've brought up, like I've thought about a lot
recently because of the C-21 debate and I see
people bring up a lot that they're targeting.
They're targeting legal gun owners has been a
very common refrain in the media that I've seen.
Um, or gun owners saying, you know,
they're victimizing legal gun owners when
they take our guns away.
And I think, I get it, I do, it's possi-,
as a gun owner, yeah, they absolutely are.
That is an absolute truth.
But there's a point too, where you have to
recognize it within, uh, within the context
of the discussion around, around guns.
When you think that the discussion around
gun policy is actually a discussion of
public safety policy.
When you've got a cohort of people that
are involved in the discussion, whether we
like it or not saying we're the victims were
being targeted and.
And the people are, and then you've got a
third, the third party, you've got the anti gun
and the pro-gun people saying, you know, we're
being targeted, we're law, abiding gun owners,
it's not our fault.
And then you've got the pro the anti-gun
people saying, Nope, guns are the problem,
get rid of all guns.
The massive amount of people involved
in this debate are on the sidelines,
just watching, right.
And what they're watching is a bunch of
anti-gun people make frankly very emotional
rabbit-end pleas.
Logically inconsistent arguments that don't
stand up on their own and gun owners making, to be
totally frank, equally emotional, sometimes
equally illogical arguments in response.
Instead of being the rational voice and going
Hmm, when it comes to a discussion of young kids
killing themselves and each other in the streets
with illegal firearms over drugs, because they
have no better possible outcomes in their life
than a potential being killed in an alleyway,
making tiny sums of cash selling dime bags.
Cause I hate to say it, but street-level dealers
do not make a killing.
These are, these are truly marginalized
people living unfortunate existences that none
of us would wish upon our best, our worst
enemies, nevermind anyone in our family.
Um, those are the people that are also involved
in this discussion and gun owners are so
constantly trying to say, it's not our fault,
it's not our fault, not our fault, because
we, we are kind of been targeted in the past
that it's almost like we've lost sight of our
role in this discussion.
Is to be the arbiters to say, look as the legal
gun owners as the experts on the laws around gun
ownership, I'm not here to tell you that I'm
a victim or a target.
We don't have a right, it is a risk.
It is.
It's just not a right.
It's not a government, right bestowed upon
us to own firearms.
We have to make our case with diplomacy and I
don't see that anymore.
And it's, it's, it doesn't work.
We're we're, it's, it's, it's problematic
to me I guess, because I just don't, it's,
it's really hard.
Cause I have to confront the journalists right.
Because what I'm saying is when I see the, this
is getting awkward now, but I'll just leave all
this in if you want but.
Fundamentally I think it has to be said, I
don't mind that people might not like hearing
this, but let's just put it in the context of,
I do a media interview, did one last week.
And a guy goes, okay, well, this guy online,
you know, the guillotine comment, right?
Yeah, it was pretty extreme.
I don't, I don't think that we should be talking
about breaking the guillotine out quite yet.
Um, the Liberal's havent' actually.
Is that a thing?
I must have missed that.
Yeah, there was a thing where some people
made public comments, because of course on
the media, they do have access to social media,
so of course they're trolling the same.
I don't mean trolling as in like they're typing
out and trolling, I mean they're trolling
as in you're fishing.
They're looking for comments, right?
And I, same thing, you want to talk about
how high this goes?
Not to sound like that sounds super conspiracy.
Here it comes!
By Alex Jones, tinfoil hat.
Yeah.
When I was giving my testimony on C-71 at
the Senate, Senator Mary Lou, um, I won't say your
last name, cause I can't even remember it, but I
remember first name cause it's the only Mary Lou
I've ever met in my life.
Um, she literally made a point of every
single pro-gun witness.
She had gone extensively through their social
media backgrounds, including as far as
when the president of a local gun club was
called to testify.
She had gone through the gun clubs Facebook
page, and she tried to make him answer for
comments left by gun club members and by
the gun club, executive posting comments that
he didn't leave on the Facebook page himself.
So that's the level to which those of
us that I think the government referred
to as stakeholders,ie.
people that have skin in the game, when it comes
to all these things, or have at least a large
background of research.
Um, those individuals, like we're being
forced to answer for what everyone is
putting out there.
And I'm frankly getting really tired of people,
putting it out there that justin Trudeau is
going to kick my door down and put me in
the back of an MLVW.
And what drive me to the Vernon cadet
summer training camp for imprisonment?
There's, it's getting a bit, you
know, this is a law.
We are a nation of laws.
When I see people on my own Facebook page on
Calibre saying when I say he can't, he's not,
it's unlikely that he can pass this in 55 days.
And I go, well he's and then people go, oh well
he'll, you'll see it.
And I go, well he can't, that's legally
impossible, it's unconstitutional.He'll
do it anyways.
No he won't, like, this is very much
not something he can possibly do.
And I think that we, as gun owners need to strive
to elevate our discourse.
And when I say that, I mean, everyone's
fucking discourse needs to go up a notch or
two, and they need to start thinking like,
instead of punching down when you see comments
from anti-gun people that make you angry.
If you feel angry, do what you would tell
your five-year-old to do, walk away.
Come back with a clear head, come back with
good arguments, come back with arguments that
make the people watching on the sidelines think
you're the professional.
I mean, it's basic stuff, like even little
things on interviews where you watch.
And I won't name names because they're
out there, but watch interviews with some
people that work at this industry, the
anti-gun person shows up to do the interview.
They're wearing a doctor's lab coat
because it brings with it an air of authority.
You see someone in a lab coat, you listen to
them generally, right?
The gun industry person shows up in real tree
t-shirt and a John Deere hat and you kind of
go, I would take that guy's advice on what
brake discs to buy.
You know, like it's, it's just a fundamental wear
a suit, wear a tie, be the kind of person that
people aspire to be.
Don't be the kind of person that always has to
argue for your existence.
Like how much different.
We always use the Swiss example, right?
Everyone goes, Oh, the Swiss, everyone's got
a gun in Switzerland.
Everyone would probably like to be Swiss.
Why?
Because they have a shit load of money.
They've never been in a law.
Their country is pretty much as good as it
gets in terms of like, good outcomes for the
people that live there.
It got there because people strived to
make it better.
They didn't strive to continuously oppose
the other people.
I mean, that's the, I mean, that's
fundamentally my big problem is it's
just, we've entered this new era of
oppositional stuff and it's no one's building
anything anymore.
Everyone's just tearing stuff down.
So, what do you see the best direction is to
go when you're engaging people on social media?
Just factual stuff?
I mean, in, in my own personal case that
doesn't seem to work in a lot of, a lot of ways.
Like you can, you can lay out the facts and you
can lay it all straight out and you can be
polite and professional and away you go.
And they still, dump in all the ridiculous
stuff that, you know.
Well, that's trying to fight emotion with fact.
It's really what it is yeah.
I guess we need to find a way to fight the emotion
with our own motion.
I think it's also too like, there's multiple
forms of capital out there, right?
Like you got, you got your time, you got your
money, you got all these things at your disposal
that you can do, right?
Um, and maybe it's just having a kid
recently, but I mean, laying on your death
bed, while responding to the doctors for
protection, from guns on Twitter, be the time you
appreciate having spent.
Like, um, and I think that's where
it comes down to.
Um, It's just some people can't be
convinced first off.
So there's, there's certain like, there's,
there's definitely a point in at this point.
I think it's, it's certainly safe to say
the pro gun side of social media commands
a far larger audience and the anti-gun side.
And the pro gun side needs to recognize,
you'll recognize that Calibre pretty much
never, ever, ever interacts with anyone
anti gun on Twitter or Facebook or any other
place because when the doctors for protection
from guns had 300 followers on Twitter
and Calibre has tens of thousands of people on
Facebook, why the hell would I promote them?
Like, why would we, even, if they say the stupidest
thing, like I could, this is what happens.
Cause again, people don't see this, if you
look on the insight side and we'll probably,
I might do my own maybe video cast or
stream or something on this to show people
the backend of what social media websites
look like to see what works on social media.
What gets traction on social media is outrage.
Absolutely.
The way the algorithms work.
Sure, conflict.
Yeah.
Yeah, as again.
So for way of explanation to those listening
and the algorithms on social media are the
things that decide what you are shown, right?
Like your friends post, you know how sometimes
on Facebook you'll see some things from one guy
and not other things.
It's the algorithm deciding you're
supposed to see.
It decides based on what gets lots of feedback.
Now, what usually gets lots of feedback
is things that have high emotional
attachments, ie.
things people hate or things people love.
As a result, when I put up a post on Facebook
saying, Hey, look at this really great new
gun, it's awesome.
Like great example would be, um, the first
modern sporter, which was the first kind of
non-restricted thing that was similar enough to
an AR-15, that got like 120,000 impressions on
Facebook within the first day maybe, thereabouts.
That was a big, that was a big deal.
Um, that video I did on C-21 got 130,000
impressions in the first three hours.
Everything political, everything to do with
the debate always gets the most likes.
So yeah, I could have absolutely shared a
bunch of doctor's stuff.
I could have shared a bunch of anti gun
stuff and I could have gotten a whole shit
load of Facebook likes and impressions, and
it would have expanded Calibre, social media
presence, but it also would have expanded the
social media presence of those anti-gun groups,
which I do actually think we are seeing a
bit of the aspect of now.
Those doctors for protection from guns
was literally one person with a Twitter
account initially.
Now they have 300,000 or $200,000 from Airbnb and
like they've expanded.
They've they've eclipsed, both of the other groups.
And when you look at the only thing that's
different between doctors, any other
anti-gun groups, it's a doctors has been
engaged more with the, with the program groups.
Interesting.
They choose to, they both do.
The pro-gun groups, engage the doctors and
the doctors engaged with the anti gun groups
or per vice-versa.
This is getting very complicated, but you
know what I'm saying.
Um, The doctors are engaging and it's, and
there everyone is feeding off it cause it does,
I think on both ends, I think people are seeing
social media growth and they're interpreting
that as success when Twitter still hasn't
made a profit, you know.
Social media is only social media is not, it's
not actual legislation.
I don't think a gun owner out there would
say we've made progress on gun rights in
the last five years.
You know, it's not, we haven't.
Um, we have, I think inadvertently, propped
up the creation of anti-gun groups or
made them stronger.
I think we have done a disservice and
lowered the discourse that we have.
And I think that as a result, we, we do
stand to potentially be ostracized from
the political parties that stand to hold
power in the future.
Because unless we start to look like, we always
like to say, we're the best Canadians, but
we've got to act like it.
And I think that involves recognizing that, like,
when you hear these stories about these gun
laws and stuff, I hate to say it, but you do have
to think if they want to take my AR-15 how would I
explain why I should keep my AR-15 to the mother
of a kid who was shot.
Is I think what gun owners need to think
about, because there's a mom out there
who's thinking that.
And if that was my kid or if that was anyone's
kid, I think, I think we can probably see
that emotionally, my kid was shot and I want
guns off the street would be two very
easy dots to connect.
Um, and I think that because those dots
are easy to connect, it's why people do.
I don't think it's logically consistent
and I don't, I don't think it's.
I don't think it's good for our country.
I think it's, I think it's hurting our young
people at this point and it's increasing
violence to not focus on the real problems.
But again, I think gun owners need to think
that before they type something out on Facebook
or they say some smart ass comment about how
libtard, snowflake this or that, think,
you know, there are parents out there who
are losing their kids.
There are families that are losing loved
ones to suicide, and simply saying, well,
stop targeting me.
That doesn't make you feel better when
your kid was shot.
That doesn't make you feel like, like your
kid's friends are going to be safer.
You know, we gotta give these people hope.
We need to show them that we care and it's, we've
gotta get there somehow and it's not going to be
by continuously, I hate to say it because I have
been a member of the NRA, my membership lapsed only
because I let it in the magazines stopped coming.
But, um, we can't, we're not the NRA,
we're not Americans.
We don't have a second amendment.
Um, we do have a Westminster
parliamentary system.
We do not live in a Republic.
All those same reasons that Canadian gun
owners like to say we're different than the US
we don't have the U S gun violence problem,
et cetera, et cetera.
All those differences, um, are also the same
differences that prevent us from effectively
deploying US style arguments because US
style arguments hint around that rights, the
second amendment, that's their, that's their real
foundation, which we just fundamentally lack.
So if we're coming at it with the argument and
we're bringing in that US style rhetoric, we
don't have the foundation for that to stand up on.
It's essentially, it's building a house on
quicksand, you know.
Um, it looks really good and people think it's
great right up until the one legislator goes,
you don't have a right.
This whole right was never a right.
You know, you have a legal responsibility of
all these other things.
And we have, because the other thing too is
it's we have, we don't have a right to own
guns, but the government does have a legal right
to uphold the law.
The law states that they can't just take shit
away if it's going to reduce the amount of
hunting, if guns can use for hunting, if it
can reduce culture, you know, all those things,
we want them to abide by their responsibilities.
I think we also have to have a certain
degree of respect for our responsibilities
and what those are.
And it's it's to show people we, we are safer.
We do care, you know.
Man, you've brought up a lot of stuff.
You went really macro on this one.
Uh, I really like what you have to say on this.
Cause I agree, I agree with what you're saying.
Um, I, it was an eye-opener for me a
number of years ago, corporation of Delta
before it was the city of Delta, says
we're going to ban firearms businesses
and I went into the city hall, municipal
hall there and had all my notes prepared,
had all the arguments and the statistics
and everything, all, all ready to present.
And as I'm going through it, I forget
the fellow's name.
Barry I believe it was, he say's, Travis I'm
going to stop you right there, hold on a second.
You've got a lot more of this stuff?
I said, Oh yeah, I sure do, right.
He says, you got to understand, I agree with
you a hundred percent.
Everything you're saying is true and
I agree with you.
That said we're in a position where if we
think our constituents want something that
will take steps to implement that, whether
we agree with the facts behind that or not.
And that level of honesty, and we're going
back about 10, 15 years now, and it's a little
bit younger, it was quite an eye opener for me.
And when you, when you talk about, uh, how to
properly comport yourself in an argument on social
media, you know, there's some simple steps that
I typically take, when I look at an issue.
I try to separate the people from the problem.
I take a look at what the problem is, take a
look of the person and as angry as I can be at
that individual or group of people who are making
certain statements, because they're
completely off base, at least in my opinion, I
do my best to separate them and take a look at
addressing the problem.
If I can't separate the people from the
problem, I extricate myself because there's,
there's no way to be able to properly work
within that framework.
The second thing I do is, I agree.
Essentially, any offense is taken and not given,
if they say something as crappy as it can
be, and as much as they try to offend and get
my goat, it's me, who ultimately will take.
Have that power.
Right.
It's that old adage.
And you see it on Tik Tok and these different
things, people are bringing it up again.
A guy gives you a present, but you
don't accept it.
Who's that present belong to?
Oh, not to you, right.
Belongs to the person who brought it in.
And finally, I'll do my best to approach
a problem from a position of curiosity,
rather than conflict.
So when you're talking about how, how do
you convince a mother whose child was
killed by an AR-15?
I can put my mindset in all the statistics
and say, it wasn't the firearm, we should
be combating, uh, violence or what,
however it took place.
Whether it was a straight bullet from
gangs, and so we should be looking at gangs.
Or whether it be suicide because suicide
is it, uh, largest killer of people with
firearms in Canada.
And you can say I'll just look at the suicide.
They can get a knife, they can get pills, they
can take, get a rope.
Put myself in a position of curiosity, what
would it be like to be that individual and to
have gone through that?
Because maybe there's nothing you can
say to that person.
I think that a lot of the time there's
nothing you can say.
Right.
Not even worth an arguement.
Your job's not to say anything.
That's it.
And I think that's the fundamental
thing is like.
Exactly.
Like Ryan you've got kids, right?
Yep.
Like if your, if your son was killed, is there
anything anyone, anyone, I don't care if it's the
president of the United States, anyone, is there
anything anyone could say to you to soothe that?
And the answer's no, right?
Like there's nothing anyone can say to make
a mother feel better.
It's not our job to make her feel better.
What our job is to do as gun owners, is to
show her that we are being responsible.
So it's not saying, you know, it's not
saying I should keep my AR-, cause I do
see it like literally there is a very,
there's a high profile, she's very emotional.
She's tied into the anti-gun movement.
She will likely, never change her mind.
But she's the, she's the mother of a, of a son
that was killed in a gang murder and it's tragic.
Um, And, and I, I think it's, I think
what's happened to this one is of her,
or sorry, a daughter.
Um, Lindsey's mom has her name on Twitter.
I'll just say it.
I mean, she's on Twitter, so everyone knows it.
She's a staunch anti-gun person, she, she posts
quite prolifically.
Um, I've purposely tried to avoid engaging
her because I can't, I don't know how to
frame that discussion.
I don't know how to talk to someone that,
that has lost their child like that.
I don't want to say.
Who does?
But I would say, you ask the question.
If you, if they say, you know, I want you
to get rid of your AR-15 because it'll
help prevent murders.
You say like, well, why?
Like what, you know, what, what do you think
is causing these murders?
And you ask questions.
Cause the big thing is, is there's there's
there's, you can be on broadcast or you can
be on receive, right?
Like people are generally, we're the
old CV radio system.
We don't do two way so well, right.
And when you get into a conversation with someone
it's, it's natural, it's very natural.
People want to talk about themselves.
Look at me.
I've spent most of this podcast talking
cause I am the most verbose person in this
industry bar none.
Proud to say so.
I would agree.
Happy to say it.
Um, I'm fairly certain people don't take my
calls cause I talk too long, but nonetheless.
Um, at the end of the day, like you just don't
have that, like, you have to ask questions
and people are so much on broadcast because in
the modern social media world, that's all it is.
That's what bro, like when people talk about
Twitter, people rarely talk about the things
they've read on Twitter, unless it's the things
they've interacted with because social
media is a broadcast thing for most people.
It's how they express themselves.
They express themselves on Facebook, they express
themselves on Twitter and then occasionally
they see how other people express themselves.
And because of the algorithm, they only see
the people they hate and the people they love,
they express themselves in matters and they
hate and they love.
Um, and the problem there is that, between
the torquing of the messaging by the
algorithms that people don't see cause that's
behind the curtain, but at that, you know, wizard
of Oz sort of effect, but also too, just the
overwhelming sense of, uh, the bubbles that
are created because that algorithm creates, um.
Echo chambers.
Bubbles, echo chambers, yeah exactly.
Very good echo chambers.
So you basically just get surrounded by
people who like what you have to say and
that say similar things.
So you naturally start to like what you have
to say more and more.
So when you enter these conversations with a
mom, instead of, instead of thinking, because
I think in most cases, if you were to ask the
average person that doesn't own guns, to
sit down in a room and have a conversation
with a parent who'd lost a child, most of
them would say I would have a lot of questions.
I don't think they'd have much to say, because
most people wouldn't feel like they would
have much appropriate input on that scenario
because admittedly it's such a tragic occurrence
and unless you've gone through it, I don't
think you can really provide much input.
So most people would go, I'd be very curious
to, you'd probably find it on a videotape, they
asked more questions.
What was it like, how did you get through it?
What were the first days?
Like, you know, do you think you'll ever
have another, all these questions that
you would want to ask.
I don't know why gun owners immediately,
it's because of the victimization
we do have that, I think it's innate.
We have, we've kind of wrapped ourselves in
this cloak victimhood of, we're being targeted
by the government, we're being targeted
by the government.
And it's, and because the laws that they pass are
always created because someone was shot, like
people were killed in Portapique that did
not deserve to die.
Gun owners have allowed the perpetrator of
that shooting and the nature by which he
obtained his guns to completely dictate the
manner in which they respond to that event.
And I think fundamentally, if
people take anything away from the podcast,
that's what I want them to stop doing.
Because when you can watch that many people
get killed in a short window of time for
no goddamn reason and your response is,
but my guns, you need to take a hard look.
Seriously.
As someone that works in the gun industry, who,
who flat out, I've been doing this for 10 years.
I'm looking at potentially if the
liberals win the next election, I'm not sure if
my business will survive.
And yes, this is my voice breaking
that you're hearing, because it's incredibly
hard to talk about.
But even as someone that's considering losing
this much of what I've put my life into, if
someone were to say, Hey, would you give up
your AR-15 if it saves everyone's life on
that day in Portapique?
Absolutely.
How could you not.
Those are, those are sisters and brothers
and friends, you know, like I think we as
gun owners have lost a bit of the perspective
and we need to get back around all that.
Well said, Daniel.
Nice.
That said, I don't think giving up my AR-15 would
save anyone's life, just for the record.
Um, I think what would save lives
is good government.
And I think that's where it gets
problematic because I say that and I get
very emotional because it is very saddening.
And I think that's the perspective we need
to come at it from because it tempers the
anger, it tempers the frustration that I feel
because I sat there.
I'll confess, I was a gun owner the sat there
on the, on my couch on May 1st and thought, why
is he doing this to me?
I never thought about those people.
I think we all did.
It gets, it's a knee jerk.
Hard not to.
Right?
In the days that happened afterwards, but in
the days that happened afterwards is when
the rhetoric picks up.
And that's when we need to be cautious of that
rhetoric and say, no.
Like when they say, I think when you hear
about these shootings and when people say we need
to let the dust settle before we make comments
and stuff, this is why.
Because in those first few minutes,
everyone's reacting to emotional inputs.
You know, people are watching it and going
those people are, I don't know those people.
It's the same as when there's a
tornado in Idaho.
There's no tornadoes in Idaho, Iowa?
Iowa.
Kansas?
That's where tornadoes occur.
Yeah.
Uh, floods in New Orleans.
Like a lot of people look at the headlines and
they think it's similar.
Its people elsewhere, it's not my problem,
but when Justin Trudeau bans my guns,
that is my problem.
Um, but the problem then becomes when
that rhetoric takes over the pro gun side
of the debate, we then enter it from.
To be honest, kind of a morally bankrupt
perspective because it's really as someone
that sat across the table from media
interviewers and had to defend why I don't think
these gun laws work.
The only reason I can say is, cause it's,
it's wasting resources.
Like these resources, this could be spent
on actual progress.
And I think that argument is the only
argument that matters.
And I think that argument would be a hell of a lot
stronger if more of our movement would take into
account that like, shit's bad out there, folks.
Yeah.
Like young people are shooting each other
and shooting at each other more than they
did when I was a kid.
That's for freaking sure.
And I'm 35 years old, I'm not that old.
Like I grew up on Tupac Shakur died,
you know, like this is more violent than then.
Well I'm not going to discount the fact that
there probably are some people out there
who will look at it and say, not my guns
and completely right off the tragedy that's
happening out there.
But I think it might be a little disingenuous
to say that gun owners in general, their head
immediately goes to the firearm issue from
a perspective of, what are they taking from me?
And I think the outrage that is felt from
the community though, those, the victims
those directly involved called and the firearms
industry in general is outrage over the event.
Empathy and compassion for what's going on and
further outrage over the fact that, as firearms
owners, most of them will have done their homework
and have an idea of what the statistics look like
and have a better idea of what could possibly
be done to prevent tragedies like this.
And they see that the knee jerk reaction of
let's just ban guns will do nothing to stop the
tragedy that happened.
And that can create a higher sense of anger.
But I don't think firearms owners are
properly conveying that.
It comes across as, yeah don't take my guns as
opposed to what the hell?
You think that we're going to, if we let's
say we've got a problem with suicide, suicide,
men will predominantly use firearms, women will
predominantly use pills.
People have their preferred methods, but
if we don't have that implement, we don't
have that instrument of implementation.
Would that person just find another instrument?
And maybe we should be the tried and
beaten that old drum.
Why don't we address what the actual problem is?
So I, I think, I think that the, I think the
anger is there, but I agree with you that the
way that we're, and I say we're as I put myself
in with the firearms community, obviously,
the way that we're conveying that anger and
conveying our message needs a lot of work
because it's so easily misconstrued and becomes
positional down to the firearm issue, as opposed
to solution issue.
How can we find a solution?
Yeah, for sure.
I agree.
And I think, um, the only thing I would
say there is, I think, I don't think the
majority of gun owners.
I'll just say it to them, majority of gun owners is
on our side on this one.
Um, specifically the assault weapon ban.
I would've thought that, and this is where it's
been interesting moving.
Cause I moved out of Delta four years ago
now, coming up on five.
Um, and when I lived in lower mainland,
it Abbotsford like Ryan knows he lives
lower mainland.
Like lower mainland shooting community is
predominantly a sporting community, you've got the
trap guys at Vancouver Gun Club, Abbotsford
is like the center for all the tactical
shooting type stuff.
You've got IPSC all over the place,
Poco is big on it.
Like there's lots of AR-15's, there's lots of
handguns, there's lots of trap shotguns, it's all
sporting stuff, right?
And hunting is kind of a bit more of the
minority, cause you've got to drive like three
hours to shoot an animal in lower mainland.
Unless you.
Unless you're into ducks.
Live in Delta like Travis does.
You got it.
And then it's like five minutes from your house.
So then when I moved up to Kelowna, it was this
weird inversion, which I noticed right away.
Because I was, I used to go to like Reliable
Gun and Wanstalls and those sorts of shops.
And it was just a sea of, you know, tactical
stuff and ammunition and .223 and bulk
stuff and handguns.
And then I came to Kelowna and the gun
clubs here, like Kelowna has, Kelowna Fish and
Game has an IPSC range.
It's never been used to my knowledge,
not since I moved.
The Joe Rich Club, I was one of two people with
an AR-15 in the club when I first joined it
in the second largest metropolitan center in
British Columbia, in the second largest gun club.
When I took my AR-15 to the Kelowna Fish
and Game Club, some guy didn't even know
what it was like.
There's no gun, if you tried to buy an SKS off
the shelf in Kelowna, you can't do it right now.
There is no SKS.
There's no AR fif- well, obviously no AR-15's,
but there's like maybe double digits of handguns
for sale in this entire city of six figures, like
quarter million people in this Metro area.
It's insane.
And I think that's where, also to gun
owners need to recognize there's a disconnect.
And I think that that the, the rural gun owner
does not care, by and large, and this is a
gross generalization.
So please do not email me with your, I'm a real gun
owner who cares, cause the exceptions always
prove the rule folks.
By and large, if you were to drive through
rural Canada and knock on the doors of people
with PAL's and say, do you care about the AR-15?
They go the what?
Because it's just not, if, because fundamentally
when you think about it, the AR-15 is a restricted
firearm, it can only be shot on ranges.
If you live in rural Canada, where's
the nearest gun range, probably
hours away, right?
What's the nearest competition to
shoot your AR-15 in?
Hours away, if not days, depending on
where you live and where you're driving, right?
I think we're starting to talk a bit of a change
with the non-restricted versions of things.
Oh a little bit.
And we're starting to bleed in.
For sure.
We were seeing that in Kelowna big time, the
non-restricted stuff was finally opening people's
eyes up because where you lack the infrastructure
for AR-15's to be beneficial, the stags,
the NEA's were showing people, these are
perfectly viable, modern firearms that weigh seven
pounds, that are more accurate than your bolt
gun, that allow you a better up shot that you
can make fit your wife.
Yeah, so it's, it was growing, but they've cut
that off at the knees.
And I think that's where, again, I go for
the macro views because people do need to look
at these policies.
People need to look at gun control in
Canada from like a 10 year scale.
Not a, like C-21, C-71, all these
bills last few years.
What's the only thing that's mattered?
Travis and I, before the podcast, we mentioned
it, the end of long gun registry the single most
important thing that's happened in our lifetime.
Well, my lifetime anyways, I
mean, was that.
The long gun registry was created in my
lifetime, but I was so young I don't count it.
I couldn't change anything then, I was 10.
Um, but that's the only thing that's mattered.
And ever since then, they've just been kind
of fiddling with things.
C-21, I'll be honest, bad bill, terrible bill.
Hope it doesn't pass.
If it passes, how many guns are they
going to get back?
We'll they'll get the AR-15's back
because they know where those ones are.
And the people that want to give them
back will give them back and get a cheque.
There's what, 150,000 of those 120,000
AR-15's out there?
I got to figure, they don't get more than maybe
10% back in the buyback, I can't see more.
AR-15 owners are pretty staunch guys, and most of
them have handguns too, so they'll have a reason
to keep the restricted license, already.
So the endorsements not really going anywhere
and we'll all just wait for the next
government change.
And that's that, you know, that's where I say
gun owners kinda need to stop making it about
ourselves and about the guns we're losing and
about the gun policies from our perspective
and start thinking as like, we are the experts
on firearms in Canada.
You know, these are the laws that they
currently work, these ones clearly aren't.
Like, I think gun owners could seriously, like,
we always say like, Oh, gang bangers, look at,
they don't, they don't have gun licenses because
they don't have an ATT.
Instead of saying the ATT is clearly not
working because we have the system by
which we're supposed to be authorizing the
transport of firearms and there seems to be a
whole shitload of people moving firearms around
the country without ATTs.
We know this because they keep shooting
each other with them.
So, instead of saying like there's a public
safety concern that the ATT system is not
fulfilling the role that was supposed to.,
we use the laws that we hate to prop up why
we're better than the people that are shooting
each other as evidence of, that's a different
population of people.
They don't have this fancy plastic card in
our wallets, they're not us, they didn't get ATTs.
When in reality, the ATT isn't doing anything.
So why are we, like it's convenient for us, it
doesn't mean it's good.
It costs a fortune for the government
to maintain the ATT stuff when they could
spend more on cops and that's where like, we
need to be consistent.
It's always gotta be able to safety.
Anytime we see there to be room for
improvement on safety, we should be doing it.
And that includes, you know, things like
we've seen the CSAAA do with industry.
Cracking down on fraudulent purchases and
like doing, working with, uh, so the cane industry
group worked with the RCMP to develop, uh,
basically like a sort of quasi training program
to help train, uh, retailers on recognizing
straw purchases.
And like, that's a great, that's, that's worked.
I know there are cases where people have been
arrested because they were straw pursing
firearms and that purse was identified because
of the training that the employee received.
And that was a hand in glove industry, law
enforcement working together and like, that
happened in like, I think it was like a six month,
it was a fast program and it made results.
And like, man, if we had more of that,
there'd be a lot less people getting shot.
Well.
Again, it all has to be from that perspective of
safety first, it's all, it's all about safety.
Because as you know, when you talk to the city
councils, politicians only care about what the
voters told them to do.
Um, and safety, like what's safe.
When I talked to Steven Blaney when he was the
public minister, it was always, he never
really talked about gun policy, he was
always safety policy.
It was always, everything was from
a safety perspective.
It was never like politicians never
think from a gun owners perspective
or about gun clubs.
It's always as a larger guns in a
safety environment.
Which is what the liberals are
pushing right now.
They're, they're talking about guns,
but it's always backed by a safety.
Some sort of a safety thing.
And when we're arguing and when they're arguing,
they should get rid of guns to make us safer.
And our argument is, don't take our guns away,
that's a pretty shitty argument for the guy on
the sideline, is it not?
Like we need to be saying this isn't
going to make us safer.
This is the reason why.
You need to do this to make us safer.
It's not going to be safer.
Um, but because it's literally like, I
think Travis you're entirely, right.
It's not that we need to change the argument.
We just need to change the order of operations
in the argument.
Because when we start the conversation with, don't
take our guns, they think that's the priority.
And the conversation has to start with, we
want people to be safe.
So when you're talking to those people, that's
the other thing is if you're talking to people,
if you're getting a tip and people are trying to
figure out how to talk to people, tell the fuds
that it's going to be the end of all the gun
clubs, because restricted owners make up what keeps
gun clubs in the black.
And the anti-gun people that fundamentally like
this isn't going to work obviously and all that
kind of thing, but tell them it's a distraction.
Tell them there's only 55 days left.
Tell them it's the middle of a pandemic.
Tell them that the IBM.
So the other thing on timing, if anyone needs
further evidence to convince people, the IBM
contract that was awarded for the um, planning
out of the buyback.
Uh, the preliminary report was delivered
the week before the law was announced.
So like literally five business days at most
between IBM delivering the preliminary report,
which was a $200,000 document I think
that took five weeks.
So it's not comprehensive in any way.
And this preliminary report that Bill Blair
took from IBM that I'm guessing informed bill
C-21, uh, has an option where to, once they've
completed the initial report and the government
has given them direction on which specific model
to go for that the overall, um, enrollment
of the program will take an additional two years.
So like they were saying, this was
supposed to be a two year, five week project.
And now he's saying we're going to
have a law ready?
Like legislation passed in 40 days?
It's not going to happen.
Or, or conversely, we're not going to an
election in the fall.
And the Liberals think that after this pandemic,
that they're going to be somehow be able to
maintain and retain their mandate, after
the vaccine stuff, after everything else, it just
doesn't seem likely.
And then again, thinking from the political
perspective, it would be great if the Conserv-,
if I was a Liberal political strategist,
I would look at this and go, this is great.
We'll get this thing real close to the finish
line and just when the anti-gun people
think it's in the bag, we'll pull the old lucy
football trick and we'll say, drop that ballot
in the ballot box baby.
And we'll see how she rolls again.
So, and I think also, to gun owners on that
front, need to kind of understand the political
pastoring that occurs here and understand
that it may change the way the Conservative
party or other parties confront these issues.
Um, if the media jumps all over it and starts
making it look like these assault weapons have
to get off the streets, there's some massive
shooting that puts guns at a bad light again,
you can fully expect Erin O'Toole to absolutely
not make any statements, both guns between
now and the election, because, why would he?
Like.
I'm a little surprised he did, came out with
that video the other day.
Yeah.
We won't, I'm not.
I thought he would stay a little more quiet
on the whole thing.
Because the reality is, is you have to pull the
middle voters over right.
And I know people want to want them to come out and
say all kinds of stuff.
But the reality of it is, is if you want
to pull those middle voters over, um, you
have to be a little more centrist than.
And it's been extremely frustrating.
I gotta say, and I, and I hope if someone from
the Conservative party is listening to this please,
dear Jesus, God, please, like get someone that
knows about guns into the OLO to help out with
policy messaging on this, because I mean, from,
from Harper to, to Scheer to now, the Conservative
party's messaging on guns has basically
been everything I've complained about today,
wrapped up in a nutshell and paid for, because
that's what it is.
Conservative party members are paying for
communication staff and policy experts
to draft the policy and communications
that we've seen from this party on guns.
And that's where I will say like, again, we'll
probably piss people off, but it's 2021, some shit
went down last year where were things are different
and I've got a kid now, so that's changed
my perspective too.
But, um, I'm getting really frustrated cause
I mean, those, those Conservative party,
they work for us.
Let's not forget everyone forgets these
politicians, they kind of get the impression
that they kind of represent the party
in Ottawa, in our ridings, it's supposed
to be that way around.
And uh, I'm just getting kind of tired this
constant like, we'll tell you what our policy
is going to be and then me getting it and
being like, what the F, this isn't even good.
Like, I get the whole, like, trying
to achieve the voting, like, get the, get
the gun, vote out.
That's what the goal always is in politics.
But like, I don't know.
Some of that, it's just, it's just been.
It's like the Common Sense Firearms
Licensing Act.
It's like, come on guys, like if you're
going to open the books, open the books, you
know, do something, do something right.
Make a substantive change so that we can
look at a violent crime rates statistic
that is declining and say, yeah, we were
part of the solution.
And address the root causes that actually
are going to have an effect instead of.
And that's the thing is I, Erin's statement I
thought was, it's a very strong, strong statement.
Um, Surprised me.
Yeah.
Uh, I think it's a good statement.
I think it's all good law.
I mean, obviously yeah, rewrite all that stuff,
but I mean, we don't know how to be re-written.
Um, that's always a concern is Peter McKay
said he was gonna rewrite firearms act
and you always go a little bit of like oh
hmm, if Justin Trudeau said he'd re-wrote the
firearms act, I might respond to that a bit
differently than if Erin O'Toole does, but you
should probably question that at the same time
as a rational person.
Um, cause they can rewrite good or bad.
But the other thing is, um, it's just it's.
Yeah, it's that lack of, I don't know, lack of
productivity, I guess it's frustrating to be
sitting on the sidelines and say like, Hey, you
know, there's a lot of things you could do
that would frame the gun discussion in a much
more positive light.
And I don't mean that for the anti gun groups that
are listening to that and thinking I'm going to
spin that into a thing.
What I mean by that is like, like Ryan said,
address the cause.
Instead of saying, I'm going to roll back
all this stuff to gun owners, like instead
of putting a video out for the gun community,
the video should have been to the general
Canadian population.
Justin Trudeau is going to spend probably between
2 and 5 billion of your tax dollars, buying guns
back from people that don't commit crimes.
I would like to spend that money standing up
a mental health system.
Yup.
Mhmm.
There, you know.
Yep.
Or stronger borders or more policing
and gang units.
Like there's a giant list of stuff
that could be done.
But that's, again, where a lot of the messaging
on them recently, I got to say, I don't
understand it in general.
For politics at large things, like when the
vaccine, like Erin O'Toole is saying
we're at the end of the line for vaccines.
And then everyone was like, no, you're wrong.
And then it came out he was right.
And he never said, I told you so.
Yeah.
And that was one of those like fundamental, like
you're a politician, you have to say, I
told you, like it's you know, it's your job.
It's literally what opposition does, hold the
government to account.
If you were correct, you know, weeks
before the government.
Own it, say, yeah, we were right.
You know, we said this was gonna be a problem.
And guess what.
Start to show people.
And I, I, I think that's the big thing
is show people.
This is where I guess fundamentally at that
oppositional side of gun owners continue
to saying it's all about the targeting
and the victimization.
We lose our guns, all that kind of thing.
Is it, the oppositional, don't, don't stop
thinking that just because someone
wants to take your AR-15 away from you,
they're not your ally.
We're all Canadians, we all want to live
in a safer country.
So I'll start off from that common ground.
And if they want to maintain distance and
they don't want to find common ground with
you, then so be it.
But be it an anti-gun group or a politician,
like I think the conservatives need to
stop opposing and start saying what they do,
how they lead, like same as gun owners stop
saying, don't take AR-15.
Start saying, spend the money on a mental
health program.
Spend the money on opioid addiction
counseling, spend the money on border patrol,
spend the money on drug interdiction, spend the
money on money laundering investigations.
Like spend the money on any one of those other
things, then we can talk about the guns, would be
a way better discussion to have, and I just.
Everyone's just butting heads it's gets
super partisan, man.
I think it's almost better to almost ignore
the gun thing and just, uh, just aim towards
the root causes of what's going on and
how they would fix it.
And in turn, that's going to, that's
going to fix the gun issues in the end.
Uh, everybody's gonna be happy.
And the gun owners are gonna know that if you,
if you achieve those things that you're
promising to do, that in the end, everybody's
going to be safer.
And the gun folks will more than likely
still have what they, what they have.
I think lik if, if I think that's a good
perspective for people to have is if you were
to think like what you said, Ryan, about, if
gun owners were striving for a safer Canada.
If Canada's gun homicide rate was
single digits, there is no government that
could justify spending any amount of taxpayer
dollars pulling guns out of civilian hands.
So gun owners should be striving for that
number to drop too.
Um, obviously there's the law of
diminishing return.
So it does get really hard once we're at, I
mean, we're at 200 people on average, it's for a
country of 32 million is pretty small number for.
That's very small.
Murders.
But I think too, you know, one of these bad
things happen, what you said, Ryan kind
of spawned a bit of a thought in my head
of like this, what I've talked about with
regards to gun owners thinking a little bit
beyond the scope of their gun safe when they
see these headlines.
Is, um, I'm a young guy that who sadly is
like, you know, like I said, growing up in this
nineties, 2000 generation of school shootings,
Columbine was during my childhood and I grew up
in a era of just constant school shootings,
pretty much, um, they're not the gun's fault.
I always get media interviews where, okay,
well, what does this have to do with guns is always
the response, because it doesn't have anything to
do with guns because if a kid wants to shoot up
a school, they'll find some other thing to do,
you know, Timothy McVeigh or you name it, is a
common, I honestly do.
Like if a kid's going to grab a 12 gauge and
shoot another kid, I don't know like, I'm not
the guy to, to say, you know, what do you do?
Like kid needs mental help, not like, not to
take a shotgun away, like taking a kids
shotgun away, he's still gonna try and
kill another kids.
So it's a little weird.
Um.
Yeah.
But what I've always thought is like all of
the, so I don't associate with that as a gun owner,
but I do associate with that as a young man,
because I've never seen a mass shooting perpetrated
by a young woman.
And that's where I've that, that thought.
I don't know when I had, I think it was a
few years ago that it suddenly occurred to
me and I thought, you know, um, it was when
Courtney, we're talking about having our first
kid and you inevitably think, well, what if I
have a son, you know, and mini me kind of thoughts.
And you think about what's going on with
the kids these days.
And I have concerns about Tik Tok like everyone
else, but then you see these shootings and
you think young men um, might be in a certain,
some, some young men clearly find themselves
in a, in a state of very clear distress.
Um, and obviously while the school shootings
themselves are, are super, super sad.
I think that, and it's, it's obviously very
hard to think about the perpetrators as victims
themselves, but I think fundamentally, as someone
that has a background in mental health, you
do have to look at that and realize that.
Like, if anyone is wondering, just go watch
a prison documentary and tell me you don't
feel bad for the guy who was abused sexually
from the age of three to 16 and then entered
a life of crime because he's never known a life
of normalcy, right?
Like you have to feel sorry for these people.
They, they were not given the opportunities
that some of us were.
Um, I think it's the same thing goes on with the
gangbangers in Toronto and Vancouver is it's,
they're not doing it because they've got a
great job and they're like, man, I really don't
like my boss at this cushy nine to five, I'm
going to go sell drugs.
Like it's not really how it goes most of the time.
So keeping in mind, you know, when a gun enters
a violent situation, there is no one winning
and chances are, there was no one winning
when that happened in the first place.
Um, it was just a bunch of people who are trying
to find a way to win and don't know how, and I
think guts it's on all of us to help them out.
Well, Daniel, Ryan, I've got a bunch of
notes that I had taken just on C-21 alone.
Some on C-71 some on the OIC and I much
prefer where this conversation went.
I think it was much.
Bomb through them quick.
I got a 20 second, hammer through yellow flags.
I can just, you tell the, say the word
I'll give her man.
You know what?
Givin' 'er the whole time.
I was, I was going to throw it up on the
website and I still might do that as well.
Just a quick synopsis so people can look at it.
Of course, on The Silvercore blog, we have
complete transcripts knowing full well
that some people would prefer to read
or watch or listen.
But, hey, you know what Daniel, if you
want, uh, we've got a real quick list here.
Red flag, yellow flag, turning your guns during
a legal challenge, replica firearms.
Uh, deletion replacement of grandfathering,
municipal firearms bans, uh, ammo, individuals
without a firearms license cannot obtain
ammo abroad, uh, mag capacity, uh, new,
uh, terms for, uh, unpinned magazines.
Um, mail order transfers and centralize
authorization to carry.
So no longer the CFO now a central
commissionaire, cause we know the CFOs are run
off their feet, giving out, uh, authorization.
ATC's.
To carry right, for.
Mhmm.
Uh, so that those are the main bullet
points I have.
Uh, I did have one interesting thought
on, on replica's cause that touches on
a lot of people who are into airsoft and
some paintball and
. And that's, that's closer to your, there's a
bit of a venn diagram overlap with your,
some of your background training and stuff too.
There isn't ever-.
Perhaps a little bit, you're talking about
disabled deactivated, active, destroyed.
Uh, I think I've got a little bit of authority
to be able to speak on.
A little bit of knowledge on it.
On these ones.
Um, in fact, I've sitting in this podcast studio,
which was once my office, we've had the, um, uh,
some very high ranking people from the firearms
program uh, having some discussions on this who
flew in specifically from back east to talk on it.
I remember one individual who, uh, suddenly
couldn't speak anymore when, uh, she noticed
that there were cameras in the office because we
are a security related, related business.
And, uh, tried to conduct the entire
meeting through hand gestures, but, uh, it
was, it was interesting.
But did you want to.
Fricken heck man, like.
And I still have that video I'm sure kicking
around somewhere.
The puppet show.
So yeah.
Did you have any on, on those things, did
you have any, I mean, obviously abrogating
control of the handgun issue from the feds
to the municipalities.
It has some huge.
It's insane.
I dont.
Constitutional issues.
I don't, like.
And it can bleed over into other areas that
are not even firearms.
Oh yeah, people don't even understand what's
going to happen.
I mean, like for those listening, fundamentally
the constitutional problem with this,
and I'm not a lawyer, but I do know a
constitutional lawyer.
And my first call after this was to him, uh,
fundamentally your firearms license is a
federal document, right?
Like the federal government issued
that to you.
Right.
And what C-21 is saying.
They call a it geographic extent, I think is the
actual words that they use in the firearms act.
Yeah.
Right.
And you can't see it, but I'm, I'm
laughing and smiling.
Cause this is legitimately just a
farcically comical portion of this law and
that they want to have a federal license, where
your city council passes a bylaw that says you
can't own a handgun.
Or if you do, you have to have these special laws.
Cause like, they haven't said that municipalities
can opt into an existing set of laws.
They just said, municipalities can make
some laws and whatever they say for handgun
storage, possession, transport, you name it.
They will put on your license as
conditions, making your bylaw of federal
statute essentially.
Right.
Because if they're going to enforce it on the
back of your license to federal condition on your
federal license and like.
I don't think, I mean, hey, like I said, I
don't think any of this will happen.
And I will say so for the big synopsis of
people want a better run down on a lot of
these things in detail.
I can highly recommend, I like Ian Runkle's
channel lot, the YouTube lawyer out there talking
about this stuff.
Um, the red flag laws terrible, it's just
an extension of what's already out there as
an existing system.
I know within private RCMP Facebook groups,
they don't like this because specifically, uh,
they don't actually like RCMP frontline officers
don't like the idea of going into your house
and seizing stuff, a little warrant because
RCMP officers, they do have to go to court.
They do have to testify on all these things
and they look at it and go like, this is just
going to get abused.
They've all seen it.
They know that this is just going to be
abused by a bunch of people to ruin their
ex-husband's deer season because newsflash, if
they take your guns.
Now, the new system is the red flag law.
They take your guns away for 30 days while they
do an investigation to find out if the supposed
complaint levied against you from a public
safety perspective was verified or not.
The yellow flag laws that you can't move your
guns, use your guns, buy your guns, or sell your
guns, they're parked in your house for 30
days while they conduct the investigation.
The law in both cases allows for the 30 day
period to be extended, I believe once.
And then an additional complaint will allow
the courts to levy these penalties against you for
a maximum of five years.
If the complaint has found justified,
obviously that's different because then
the courts decide within the framework of the law.
But yeah, 30 days it's not judicial,
there's no judicial oversight, and what
that means that if it happens to you, there's
nothing you can do.
You, there's nowhere to call.
Um, judicial oversight is when you can call a
lawyer who can get you in front of a judge who
can tell the government, this is illegal,
you can't do this.
There's nothing in this for that,
because you don't have a right to gun.
So if the CFO says you can't have him
for 30 days, you have no compensation.
Um, that's obviously insane.
Um, no one likes it and this is where again, I
think people will find, you know, the advertising
ban it's poorly worded.
It makes no sense.
Um, the municipal handgun ban, unconstitutional
and completely illegal.
And talk about like, you want to talk about, if
anything, the buyback is going to cost two
to 5 billion, maybe up to 8 billion, depending
on how they count it.
I think the municipal bylaw bank could even
eclipse that amount because the amount of
lawyers that will have to be hired to figure
out each individual case like, it's nuts.
Um, and I mean, when you think like, and I know
that there are people, oh no one's going to sue.
I guarantee you, if The Shooting Edge is going to
be put out of business by a municipal handgun ban,
the first phone call J.R.
Cox makes, is to a freaking lawyer.
Like everyone thinks about these laws from
the perspective that individuals, but they
forget that even with the buyback, I, you know, I
have a decent amount of guns, but I'm probably
not suing to keep them.
A lawyer will cost me more than the guns are
worth in some cases.
I'm not North Sylva so if North Sylva's sitting
on millions of dollars, worth of Bushnell AR
specific optics, okay.
Am I going to go after the government
try and compensation?
Yes, because it's probably easier to sue
the government to get my full retail purchase
price and taxes and duties and storage
out of the government on those optics than
it is to sell them.
Because what do you put it on now?
Right.
Um, so that, shit's just going to go nuts, um.
Had a buddy that had an interesting point on a
municipal handgun ban and driving out, uh,
conservative voters.
So, his thought was that, uh, if you have a, uh,
like a purple riding or whatever, that could
go either way, and it would be easy enough for
the government to say that we're to, uh, not
implement, but, uh, sort of point them in the
direction to, hey, maybe you guys should implement
a municipal handgun ban.
So then the vote, the Conservative voters at
that point have choices.
They can either get rid of their stuff
or they can move.
Uh, and if they end up moving, what happens
to that riding?
Well, the riding goes red.
It almost gerrymanders in reverse.
Yeah.
And so after, at that point, you're picking
up seats in the house, uh, because each one
of those ridings is a seat and away we go.
It certainly would increase the, the
partisanship, I mean that rural, urban
divide and the East, West divide, for sure.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think that relates to the, uh, Travis
mentioned about the centralized CFO thing.
For those that don't know, um, CFOs do
have massive amounts of, of leeway when
it comes to ATCs.
Um, as in like a CFO could just issue you one.
You could, you could, may issue or shall issue
is potentially within reach within Canada.
If a CFO decided it was, they would just have to
make a personal decision and have a provincial
government that didn't fire them for it.
Um, I mean the head of the Saskatchewan Wildlife
Federation, I think it was Saskatchewan Wildlife
Federation, there's two, the Saskatchewan
Wildlife Federation, and then another one.
I believe it was him, Bob is his name,
he's the current CFO of Saskatchewan.
Um, He's obviously a gun guy, right?
So, uh, with, with Jason Kenney potentially
higher, I think that's what this is, there's
a Jason Kenney.
Cause there's been lots of talk about
Jason Kenney hiring a provincial CFO.
Yeah.
And.
So that'll be two provinces that have.
Well, and the big thing, and I think the Trudeau's
worry about is it Kenny is, Kenny and Alberta
are the only province in a position right
now to politically, Saskatchewan could,
but they'd get crushed by, Saskatchewan's big
enough to go up against the national media.
So when the entire weight of Canada comes
down on them going like, no, you shouldn't carry
guns and Saskatchewan might acquiesce.
Yep.
Um, but Alberta's not like that.
And Alberta's got nothing to lose anymore, with
all the pipeline stuff.
Yep.
Trudeau has to be looking at it and going Jason,
like in the same way that Trudeau looks at
this and goes, this is a great way to get votes,
which is again why I think it's reprehensible
because to be clear, a 14 year old was shot
in the face and Justin Trudeau's response was
bill C-21, which is never going to become a law.
So instead of actually helping kids, he's
decided to just use them as votes.
So not done nothing, that's the clar-,
what pisses me off.
He's done something.
He's done the things to help.
He's chosen to get votes.
He's chosen.
Like he has the entire weight of the
Canadian government and armed forces behind
him, including our strongest ally being
the United States.
And he thinks the best way to stop kids from
shooting each other in Toronto is taking
away my gun, which is fucking bullshit.
So in other words, he's choosing to use
dead kids to get votes.
That's literally what it is.
And I would challenge, I don't care if Rosemary
Barton wants to do interview with me, I
would stick to my goddamn statement on that cause
they ain't changed it.
You can't tell me otherwise, there's no
justification for this.
Bill Blair himself said as chief of Toronto
police, municipal handgun bans don't make sense.
You know, and now he's changing his
tune, because it makes political sense.
Sure.
Of course.
I think like it's just, you know, ugh, I got
all angry and lost my train of thought, but.
It was good.
We liked it.
Fucking Trudeau, man.
Um.
So replica firearms, replica firearms are
prohibited already.
It sounds like they're looking at some expansion
to what is deemed a replica firearm, and that
is to include airsoft.
And so there's a whole slew of people out
there that have never owned firearms and not
interested in firearms in general, right.
And I guess people, some people listen to this
will have a distinction and they'll think, well,
a firearm is something that goes bang over 500
feet per second, 5.7 joules of energy, that's
a regulated firearm.
Airsoft, pellet guns still fall under the
firearm label and if you use, let's say a
pellet gun to go and hold up your local
liquor store, you will be charged with a firearms
related offence right.
And then provincially firearms and municipally
on the firearm side.
So the, the concept here, I guess, is
these guns that, these, these items that kind
of look like guns.
We're going to just make the replica law a
little bit more robust.
And of course, these guys are going to be
affected by it, guys and girls, of course,
they shouldn't talk in the one way there.
But I was thinking based on some of my
experience I've had in the past, dealing with
different regulatory bodies, I actually
can see a solution.
Not that I would advocate for this.
But the solution for the airsoft is out
there, if they still wanted to do airsoft.
Would be to use real firearms.
And let me explain what I mean by that.
Mass murder.
If something is developed.
If something is developed as a firearm, it was
never developed to imitate a firearm,
it was a firearm.
If you deactivate that.
And now there are some guidelines for
deactivation and you can exceed those
guidelines and not be deemed deactivated or
fall below it and be deemed deactivated.
Whatever you do once it's deactivated in the
eyes of the law, it is no longer a firearm.
You then pull the guts out through some
CO2 or green gas and the, whatever you
want inside the thing.
And you can run around and play airsoft again
with what was originally designed to be a firearm.
Does that make logistical sense?
No, but if you look at it from a, just a common
sense perspective.
Legal practicallity.
The work around for these people to go
out here and to do it.
Yep.
It's ridiculous.
Yeah.
It.
Uh, and I think this is where the, it can
be beneficial to take the tenure perspective.
Um, cause I'll admit, uh, I, I have shot airsoft.
I played airsoft when I was a young guy
and it's tons of fun.
Um, I think taking the guts out of real guns
and de-wating them, uh, I think it's a great
argument because it really addresses the
core cause of this, of if the problem
is criminals running around with replica
firearms and using them to intimidate people
and police not knowing the difference because,
legitimately, they don't.
Right.
I mean, these guns are very realistic so.
Sure.
If the problem is coming from the law
enforcement caucus in the Liberal party,
um, and as people like Harjit Sajjan, getting,
getting things from his ex VPD guys, which I
seriously doubt he is, but nonetheless, um.
Yeah.
That could be what steering this, if, if
the practical solution for airsoft is, well
we'll just use real guns, the gangbangers will be
right behind them, right?
Like, if a gangbanger goes, okay so my airsoft
gun that I used to steal from the airsoft store
is no longer available.
I guess we'll just go to the surplus store
and steal that de-wated handgun that they've
got hanging from the ceiling, right?
Like, or they'll just get a real gun or they'll
just produce / continue to trade an airsoft guns.
Cause I mean the big thing there's, how
many of these are soft, guns are out there.
And I got to say like, I brought this
up with the OIC.
If they ban M14's say right, they're
not registered.
So there is literally, and this is just reality,
if a gang banger goes into a gun store in
rural Alberta and says, I will give you $8,000
for that M14, and I know it's illegal, just
grind off the serial number and that gun shop
owner is going well.
Trudeau's just past C-21, my city might
put me out of business.
I could really use the eight grand right now.
I'm gonna eat all the money from all these.
Yeah, right.
Like you're putting people in between a
rock and a hard place.
And then basically you're putting them in a rock
and a hard place that is also like front of the
line for organized crime to take advantage of.
So, I mean, if you don't think that that
gang bangers and, and people that criminals
that would want to obtain these things for
nefarious reasons, don't go into airsoft for sale
groups and buy airsoft guns for this reason.
You're insane.
Absolutely.
They do same as they do on any gun for them.
They're on CG and they're everywhere
trying to get guns.
It's just the fact that gun owners are generally
pretty, um, fastidious with their, with their
documentation and checking PAL's that it's
not really a problem.
Yeah.
So I think that's evidence, the system
works, but it's so weird to me that the
government and the people that elected
them that were like, I love these guys because
they're going to make pot legal and then we
can just stop that whole crime from happening.
And we can dedicate law enforcement resources
to better crimes.
And you know, when you make something illegal
and you prohibit it, it just makes it into the
black market and we can't control that anyways.
Look at prohibition or the same people
that turn around and go, well, we'll make
airsoft guns illegal.
These made in, made in China, Chinese things
that are dirt cheap, that are imported by the
million, that are sold by companies like Walmart
by the, literally like Walmart orders, hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of airsoft
guns every calendar year.
And they think, yeah, we'll make
those things illegal.
A bunch of 13 year olds turning in their Tokyo
Marui Beretta 92's that they paid 300 bucks
after they did newspaper route for six weeks.
You know, not that I'm bitter or anything,
thing broke after two days, but.
Yep.
Got into real guns afterwards, it was
a way better way.
Um, but it's just, yeah, it's such a, like when
you put it into the realistic perspective,
that's the, like the comical part, because
when people read it as a legislation or as an
order paper item, or as a legislative summary,
it has all the way to the federal government
behind it and Justin Trudeau and all this
pomp and circumstance.
And then you go like, wait, so you're telling
me a cop is going to go up to a 12 year old and
he's, and be like, that's a prohibited device,
get on the ground.
Like, is that what we want.
I thought we were in for less of that.
Are they, they're banned for import now as well
by that, are they not?
I think so.
Yeah.
I think I read.
Yeah, CBSA does all the funky stuff because
even before they.
Yeah, they just do whatever they want.
Declared it illegal, they ban it.
So that's going to be an issue for the film
industry in a lot of ways, because, uh, uh,
airsoft guns, gas guns, are a huge portion of
what takes place and even more so now, uh, with the
way the film industry is.
With all the safety stuff that's going on.
I know in Vancouver, uh, there's productions
that I used to work on that no longer allow
any, uh, real guns on set and that's written
into their contracts.
Uh, so when they're dealing with, uh,
firearms and shooting and all that kind of stuff,
uh, In their production uh, it's basically CGI'd
with, uh, airsoft guns.
So as you well know, like you already mentioned,
airsoft guns break and they fall apart and they
don't last very long.
Constantly.
Uh, and so there is not an unlimited
supply of airsoft guns uh, in Canada.
So at some point, those are going to run out.
So I would ask what they're going to
do at that point.
They've already, uh, made it so that, uh,
productions can't use real firearms
written into their production contracts.
Then, now the airsoft guns are
all basically gone.
Um, and anything really that looks like a real
gun is, uh, going to be a prohibited as a replica.
So where do they go from there?
And the part that kind of, kind of makes me
interested is that a lot of the people in film
obviously voted for, uh, you know, it's for film
is fairly hardcore left.
They voted this stuff in, uh, basically without
really understanding the full impact of what kind
of problems is going to cause, even possibly
in their own job.
And I think.
I'm reminded of some of the facebook
arguments there.
Well, I know for a fact.
I know for a fact that some people are
suddenly realizing what is going to happen, uh,
possibly to their job.
Or to the amount of jobs that they get, or
even the TV shows and productions and movies
that arrive in Vancouver and, and undoubtedly the
rest of Canada, because we'll be all under
the same, uh, rules.
So, um, you know, action films were a huge thing.
That's basically what I worked on
back in the day.
Action films, TV shows, all that kind of stuff
and a lot of that, in my opinion, is probably
going to have some issues with coming up.
You know what they do, they make an exception.
They can make an exception.
Yes.
And then if they're going to make an exception on
that, you have to turn around and say, well,
what was the point of this to begin with?
Yeah.
And why in the beginning then, if
this is not a problem.
But that's where, so like when I was, when,
for the, for the Senate testimony, when they
email you for it, they basically give you some
instructions right.
And they don't tell you what to say or anything
like not, it's obviously like it's very, very,
very professional.
So anyone listening, it's very cool.
It's a really neat thing to do.
But if you ever get a chance to
highly recommend it.
But they tell you like you can't
change big things.
Like when the Senate gets it to start
making amendments.
And even when the parliamentary committee
start getting it to make amendments, like the
bill should be a little bit closer to, to ready.
And actually like what Ryan brings up with
regards to the film industry, cause I thought
that right away as well.
I mean, anyone that lives in Vancouver
can't help, but think of that, especially in
the gun world, because film armourer's in
Vancouver are like a big, big deal, um.
And with Netflix and in with the, with the
streaming services now buying so much
more content, like the hours of content
being produced now.
Uh, I mean, Ryan, you don't better than I, but
I'm pretty sure it's, it's just gotta be a
lot more actual hours.
Even when I was getting out of the industry.
Was already climbing
The Netflix shows and stuff were growing
exponentially.
They were building, uh, studios in BC
specifically to do Netflix productions.
And Netflix, those shows can't afford
the real guns, right?
Like, I didn't know.
It was like, I knew that film was going
more towards gas guns.
I thought it was a cost thing.
Not so much a safety thing.
I knew the safety was there, obviously.
Yeah.
It's more of a safety thing.
It doesn't really make any difference
to the production.
They, they end up renting, um, either a
gas gun or a real gun and they can operate those
on set without one of us there, without one of
the armourer's generally.
Providing the, the prop master has a you know,
a firearms license and there's somebody there.
Gotchya.
That can deal with it.
I think it's just evidence though that
this exception isn't already baked into the
law is, is another case of, I just don't think
they really intended this to go the distance.
Like I think they basically just
drafted this thinking.
Yeah, it's about, it looks to me to be a law
that is about 60% of the way to something
that's actually capable of being.
It's not thought through it all really.
No, no.
So.
They didn't consult anybody on where
it's gonna go.
And I mean, in some ways we can probably take a
little bit of like, oh, that's good, because
I'm glad to hear they didn't waste a bunch of
time drafting a law they didn't intend to pass.
I'm glad they just wasted minimal amounts of our
time drafting a law they didn't intend to pass,
at a time when there's some other stuff that
they probably have on their priority table.
But yeah, that, that film thing, how many,
so percentage wise, when you were working,
or if you have any idea now from like talking
to people that, mutual contacts and all like
what's the percentage between real guns
and gas guns on film?
Uh.
In your experience in Vancouver, just
in your experience.
When I was working, and I think I left at the
end of 2015, I would say it was probably,
I bet you, it was probably 60% airsoft.
Really?
Gas guns.
And you think it's gone up from there?
It's a hundred percent gone up because
there were still all the WB shows like
Supernatural and, uh.
God I love that show.
Aero and all those, uh.
God I hate that show.
All the superhero um, uh, stuff, the
DC comic shows.
I worked on all of those and, uh, it was pretty
regular, like Arrow, we'd you know, I have M 60
machine guns out on it and handguns all kinds
of different things.
Now uh, none of those shows uh, allow live
fire, like real blank fire going on on them.
Do you feel like that decision was made,
was that decision made entirely from a
safety perspective or do you feel there was
a degree of politics in that decision?
Um, I think it, I think it was a cover
your ass decision, uh, there, especially.
Lawyers, liability.
Yeah.
Liability for sure.
I mean, we were always going through issues, uh,
uh, with the production lawyers wanting to
rewrite the contracts and all that kind of stuff.
Uh, like our liability contracts that we
added at the time, and it was always a big
huge back and forth.
And I think eventually it came to the point where
they're like, well, you don't need a liability
contract when, uh, when you're running airsoft.
So it's a, it's a safety issue, so let's
just get rid of the real live fire guns.
And that, in turn got basically rid of the
armourer's unless there was something specific
that there wasn't an airsoft gun for there's
no airsoft 50 cal's.
So if you had those out on set yet
to have the guys.
But now, it's, it's different.
Well, sucks to be film industry guy
all of a sudden.
I don't know how the film industry.
Yeah.
You know, I got buddies that.
Especially with our dollar being at that
money spot for film normally too, right?
Yup.
I mean, it should be a very lively with the,
with the dollar and everything right now
and the tax credits and all that stuff, you
should be pretty lively here, but, um, all the
people I stay in contact with, if they're like,
eh, there's, you know, it's, it's moderately
busy at this point.
You were talking about putting something on
the back of the license and putting conditions
on the back of the license earlier and it
just brought to mind the back of my license.
And by virtue of my age alone, I was not able to
get a 25 or 32 calibre handgun or short barreled
firearm, a section 12.6 type firearm, but
I was able to get a 12.7 inherited firearm.
And you know what happened when my
license renewed?
I bet you do.
You know what happened.
I don't.
To my 12.7?
Okay.
Well, this might be an interesting one that
you can write about in Calibre magazine.
Uh, my 12.7 inherited it turned into a
12.6 and guess what I could purchase and buy
and sell other 12.6 firearms from other
individuals out there.
And I was concerned, I thought like,
what's going on here?
And I had actually, you know, in a CYA way,
contacted the firearms programming, um, like
what's going on here?
And they said we don't make mistakes,
you're 12.6, we don't make mistakes.
Okay, fair enough, I got it in
writing, good to go.
I can buy, sell all the rest, but the interesting
thing was, it didn't just happen to me.
It happened to every other 12.7 inherited.
Really?
Firearms owner in Canada.
I've got pictures of the license and I've
talked to other 12.7 owners who became 12.6.
And now they've got a situation where they
got, some people, myself, by virtue of age, I was
never able to even take advantage of the 12.6,
who were able to purchase other firearms and sell
the firearms and they had to turn around and
try and quietly clean up this little mess.
So when we look at these laws, when we look at
C-21 and even if we were to say this was the most
well thought out in their intention in the way
they're going, we can't discount human error in
these things and what those implications will
have to the individual and to the businesses.
Like for example, in the film industry, um,
just, just an interesting aside on all of that.
And if you wanted to write on that
in Caibre Mag.
I'm interested.
I'm kind of curious, I'm interested into why.
Cause I thought that was, I actually looked
into that a few years ago when I, I got the
impression that it was pretty expressly
included for most of the assets I looked at
that like, that was not supposed to be the case.
Like I, a 12.7 was supposed to be 12.7,
you get inherited only.
They made a mistake.
You're supposed to be expanded, but
if it's happening to everyone, um.
Every single 12.7 became 12.6.
That sounds more like an internal policy change
because legitimately once that stuff's like,
I could see if yours did once and I could see the
CFO saying we don't make mistakes to cover yours.
But if it's everyone's, that's, that's an
internal, that's a.
That's an error.
An ATIP that I need to file to say, like,
why is this happening?
Cause there's something happened.
There would have been an internal, like from
my knowledge of how the firearms program
works, there would have been something
internal circulated to dictate that transition
occurring because it's changed, right?
Like it's, they, they didn't renew
your license.
They changed your license.
They had to do something to do so.
Have you renewed since that went down?
I have.
And it stayed?
Until the point where they had to
correct it all.
And they had to course correct with all other
12.7's who we're, became 12.6 and they have
changed them all back.
Hmm.
That's weird.
So that that could be human error.
That could be computer glitch.
That could be whatever it might be.
But when we started going down this road of
trying to make policy and trying to make laws
and regulations, we have to look at it like you
were saying from, Daniel, from the perspective
of the victim or the person and how, how they
will be impacted on it.
We have to look at it from the perspective
of the film industry, from the individual
owner and how, how they may be impacted.
But what rights are we giving away when we bring
these things in, should a mistake like this
happened to happen and they happen more often
than you would think.
Well, that's why I would say like my big
take home message for people when I've done
radio interviews, is always TV and stuff is
just don't you have an amnesty period, use it.
Like the government has given you that
amnesty period, just like they give you back
some money at tax time, you know, use it like
when the government gives you something,
take it and use it.
Um, so don't do anything until then, because
the more time elapses, the more this stuff
will get fleshed out.
And for all we know, I mean the long gun
registry amnesty continued until the long
gun registry ended so.
In your opinion Dan, is this gonna, is this
gonna stretch on and the amnesty will have to be
extended at some point?
It'll have to.
I mean, that's, that's kinda my thought.
I think the amnesety extension will be
predicated by the compliance rate.
Yeah.
And the compliance rate is going to be dismal.
So the amnesty will be extended indefinitely
because at the end of the day, they don't want
to reach a point where, because that's what
the, that's what the liberals got into with
long and registry, right?
Was it was people that may have supported
it initially.
Um, even in a passing way.
Like I know people, I was at the Vancouver
Gun Club arguing why the long gun registry should
die when it was first killed because people
that shoot shotguns at clay pigeon sometimes
think gun control is good and in that discussion,
like you just kind of go like it's, I don't
know, man like, I don't.
No one will comply and the government will
be stuck with this.
Like, do we put everyone in jail?
Yeah, how do we deal with it?
Or, or is, or is leaving the thread of that over
their head, ostracizing voters, like, like.
Let's say you're the, it's 150,000 AR fifteens
in the country, 130, whatever it is, right.
There's a lot more Norinco M14's in the
country, a lot more.
SKS's.
A lot of SKS, but the big one is I use the M14
specifically, because I think it's the most,
maybe the Mini 14, is maybe the most popular,
newly prohibited firearm, right.
Um, If I have an M14, but I don't own AR15.
I feel a bit insulated from Justin
Trudeau's gun ban.
I probably feel somewhat slighted by it by going
like, I can't use my M14, but you got to
remember too, like we are all hardcore gun
guys for whom guns are part of our daily lives.
For a lot of people, their M14 might be
something they haven't seen in two years, right?
They, they got it before they had kids,
they were shooting with their buddies.
Everyone had kids shooting less and less.
He keeps it for the eventual hunting trip
he plans to go on at some point in the
next 10 years, right?
He probably doesn't like AR-15's because
he probably looks at the headlines and
he's never been in the gun world, and he
thinks it's a quote, unquote, weapon of war.
Like these are the sorts of people
that Justin shows.
He's not worried about us because he
knows where we stand.
Yeah.
But it's those sorts of people for whom the
amnesty will be extended because he'll be looking
at those guys going, if I keep looking like
I'm going to throw this guy in jail, he might
vote for someone else.
If I keep looking, like I, I don't really mean
to hurt him, this is intended to like, if the
law says I'm going after legal gun owners, but the
government does not go after legal gun owners,
by default, a whole bunch of those legal gun owners
will still vote for the party that is not going
after them because they are not doing the thing
they said they would do.
Not following through yeah.
And the Conservatives need to realize
is talk is cheap.
The Liberals talk all the time and then they
don't do anything, like they won't take the guns,
even out of the houses.
Like when you actually think about those
arguments, the anti-gun people said of like,
you've promised to take assault weapons off the
street, et cetera, et cetera and now you're
just going to let everyone keep them.
If you were an anti-gun person and you'd
spent years lobbying, you would be super
super angry, right?
Like.
Mhmm.
I think there are a few that are pretty angry.
You finally get, you listened to Bill Blair
across the table, tell you, yeah, we're making,
we have the single strongest anti-gun bill
in Canada's history and you go, but everyone
gets to keep their AR-15?
Like, I'm sure they're just as pissed as we
are, because we're coming at it from
the opposite sides of this is not going to
do what either of us.
Were allies.
And that's the ironic part is we argue with
the people that are on like, and some of them
aren't on the same team because I'll admit like
some of the groups.
Just want all guns gone.
They don't want you to hunt, they don't
want you to have any guns, no guns at all,
they don't like guns.
They're hoplophobic.
And they've managed to find a way to turn
that into a hobby.
But for by and large, a lot of things,
these people, and we've seen it.
Cause there have been some people that started
out on a staunchly anti-gun argument that
if you say, look, I'm on your side dude,
like I'm not, I don't.
I'd like to keep my guns that's, but that's
besides the point.
What I want to do is save lives and stop these kids
from shooting each other and stop the suicides and
stop this and stop that.
Then oh, okay, all right then, this, they start to
nod their head and they go, this makes sense.
You're on the same side.
Okay, yeah.
You know, and if humanizes us a bit too,
but it also gives us some credibility that
we're, we're kind of lacking these days.
Empathy.
Yeah, it's empathy, a bit of, yeah, so it's hard
though, because I mean, the other thing too is,
I think for Canadian's at large, it's really
hard because the people that are victimized
by these crimes are always, and I'll say
this, this is showing to sound super woke
myself, this is showing my own privilege, so I'll
freely admit that I am.
The people that are victimized by a lot
of these crimes are people that are not, the
people like myself have trouble associating with.
I am not a gang banger, I've never been involved
in the drug trade, I'm not a violent person,
in the freaking least, um, So for me, it's,
it's another world.
It's like reading about.
I mean, when I read about the stories that come
out of Jane and Finch in some of those downtown
areas of Toronto, I've been down there, I've
driven down there um, it's pretty eyeopening.
Yeah.
It's pretty crazy.
But it doesn't feel like Canada.
Like, it doesn't feel like the Canada I
know, cause I come from the mountains of BC.
Like I drove through downtown Toronto,
looking at the, the areas where these shootings
happen and I go like, well, like I don't even
recognize this place.
It's another world.
And when I see the headlines coming out of
those areas, it feels like something else and
I think that's what, especially because gun
owners are typically, we have higher than average
household incomes.
We have more stable lives.
We have more complete family units amongst
our population than the national averages.
And that gives us a different perspective
that is, it makes it hard for gun owners to,
it makes it very hard, I think for gun owners
to have sympathy and empathy for the people
on both ends of these violent crimes, because.
And you see it writ large amongst the population
that more people have been killed by opioid
overdoses than by COVID.
But more people are willing to make
massive concessions to their daily lives
because of the COVID.
But no one would make a single concession about
opioids because quote unquote, the people that
overdose are not like me.
And that's, if you want to know where I think
Canada is going wrong, that's where it is.
And it's across the board and it's it's, we just
don't read out the gang bangers and gun owners.
It's almost like they're proud to
say that's not me.
Instead of going, that could have been me.
He's one of us.
There by the grace of God go I, right?
Like, your childhood unfolds a little bit
differently, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
That could be you.
That's good.
Well, Daniel, Ryan, thank you very much.
This was an excellent podcast
listeners out there.
If you have thoughts, please let us know.
You can email them, leave them on YouTube.
Leave them in the, in the comments on the, uh,
the podcast there., make sure checkout Calibre
Magazine, there's plenty of good content in the
magazine, just like you've been hearing
from Daniel here.
And if you want to take your rifle to
11 checkout IBI, get yourself an IBI barrel.
Thanks guys.
Oh, thanks for having us.
Yeah, likewise.
And I'll continue to be the strongest
reason why these podcasts need a mute
button for the guests.
No.
Need to talk more and not less Dan.
Absolutely.
I'm trying, we're hoping.