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 the community.
If you're new to Silvercore, be sure to
check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where
you can learn more about courses, services, and
products that 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.
In this episode, I sit down with a lawyer, Ian
Runkle and ask firearms related questions,
which came directly from Silvercore Club members.
There is a ton of great information crammed
into this podcast that you won't want to miss.
Backed by very popular demand, I'm again,
chatting with Ian Runkle, Canadian lawyer
and host of the Runkle of the Bailey YouTube
channel, which deals with legal commentary,
heavily leaning towards issues of interest to
the firearms community.
Ian doles out countless hours of high quality
content and has a Patreon account where he can
support us endeavor and get the inside
scoop at the same time.
If you haven't checked out Ian's work,
there will be links in the description.
I highly recommended.
Welcome back to The Silvercore Podcast, Ian.
Oh, thank you for having me back.
It's always a good time, so.
Man, I had so much fun speaking with
you in episode 43.
And even though we spoke for quite some
time, I felt like we're still just scratching
the tip of the iceberg.
Oh, firearm law is such a, uh, it's such
a complicated and kind of broken area that
there's so much to it.
I mean, it's, uh, I kind of fell in love
with it because I was in law school, uh,
and started shooting.
And I, just because law school is stressful.
I remembered I enjoyed it as a kid, but I hadn't
really kept up with it, but I needed a hobby.
So I started that and then I thought, I don't
want to be the guy who blows up his legal career
by getting himself into some sort of trouble.
So I'd better actually go and, uh, figure
out what the law is.
So I don't run into it.
And at first I thought, I don't
understand this at all.
This is making no sense.
And later as I dug into it more, I went, I
think I'm understanding it just fine.
It just makes no sense.
Yeah.
That's kind of the conclusion I've
come to as well.
And I don't have any legal degree, but I
have heard, being a firearms instructor
and being in the industry since about 94.
I tend to hear the same questions coming up
over and over again.
And you probably see the same thing as well.
Yep.
And I try my best to sort of answer some of them.
I, uh, I have the optimistic notion
that some of my videos might settle some
of these debates.
Um, it's overly optimistic, but I am glad
every time I see one of these fights starts up
and somebody goes, no, we got an answer for this.
Here's a video.
Yeah.
Well, in preparation for this podcast, we thought
it'd be kind of fun to provide Silvercore Club
members an opportunity to ask questions
and we could just generally discuss it.
And Ian, you graciously obliged.
Yep.
I see there's a whole bunch of questions here.
I can sort of dive into them or let you ask the
ones that are most sort of key on your mind here,
but, uh, yeah, there's a lot of questions that
sort of keep coming up and a lot of them are
fairly complicated when it gets down to it.
I'll try to be kind of clear and concise
as much as possible
Well, you know what I thought it would
be kind of fun was we can generally speak
about the question and kind of discuss it.
And if you have, for a lot of these, I do know
that you already have content in long form on
your YouTube channel.
And what I'll do is I'll break them each one down.
And if we feel like, Hey, we're getting a
little bit far into this, we'll just put a link
over and the listeners can go check it out
on The Runkle of the Bailey YouTube channel.
Sounds good to me.
All right.
So the first one is a really, really easy one.
Um, I'm sure no one's ever asked
this one before.
Of course I'm being facetious.
Are Canadian gun owners permitted to
defend themselves with their firearms?
And if so, in what situations?
So this gets real complicated because, uh,
self-defense law is what lawyers like to call
highly fact-specific, which means it comes
down to the very precise elements of,
you know, of moments.
So what is valid self-defense, uh, at
one point might have been a serious criminal
offense, four or five seconds previous.
Um, as an example, you know, if you think of
somebody who's got a knife and they're 45 feet
away and you're standing there with a rifle and
the rifle is drawn on them, the standard sort
of, uh, you know, the Tueller drill and all
of that, those assuming you're talking about
a holster pistol, you can, you're effective at
a much closer distance if you're drawn on
somebody, but you know, they've got a knife and
you're standing there.
It would you know, a court would probably
not be okay with you pulling the trigger
on them if they're just standing there at
that 45 foot distance.
But they lean in and start a charge and the
equation changes and the court would be much more
likely to find that that was a reasonable time
to pull the trigger.
Uh, the problem is, is that when you
get into highly fact specific things, people
want simple answers.
Like I can do this at this point.
The general sort of rule is if you've got
another option, take that other option.
Um, there are plenty of cases where people
have used firearms in self-defense and
been acquitted, but keep in mind being
acquitted at trial is incredibly expensive.
Um, you know, if you're thinking about
somebody leaving with your TV or your truck,
I guarantee you it's cheaper to just buy a
new truck, you know.
No kidding.
So, you know, that trigger pull ends up
being possibly the most expensive decision you
would take in your life.
And, you know, it could also cost
you your freedom.
So if you have another option, take
the other option.
And if you're ever in court, in this situation
and you never want to be in the, in court,
being able to articulate, here's why I couldn't
do anything else.
You know, you know, if you say like, and
couldn't, and didn't want to, or different things
like the guys leaving with my TV, I don't want
them to leave with my TV.
I like my TV, but I can, you know, I'm
still gonna be alive.
But if the guy's coming after me with an ax, you
know, then it's like, well, I can't leave out
the back door because that'll take too long.
I got to fiddle with the back locks and
you know, the guy's coming after me.
I don't have time.
You know, I tried telling him to, you know, to
stop, he kept coming.
I had the firearm in hands, you know, that's
itself, a use of force and a show of force.
And he kept coming.
You know, I, I tried everything I could, this
was my last, last option.
That's always going to be a better position,
but there's, there's never any guarantees.
Um, sometimes those cases surprise me
in both directions.
You know, I see situations where I think.
You know, in case law, I think this was
a good use of, you know, self-defensive
force and the court says we disagree.
And sometimes I think, well, that was pretty
shaky and the courts says nah, that was fine.
Um, judges are people too, as much as we love
to think of the law as sort of this machine
where you plug things in and the right results
come out, um, sometimes.
Not always.
And there's sort of a school of thought
that basically says sometimes decisions get
made for reasons that are more complicated
than you think.
Like the judge just takes a dislike to you
or something like that.
Um, and that can shade how they look
at the evidence.
So if you have another option, take
the other option.
And I know that doesn't make a whole lot of
people happy about, you know, a lot of people
would like me to say, oh, well, you know, go ahead.
But you don't ever want to be hiring
somebody like me.
And especially not if there's a body,
like that's, that's a bad place to be.
Um, I have represented people.
Who've used defensive, you know, force in
defense and just about everybody says they
wish it never happened.
No kidding.
So, and that's including people who really had
no choice, you know, that's including people
who were cornered, who had no other option.
They're still like, I wish I could think of
some other way that that could have gone because
I don't like the outcome.
And that's people who win people who, you know.
Well, when in one respect the win, the fight,
but maybe not the full battle, the next eight
years of your life in criminal and civil.
Well, uh, Marie Henein, who's a
lawyer who I've got tremendous regard for.
Uh, she, uh, did a talk and one of the things
she was saying, and I really liked this line
is, you know, as a defense lawyer, we're
never going to be able to put you back where you
were before it happened.
But we can try to put you in the sort of best place
going forward, but you're always going to be worse
off just by having gone through the process so.
That's a good point.
Um, you know, if the guy's walking away with
your TV and you let him walk away with your
TV, you're not ending up being charged most
likely, and that's a much happier place to be.
Yeah.
No I agree with you on that one.
When, uh, armored car guards, they're carrying
firearms, they're using that firearm for
protection of their life and they are civilians.
They don't have any police powers,
anything else.
And I know the training system that they go
through, they try and simplify it as
much as possible.
Obviously it's not a, uh, not from a, a
lawyers perspective, but they say weapon,
intent, delivery system.
They take these three pieces.
There needs to be a weapon.
There needs to be actual intent and there needs
to be some mechanism for delivery and the guy
can have a weapon and intent, but no means of
actually doing damage.
Yep.
And that was one.
And the other one was, um, and reasonable.
If I'm recalling this correctly, reasonable
grounds to believe that your life or life of
a third party is an imminent danger of death
or grievous bodily harm and no less violent
means available, like leaving or letting them
walk away with a TV.
Yeah.
And you know, I, this one is always especially
hard for farmers because you know, in
my house, you know, a TV's a valuable object.
There's various things, but you'd be hard pressed
to walk out with more than say a few thousand
dollars worth of stuff.
Um, you know, vehicle, you're probably
getting into the five digits of, you know,
but they're old cars.
I'm not, I'm not the sort of guy who likes to roll
around in a Mercedes.
That's never been me.
Right.
But you know, you get onto a farm property
and you're talking about six-figure pieces of farm
equipment that somebody might be stealing
or damaging in the course of stealing it.
You know, somebody going out there with, you know,
an all to steal or with some sort of drill to
steal gas out of a big piece of farm equipment,
uh, might be costing a huge amount of damage.
And if he takes that equipment out of
line, uh, before a key portion of, you know,
the season that could ruin somebody, right?
It's, you know, harvest, you've got a narrow
window if somebody taking your equipment out.
So these get to be hard considerations, but the
law doesn't typically weigh money, very
highly, they weigh life.
And so I might not say necessarily weapon,
although a weapon is a, a sort of major factor,
but like credible threat to life or the like,
because somebody may not need a weapon for that.
True.
Um, you know, if you've got somebody who's built,
you know, they're an MMA fighter sort of build,
uh, they may not have a weapon, but if you are
80 years old and this guy is going to come and lay
a pummeling on you just with fists and boots,
uh, you could very well die from that right.
That's and so there's size considerations
at play there's age considerations,
gender, build, all of these things.
Training, if you're aware of it, you know,
it might be that somebody you've had a dispute with
somebody online, they show up at your house
and you know, this guy is, you know, serious
ex-military and you're not, you know, that may
weigh into it right.
You know, are you going to win a
hand-to-hand transaction?
And what kind of damage are you
likely to sustain?
Because the court doesn't want to see lethal force
used, unless there's a risk of you being
killed or seriously, seriously, injured.
You know, not just this is going to hurt, but
this may affect you going on, you know, in future.
So, but the real simple rule of thumb is just if
you've got other options.
And frankly, if you're still thinking about
this question, like if this question of, can I
shoot this guy is really even something that could
enter into your head.
The answer should be no, you know, find
another solution.
Um, the times when sort of it tends to
be more justified are somebody's charging you
with a weapon and you don't have time for this
kind of introspection.
It's just going to happen.
And yeah, I really wish I could give a simple
answer to this one, but there just isn't a simple
answer other than, even if you win, you're going
to hate the result.
So if at the point where you'd be okay with
spending the rest of your life in jail pulling
that trigger, that's probably the point where
you start to hit uh, legal justifications.
Uh, because otherwise, you know, you're talking
about somebody crippling you or, uh, you know,
or murdering you.
Wow.
Thank you.
Yeah, like I say, not an easy one at all.
No, it's, uh, it's one of the more complicated
and difficult areas of, you know, of law and
it's always going to come down to arguments,
um, sometimes over really subtle things.
You know, did the guy actually start to charge
forward when you pulled the trigger or was he
just standing there?
Um, did he have a knife versus not?
Uh, sometimes people think they see a
knife and they don't.
Um, so that becomes a thing because mistakes
are relevant, you know?
And the question of how sure am I about this, is
a good question to ask.
I will tell you you're in a much better
situation in terms of a self-defense argument.
If that guy has a knife versus if you're like,
well, I thought he had a knife, but he didn't.
Right.
You know, um, all of these get to be
interesting questions and, um, and the
crown tends to be very willing to proceed
with charges in these.
Uh, I just recently did a video where a woman who,
uh, she was apparently beaten quite badly,
you know, broken ribs could barely breathe.
Uh, she manages to get ahold of a knife
in the course of this altercation and stabs
the guy once in the leg and he dies and,
but she had serious injuries and she was
almost certainly smaller than this guy was, you
know, and this guy, you know, has a record,
all of this stuff.
They still charged her with murder.
They didn't proceed with the charges to
trial, but she spent a month in jail.
Wow.
You know, and think about you as an
ordinary person.
Like what does a month in jail do?
Um, your job, they're not going to stick around
with you, you know, for a month while you're facing
murder charges, you're, it doesn't matter how
much your boss likes you.
They don't like you that much.
They will drop.
Your social network, the gossip.
Yeah.
Well, and I mean, you know, that'll
get reported in the news as well.
So any time anybody looks you up, which
employers do all the time, they're going
to see murder charge.
That'll be a big thing.
Um, your, your, you know, your landlord, probably
not so keen on you missing a month of rent.
So lots of people sort of get out in a situation
like this and they find that their life
is entirely destroyed.
You know, hey, you've got bail on murder.
Um, your friends don't want to talk to you,
your job isn't going to take your phone calls.
They're telling you you're banned
from the site.
Um, your landlord has evicted you and thrown
your stuff in a dumpster.
You know, so.
Massive.
Yeah, lots of people are like.
Life altering.
Hey, I won in the self-defense case,
but I ended up homeless for awhile.
That kind of thing.
Yeah.
Good point.
So we have another person who says that
they own firearms that have been prohibited
by the recent ordering council prohibition
that they're moving.
And they've asked for an authorization to
transport, but the firearms program,
isn't giving them an ATT for that.
I don't know if this is typical or just happens,
is this one individual, but they want, yeah.
Sometimes people are being able to get ATTs.
Often the CFO is saying, no, you don't need one.
Uh, we're not going to give you one.
Um, really, if you can try to press them to
give you an ATT anyway, because the circumstance
that may come up is let's say you're moving
and the police say, Hey, you've got this firearm,
it's a restricted firearm, or it's a
prohibited firearm, where's your ATT?
Um, you can't show one and they go, great,
you're in custody while we figure out the ins
and outs of the order and counsel, um, there's
actually an amnesty order that went with it.
And one of the things that it provides for is
transporting a firearm to where it's going
to be stored, pending whatever disposition.
So that would, would seem to include moving.
You know, if you're moving house, you
obviously can't leave it there, but I you're
going to want it to read the amnesty
order very carefully.
Because one of the things that says is
can't be in a vehicle with, ammunition.
Hmm.
Now most people who are moving, are moving
everything all at once.
Right.
You write a big moving truck, you throw all
your stuff in there.
And I don't know anybody who doesn't, who shoots,
who doesn't have at least some ammunition
on hand at all times.
Right.
Because if you decide, Hey, I want
to go to the ranch.
You want to be able to just grab your ammo and
go, you know, the gun store is not always open.
And you know, often if I'm going to the
range, it's like 8:00 AM head off to the range,
spend the day shooting.
Uh, you don't want to go 8:00 AM drive
to the gun store, pick up ammunition,
drive home, pick up your restricted's.
Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
So, um, this whole thing of you're driving your
prohibited firearms.
They can't be in the same truck as the ammunition.
You've got to make some separate trip.
And for some people, this has been a big deal.
I've talked to people who were like, listen,
I'm moving from British Columbia to Manitoba.
What do you mean I got to take two trucks?
Yes.
It's a terrible amnesty, it's was really
poorly thought out.
Um, honestly, as with a lot of these things, it
seems like they don't have anybody in the room.
Who might be affected by these things or who even,
you know, has experience with shooting, who could
say, wait a minute guys, what about this problem?
So, um, it is possible to move
them without the ATT.
Um, you will, however want to make sure that
you are careful in reading the amnesty.
The other thing is if you own some of these
firearms that are prohibited by the OIC,
you may also own other restricted firearms.
In which case, like, what is the harm of them
adding the prohibited firearm to the ATT.
You know, oh we're listing 10 firearms
that you're moving, but we're not going
to list that 11th one.
I know.
I think there, there might be a fear
that they're getting trapped into something
by legitimizing it by issuing an ATT.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I don't know either, it's.
It doesn't make sense.
It's unnecessary.
But just having that piece of paper
can protect you from an officer who
doesn't necessarily follow the law.
You know, I am not always the hugest fan of
police, but I recognize that most police aren't
trying to be bad guys.
There's very few police out there who are
like, I am a bad guy.
Right.
What there's a lot of is police who are
trying their best to deal with a giant
catastrophe of laws.
Um, you know, they, haven't gone
to law school.
They've taken a much shorter course, and that
course includes all the other things in policing.
You know, how to deal with evidence, how
to talk a guy down.
If he's looking like he's going to be violent,
how to use force, if he's being violent,
um, you know how to talk to a grieving
widow, how to talk, you know, all of these
things are in policing.
And so they only get a little bit of the
law and they can't, they don't have time
to follow up with all of the developments
because you know, something like the order
in council comes up.
Well, they've got paperwork to report that,
you know, what happened on that file, where they
went and somebody's dog bit somebody else, you
know, they got write down a report about
this noise complaint.
They got it, you know, all of these things.
So they just, they're trying their best.
But they may not understand
what's going on.
And so they may see prohibited firearm,
no ATT, uh, and you might get it sorted
out, but you might get it sorted out like
six hours from then.
And you know, when you think you're trying to
move across the country and six hours you were
spending in a cell.
No, thank you.
So make it easy for them, make it easy for them.
Yeah.
I would love to see the, uh, I mean, even
if the CFO would do something like just,
here's a letter on our letterhead that we'll fax
you saying, we are aware this person is moving.
This firearm here is why they don't have an ATT.
Please present this to any officer.
And here's a number to call us if
there's a problem.
Something like that would make people's
lives easier, but they, I'm not aware of
anything like that so.
You know, uh, running a firearms business
for quite some time now and dealing with
the firearms program and you're getting a
different answer from five different people if
you phone five times on the same day, I started
just requesting emails.
Can you just email me?
Right.
Yeah.
And you know, sometimes they do sometimes.
Yeah, not a problem, I'll give you an email.
Here's a, here's a response.
Um, I know some people will record their
conversation just as something in their back
pocket that they have.
And I think with a single party consent law,
that's a permissible.
But I agree having a piece of paper or
something unofficial letterhead, man,
that'd be a good, easy, wouldn't it?
Yeah.
Just something where you can present it to them
and say, you know, cause saying, hey, I talked
to this Runkle guy and here's what he said.
Right.
Well, the officer doesn't know me and
doesn't care and quite possibly, he doesn't
like me if he does know.
So, you know, it's uh.
C'mon now.
Well, I mean, police have varying opinions
of defense lawyers.
There's lots of police out there who will
say like, you know, if I get in trouble,
I want a good defense.
Uh, we recognize that we're all parts of the
system and so forth.
And we may have individuals that we
don't like, or that they do like better.
Um, but there's some officers and there's
some defense lawyers, you know, who just don't like
the other side right.
Yeah, I've seen that.
And so you never know, right?
It's uh, I will say, you know, if I'm being
stopped by the police at a traffic stop, I
don't go, hey, I'm a criminal defense lawyer.
Keep that little tidbit to yourself.
But, uh, yeah, you never know what they're going
to think of, hey, I talked to a lawyer and
this is what they said.
Um, it's not going to be a whole lot of value.
Next.
Oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
No problem.
I was just saying the next one we have
here is one that I've actually seen a video
on, on your channel and we'll make sure we
link that over as well.
Actually a number of them on the list here, but
I've heard this question over and over again.
And it's about, is my firearm considered loaded
if I have, let's say a side saddle or a little
sleeve or sock on the, on the stock where I can put
ammunition in storage, is that considered loaded?
And this is one of these things where it's, I
can't give a 100% answer, however I can give a,
a pretty good answer.
One that I'm pretty confident in, but
the court could go the other way.
Um, now interestingly, there isn't actually
a definition of loaded in the appropriate
regulations.
There's a definition of unloaded.
Okay.
So firearm has to be unloaded.
And presumably that means not anything other
than this definition, but it says in respect
of a firearm means that any propellant,
projectile, or cartridge that can be discharged
from the firearm is not contained in the breach
or firing chamber of the firearm, nor in
the cartridge magazine attached to or inserted
into the firearm.
Now, in terms of a sidesaddle, a sidesaddle
isn't typically considered a cartridge
magazine because the cartridge magazine
is something that feeds into the sort
of the firing path.
And I'm just trying to see if I can
pull up the actual definition of cartridge
magazine here, but.
Generally.
Like a side saddle doesn't feed into the
firearm, except possibly by action of your hand.
And if we're including action of your hand
in the whole equation there, then everything
is a cartridge magazine because your pocket,
you can, you know, a side saddle just
like your pocket.
Right.
And if every container is a cartridge
magazine, then we end up into a horrible
land of everything in the world is bad.
I got a bag of chips here.
Cartridge magazine.
If we're going to consider, you know,
operation of the hand to be, I could fit
a whole lot of .22, you know, cartridges.
You know,.308, .223, whatever you
want to talk about.
Certainly, you know, more than 10, more than five.
So is this a prohibited device?
I can't see the court ever wanting to get
into that scenario.
Yeah, that gets pretty, pretty crazy, pretty
quick, doesn't it?
Yeah.
And so they say cartridge magazine means a device
or container from which ammunition may
be fed into the firing chamber of a firearm.
Uh, I would sort of say that the proper
interpretation of that would be by action of
the firearm, which, you know, you moving
a bolt would count.
Um, these, uh, semiautomatic
action would count.
Uh, but not you physically moving
it a cartridge with your hands.
Um, now I can't say that for certain, because a
court could say could go in some weird direction,
but if they do, they're going to enter into
crazy town land where we suddenly banned you know,
backpacks and Ziploc bags and all sorts of things.
And there's going to be a YouTube video
all about that.
If they go over there, I'm sure.
Oh it would just be like, they have
really screwed up.
But, uh, the other sort of interesting
question is, let's say you've got yourself a
cartridge magazine and you know, I'll show the
pin just in case the RCMP is watching, pinned
magazine here folks, not a, not an unpinned.
Um, but let's say you take this and you
decide to duct tape it to your firearm.
Would that count as attached to or inserted
into the firearm?
A court could say yes, on a very technical
reading, I'd say the proper interpretation,
and one that I'd hope a court would go with
would be to say no.
When they say attached to are inserted into,
they mean in a way, uh, it seems clear to me
on reading this, that they mean in a way where
it's actually completing the firing path.
Mhmm, yeah I'd think so.
But I mean, I also have like a 10/22 with a
backpacker stock that has a little compartment
that opens up where you can store magazines.
Right.
That's into the firearm, but it's not into the
firearm in a way that allows for firing or
feeding or the like, so.
What a quagmire.
I think, I think properly a court should interpret
this as unloaded, but I put that at like
80% in terms of if that question ends up
in front of a court.
Um, so yeah.
Definitely, maybe, I love it.
Yep.
It's that's the situation we end up with a lot,
um, side settles, I'd say like 95%.
Um, yeah, 95% sure that the court would
find it to be fine.
Well, next one was about loaded firearms
in a vehicle.
Of course you can't have a loaded firearm
in a vehicle in Canada, but what about, let's
say your doing some target shooting or your
hunting, and you wanted to use the hood of your
vehicle as a steady rest.
So this is going to depend on your province
and you're going to have to read your
provincial regulations because lots of them
have different rules.
In some provinces, for instance, um, discharging
a firearm within X many meters of a vehicle,
is itself an offense.
And so it isn't the fact that you're
using it as a rest.
In fact, if you were using a rock next to the
vehicle as a rest, they'd still go after you.
Um, but.
Interesting.
Some places say things like not inside or
on a vehicle and what they meet, what they're
probably trying to capture in terms of the,
on a vehicle is like somebody who's riding
in the bed of a truck.
Right.
But the on seems to me that it would
probably capture using it as a rest.
I can't sort of give a, a blanket answer
here because we got a whole lot of provinces.
I haven't even read all of the different
provinces hunting rules, but check
your regulations real carefully.
Um, you don't want to mess with
fish and wildlife.
They actually tend to have some pretty giant
fines available to them.
And so you get people going, you know, what
do you mean the fish and wildlife guys want
20 grand in fines.
And it's like, well, that's what
they're asking for.
People may get lesser fines than that, but they
tend to come in asking for real high numbers.
Yeah.
And they got teeth too.
They seem to be able to get what
they're asking for.
They have a lot of powers of searching.
And so they'll often get warrants to say
like, hey, we want to go and look through
somebody's house, looking for, you know,
any poached animals and those kinds of things.
So, um, you never really want to be
on the receiving end of a home search.
They're very stressful.
They're very invasive and yeah.
Okay.
Well, what about the next one talking about
replica firearms and this person's a little
bit confused over what a replica firearm might be.
So replica firearms currently are basically
things that closely resemble with near
precision an actual firearm, but are not
themselves firearms.
And when I say actual firearm, I mean,
something that really exists in the world.
So if you design something that, uh, looks
like, um, you know, some fictional like the, uh,
the rifle from halo say.
You know, which is a firearm that
doesn't exist, it's a fictional item.
So if you have something that replicates that,
you're not looking at a replica firearm, because
it's not a real firearm.
Um, even though it might look like it could be a
firearm, you know, you can design something
that looks like it.
You know, that looks like a handgun, but so long
as it doesn't look like a handgun that actually
exists in the world.
Okay.
It's going to be fine.
Um, near precision is, gets to be a matter
of debate, you know, what does that mean?
Although the courts in terms of import
rules have said like colour probably isn't
enough to do it.
Um, but like size might be, uh, there's all sorts
of things that factor into it, including, you
know, coloration, size.
Um, does it have moving parts?
Does it have branding on it?
Um, does it, uh, does it have the
same sort of weight?
Does it have, you know, all of these
sorts of things and it ends up being kind
of a judgment call.
Okay.
But, uh, the not a firearm part is kind
of critical here because most people
don't understand what firearm means.
There's two sort of steps of gun.
Step one is, can it shoot a projectile
through a barrel that can cause serious
bodily injury or death?
So pellet guns and airsoft guns and
paintball guns are all firearms under this
definition because they can put your eye out.
Right.
We, we really have the, put your eye out
test in Canada, but a lot of these things
are what I call 84 sub three firearms, which
means you don't need a license for them.
And they don't count as a firearm for
certain purposes of the criminal code, but they
do for other purposes of the criminal code.
And it's very complicated.
So, um, this is why a nail gun, for instance,
doesn't count as a firearm, you know, when
you're going to the Home Depot to buy one, but it
would count as a firearm if you were to use it
to rob a convenience store, you know.
Or if you actually go and, you know, drive
nails into somebody that would be, you know,
using a firearm on the person, discharging a
firearm with intent to wound, kind of thing so.
Okay.
Um, yeah.
So airsoft guns, you know, currently,
although the government is trying to change
this, uh, airsoft governance currently
avoid being called replicas because they
are actually firearms.
Right.
They can discharge a projectile, they got
a barrel and it can cause bodily harm.
Ralphie and Randy must have written
that one, I tell ya.
Uh, just complicated laws and working
in ways that maybe people didn't expect.
I remember picking up some, uh, ASP,
uh, training guns.
It just rubber basically.
And they're, they're bright red and being
told at one point that those are replica
firearms and there's some debate over it.
Eventually we got them all and everyone agreed
that they probably aren't replica firearms, but it,
it seems to be something that comes up and down
over the years, what's replica and what isn't.
And that's, uh, uh, the points you raised
are interesting.
Uh, well, and I get, uh, sometimes people
who are, uh, uh, so they do leather
work for instance.
And so they want to import like
blue guns, right.
Just, you know, they don't want an actual
gun, but they want to be able to make a holster
for a particular gun.
You know, a customer says, I have this gun,
I want a holster for it.
And the leather workers, like I don't
shoot, I don't have any interest in it.
Please don't send me the gun.
But they look at ordering, you know, a
blue gun to match the shape just so that they
can, you know, craft the leather holster around
it, which often involves like soaking and pressing
and, you know, forming.
Yep.
And, uh, you know, and you might not want w
wet leathers sitting against your, you
know, precious gun.
So sometimes these get seized at the border,
not withstanding the fact that, you know, when I
say blue gun, they're named this because
they are bright blue.
That's right.
And you know, when you're looking at them sort of
front on, they don't have like a, they've got sort
of a barrel protrusion, but it's solid.
You know, if somebody's pointing a gun at me
and I'm looking at it and it's bright blue
and there's no actual hole in the barrel, I'm
kind of thinking I'm not super concerned.
Maybe they'll hit me with it and that would hurt.
But, um, you know, I'm not thinking that they're
going to shoot me with this thing, but sometimes
those get seized.
Well, what about, okay, I'm looking at the next
two questions and I'm thinking that they might
be even easier to answer just by pointing people
over to your YouTube channel for the next two,
which is what's happening with the ordering council
fires prohibition.
And the next one after that is what are the
main points of concern regarding the proposed
BC firearms law?
So the OIC prohibition is currently a,
there's a court battle going on on that one.
It's a civil case.
And so the civil cases tend to last
just about forever.
Um, they asked for an injunction against the
order in council being in effect, um, that was
not granted, which is not terribly surprising.
And injunction is a, an extraordinary remedy.
Um, that's sort of the language of the court.
It's an unusual remedy.
There might be a better, there might be
a reapplication on that.
I can't say for certain, um, when, and
if the amnesty starts looking like it's going
to run out, because then you might start
talking about, you know, about additional
harms, but that one's going to be locked
in court for a while.
Main points of concern regarding the BC
proposed firearms law.
Oh man, there's a whole lot of these.
Um, one of the big ones is basically that they
want to reimplement a lot of the criminal
code provisions.
And they want to do so in slightly
different language.
So what that means is you end up with two
slightly different wordings that you have
to comply with both.
And that becomes a big problem.
Um, in some cases it may be very difficult
to travel legally with, uh, with your airsoft
guns, um, is, may end up shutting down a number
of fields and so forth.
There's a whole lot of issues, but I
think I did several videos on this so.
Yeah, you did.
Kind of a, this one is going to be a bit of a
longer one that I, you know, that I can say.
I'm just, the problem is really that they're
trying to reimplement a lot of the firearm laws
and they missed certain critical exceptions.
And that means that as a result of it, the
whole law doesn't do what they need it to do.
Um, there's a big place where they use firearm
and what they mean is like real steel, you
know, your .223, your .308, but they don't
realize that that also includes airsoft.
So it's going to end, you know, pellet
guns and so forth.
So it's going to end up causing a whole lot
of problems I don't think they meant to have
or meant to include.
Well, it seems to me that they're
just going to create loophole city here.
If they have two competing laws
or legislation or regulation.
The problem is, is that they're not, um,
they're not sort of loopholes in the way that
benefits anybody here.
They're loopholes in the sense of, uh, they
can create ways where you might think you're
in compliance with the law, but you're only
in compliance with one out of two laws so.
Okay.
Um, brass knuckles.
Okay.
So brass knuckles are illegal, uh, why are
carabiner's and Eskimo Ulu, or scissors held
backwards, not illegal?
So, um, if we look at the criminal code,
it's got an interesting sort of provision for
prohibited weapon.
So primitive weapon is any sort of flick or
gravity knife or anything like that, or any weapon
other than a firearm that is prescribed to
be a prohibited weapon.
And so something, these things are not designed
to be weapons and unless they're being used as
weapons, um, they're not going to count
as prohibited weapons simply because of that,
not withstanding the fact that they may be
very similar in design.
Um, I found some things that are used
as massage tools.
And they're actually basically like a metal
band that fits over your hand and it's intended
for sort of rubbing.
Okay.
But you could absolutely punch somebody in
the face with it.
Totally.
Um, similarly I found some things that were,
uh, for climbing rigging, and they're basically
like a flat metal plate with a series of holes
in it that would be in some sizes fit just
fine in your fingers.
And you know, they're intended, you attach
carabiners to them so that you can have
one rope sort of splitting off to five.
Right.
Um, but I'm looking at these things going,
those are brass knuckles, but because they're not
designed as a weapon, they wouldn't count.
Um, the Ulu's actually interesting because the
Ulu isn't sort of a, a flat metal bit, that's
like a blunt thing.
It's a, a sharp object and there's actually
a provision in the primitive weapons
thing for uh, if you've got a blade that is
perpendicular to the handle, but the Ulu is
actually specifically excluded from that.
Interesting.
So an Ulu is not covered by that, which I think
is probably because they said, Hey, wait, Canada's
got Inuit and the Ulu is a traditional, you know,
all purpose tool for the Inuits and I own one.
They're a fantastic, you never really realize
how useful they can be until you have one.
So I'm glad they were accepted.
Well, it's kind of weird because from my
understanding, it's only if they are made out
of metal and they're the brass knuckles.
If you make them out of wood or carbon
fiber or hard plastic.
Yeah.
They phrase the law very weirdly.
Um, so stone is fine, plastic is fine.
You know, there's all sorts of people with
acrylic knuckles.
Now, of course, the wrinkle to that is that
Canada very much limits what you can do in terms
of carrying weapons in the first place.
Right.
So possession of a weapon for purposes of dangerous
for the public peace, which typically the most
carrying of weapons, they will say falls into
that category or carrying a concealed weapons.
So there's lots of people who are like, Hey, um,
you know, the police arrested me and these
are plastic knuckles.
So they're illegal.
I'm like, yes.
And the officer, you know, laid the charge of
possession of prohibited weapon on you that one's
not going anywhere, but the carrying a
concealed weapon and possession of weapon for
purposes of dangerous in the public peace.
And maybe in some cases, the assault
with a weapon, all of those have legs.
So you can own plastic knuckles if you just
want to keep them on a shelf, because they're
an interesting curiosity.
Stick 'em in your pocket.
If I ever.
Nope.
If I ever sort of redesigning in terms
of my recording space set up, I have an
idea for setting up sort of shelves with,
uh, with neat items.
I might get some acrylic knuckles just to put
them there on display as like, here's the thing,
but you wouldn't want to carry them around.
It's a good way to get to yourself.
Uh, it's sort of the play stupid games
side of things.
Well, the next one's, uh, the age old one about
suppressors as safety equipment, like what
would it take in Canada to have suppressors
recognized as safety equipment, like in
many other countries?
Um, real long shot would be, um, so real long
shot would be, uh, say if the court were to
find that it was a, a charter violation on the
basis of life, liberty, security the person.
I don't put good odds on that.
I think that the court would likely say, ah, no.
Um, more likely what this will take is a
government that actually cares enough to do it.
And it would be a little bit politically difficult
because of course, uh, you know, once the, uh,
once the government says, hey, uh, you know, we're
going to reverse this.
The opposition parties are going to say,
hey listen, um, you know, look at what
they want to do.
They want to, uh, you know, we're going
to have, you know, these ninja assassins
on our streets.
Same old game.
No we're not.
Same old game.
Yeah.
All right.
Uh, what about, this was an interesting one,
why are 32, .32 and .25 calibre handguns illegal
when the law leaves out that decimal place and
list 32 and 25 calibre without the decibel?
Well, that one is largely because, um,
it's ultimately going to be, uh, the court
is going to say, hey, this is what they meant
in terms of that law.
Um, there, to my knowledge, there aren't
any, you know, 32 calibre rifles out there.
Right.
Um, I, somebody could build one.
Yep.
But it also talks about, you know, handguns
in and nobody I think would want to shoot a 32
calibre handgun so yeah.
Yeah.
That'd be a big honking handgun for sure.
Yeah.
The .32 makes a lot more sense.
Okay.
Um, gun racks from the firearms act, it looks
like gun racks are legal, provided a license PAL
holder is in the vehicle and the non-restricted
firearm is unloaded.
Would there be charges for disturbing the
public peace if he drove around with guns in
a gun rack like that.
And uh, it says, yeah, and if so, how could
that act be disturbing?
Yeah.
Well, um, so the criminal code provisions
for a public peace, um, and I'm just sort
of look, there's two sort of things to
worry about there.
One is possession of weapon for, you know,
purposes dangerous to the public peace.
Okay.
Um, it really depends on why you were doing that.
And, uh, so I don't know that, uh, you know, that
that would necessarily count, um, that to me,
it's, it really depends on why you're doing it.
Like if you loaded up a rifle in your gun
rack and then drove to your ex's house and,
you know, with whom you were having an
acrimonious relationship and hung out.
Outside, you know, your ex's house, just making
sure she sees your rifles in the gun rack.
I could absolutely see them charging you for
that, but let's say it's hunting season and
you're driving around the back roads and you got
a gun in the gun rack.
I think that they'd have a very hard time
making that case.
So, um, we get into some edge cases though,
where let's say that you're loading up your
stuff to go to the back roads, but you live
in downtown Toronto.
And so you're driving your truck out of
downtown Toronto with a rifle and the gun
rack and the cop pulls you over because you're
in downtown Toronto.
I think that they would try to find anything they
could to charge you with.
Even if it didn't stick.
Now, people sort of say, well, causing
a disturbance, uh, that's the appropriate
sort of criminal code section here, uh, cause
there's possession of weapon for purposes of
dangerous, the public piece that might.
Um, causing a disturbance wouldn't and that's
because they have everyone who is not
in a dwelling house, causes a disturbance
by fighting screaming, shouting, swearing,
singing, or using insulting or obscene
language, by being drunk or impeding or
molesting other persons.
You're not going to count under that or b.
Openly exposes or exhibits an
indecent exhibition in a public place.
So if you're playing porn out in public, that's
not going to cover it.
Uh, loiters in a public place and in any way,
obstructs persons who are in that place again, not
going to cover it and d.
Disturbs the peace and quiet of the occupants
of the dwelling house by discharging firearms or
other orderly conduct in a public place or various
other things, not going to be covered by that.
So it doesn't cover all disturbances, it
covers certain, very specific disturbances.
Um, so there's nothing inherently wrong
with a gun rack.
It's also often not the best way
to go about things.
Um, for one thing.
Situation dependant.
To note, you're advertising a little
more than you have to, then you need to, and,
you know, criminals have been known to
check out people's cars to decide if they want
to hit their house.
Sure.
And so, you know, if you've got a gun rack
in the back of your car that tells them, hey,
I got firearms here and lots of gun owners think,
hey, you know, if the criminals know I have
guns, they're not going to break into my house.
Not really because criminals always
want to avoid you.
They're going to wait until you're not at home.
Right.
And if you've got guns, you probably
also have a day job.
And so, you know, you're not at home all the time,
while you're at work.
Um, we always have this notion that criminals
are breaking in at night, you know, in the cover
of darkness, Very rarely.
Right.
When they like to work is during working
hours, same time you're at work because then
you're not at home.
Quite often, I've seen, uh, people looking a
little sketchier than you think they would for what
they're trying to do, but they're got a colored
shirt on and a pair of jeans and carrying around
and awake in a Watchtower and knocking door to
door to see who opens up.
And they got the cover of spreading the word.
But if nobody opens and there's a knock
on the back door.
I think most of those guys are, you know,
Jehovah's witnesses, but it wouldn't surprise
me if somebody had tried pretending to
be one and wasn't.
I've seen a couple of those.
But I've seen people come up to my door and they're
just like, oh, does you know, does Joe live here?
And it's like, well, no, obviously you're
not going to random doors asking for Joe.
Um, this very much seems to me to be a, you know,
and then they're going down to the next door.
Like nobody goes door to door, looking for
their friend, you know, I was like, this
was somebody sketchy seeing if I was home.
Yep.
So, uh, is it true that there are some firearms
that do not require a firearms license
if they are antique?
Yes.
Um, so antique firearms, the general category
of them, uh, don't need a firearms license.
You can buy them without one, but now people
get confused on this.
They confuse antique with old.
And in fact, I've heard of at least one instance
of an antique store owner who did not understand
the distinction and sold an old gun that
was not an antique gun.
Oops.
And.
Yeah.
So, you know, I wasn't involved in that file.
It's not a file that I was, you know, directly
connected to, but I heard about it through
sort of the grapevine and you know, that
is a bad scenario.
So you want to go and check your regulations
very carefully.
Um, some antique firearms will come with a, like
a certification from the chief firearms officer
saying, hey, we've considered this one, it
is a certified antique.
That's not actually necessary.
Um, that's just sort of them giving
their opinion.
And if they're wrong on that, that's actually
on you, you know.
Interesting.
And if, uh, if they're right on that one,
then, you know, great.
But if you have a firearm where you don't
have that letter, but it actually meets the
antique standards, you're you're good.
Right.
So there was actually a case, um, not long ago,
I covered it on, in a video, but a guy who was
sort of a bad dude, he's involved in, you know,
I think it was a drug trafficking stuff that
they also found, but they wanted to convict him on
possession of a handgun without a license.
And they couldn't because it was an
antique firearm.
Interesting.
This guy either was the luckiest criminal
on the planet or else the best researched
criminal on the planet.
He did some homework.
I mean, it may be, but I suspect he just
lucked into this.
Wow.
That's some, that's some dumb luck for sure.
Well, maybe, you know, somebody's stolen
antique or, you know, the guy acquired
it from somewhere else or whatever.
Yeah.
So next one is going to interesting.
It's the, uh, Butler Creek 10/22 magazines.
Person says it can't be purchased in Canada
anymore apparently due to a police bulletin.
Is this legal and what should be done if someone
owns those magazines and these are the 25 round,
uh, Butler Creek, mags.
So basically the police have taken the, uh,
the view that because, uh, somebody possesses
the, uh, or because these things also fit
into the charger pistol that they're designed
for the charger pistol, even ones that were
actually manufactured before the charger
pistol was an idea.
So they say, you know, because of that, they're
saying, oh, well that limits them to, to 10.
Um, I have some issues with this interpretation.
However, I wouldn't own one of these.
And the reason why is because as much as I have
some issues with this interpretation, until
a court sorts it out these are very legally
perilous things to have, because let's say you're
found with one and they decided to charge you.
It could cost you a whole pile of money.
Now, typically what's happened is, um, they
don't really want Joe average, who has one
of these magazines to, to be the poster
child for running this.
So I've seen a number of cases where they've
arrested people who've had these and the case
ends up getting resolved for, we're not giving
you your magazines back, but we're also
dropping the charges.
Don't expect that to be the case though, because
there's no reason why they couldn't say we're
going to trial on this.
You know, it's going to cost you a whole and
defending this properly, like mounting a proper
argument on this one is going to be expensive.
You're going to need expert witnesses.
You're going to need, um, historical evidence.
You're going to need all of these things.
Like, you know, uh, bringing in patents,
for instance, would be highly relevant here.
You know, the patent for this magazine
predates the charger pistols existence.
Um, are we talking about time machines?
I don't like the argument they're making, but
getting into a legal fight with the RCMP
is much expensive.
And we'll also, you know, they're playing like
their stakes in terms of this is if they lose,
nobody is out anything.
Right.
If you lose and you're running this, um, your
stakes are you get a firearm ban, you
lose all your guns.
You might see jail time.
This is playing a game at the world's worst casino.
Hmm.
Good point.
Uh, okay, this next one is kind of interesting.
Why can I legally load more than 10 9mm rounds
in a Glock 22 magazine and shoot it in my
9mm Glock, but I'd be breaking the law if I
loaded more than 10 in a Glock 17 magazine.
So this is sort of the interesting wrinkle
of the cartridges of the type for which
it is designed.
Okay.
So, um, I own a SIG P226, and if you get
the 40 calibre magazine for that, uh, it will
hold slightly more than 10 cartridges of 9mm.
And in fact it feeds 9mm, just fine, but
because that magazine is designed for the
40 calibre cartridge, it's allowed to hold
10 40 calibre rounds.
So it's all of this is that the law was
designed fairly terribly.
Um, there's all sorts of ways that they
could have designed it much more sensibly,
but they didn't.
And I mean, that's just the long and short of it.
Is what it is.
Yeah.
Perfect.
So here's one about an ATC or an authorization
to carry person says why won't the RCMP
issue an authorization to carry for protection
of life, the legal framework exists, but
it seems illusory.
And I mean, it really kind of is because we say
that this is available, but they grant it to
just about nobody.
There's like a handful in existence
at any given time.
Um, you could count them on the fingers of
a very clumsy carpenter.
So yes, give, they won't usually give
straight answers about how many there
are, where they are.
They will never give straight answers
about who they are.
Um, so we have theories that, you know, there are
various connected people.
But one of the elements of this is basically uh,
that they have to certify the police protection
is not sufficient.
Right.
Well, when they put in the test, basically,
can you get the police to sign off that
they are not able to do their jobs?
You know, how often.
It's not going to happen.
Does that happen?
Right.
You know, it's like asking a carpenter,
hey, listen, I need you to put it in writing
that you do not know how to build a house.
Right.
It's not going to happen.
Yeah.
So absent very unusual circumstances.
They're just, they're going to say no.
We're good enough.
I remember many moons back.
We had an individual who was applying for
the ATC and went through training with us.
He made it pretty far up into a point where the
firearms program turned around and delayed it
for quite some time.
Then he came back, says, okay, tell you what,
we'll give it to you, here's your last hurdle
you have to go through.
We want the chief of police in your area to
sign this letter saying that police protection
is not adequate.
And he says, well, what if I just get it
from a police officer?
Nope.
It's gotta be from the chief in, in your
area saying,police protection's
not adequate.
And of course, no, chief's gonna
sign off on that.
And what do they say, when seconds count,
the police are minutes away, but apparently
afterwards, one of the firearms officers told
this fellow, he's like, you know, you had us
go in there for a bit.
And I think you're one of the closest that
you've been able to get to get an, an ATC, which
is a little telling if that actually was what
was relayed over to the mindset of, of the issue.
Yeah.
I mean, it's basically just impossible.
It's a game.
Yeah.
So, I mean, they say it's available, but
the standards they apply to it are just
so far out there that, uh, nobody succeeds.
Fair enough.
Uh, why are some knives illegal to
import, but not illegal to own in Canada?
So there's a lot of knives that, uh,
basically the CBSA imposes a fairly
restrictive view of what's coming, you know,
but the problem is that they don't seem to apply
these same standards to, you know, nice stores
or big corporations, because there are some
knives that are actually pretty much, you know, I
can't see a way that they would be legal to own
in Canada, but you can get them at Home Depot.
And I have seen people charged over these where,
you know, they say, hey, I got this knife at,
you know, Home Depot, why is this prohibited?
And it's like, well, because it is.
Like, you know, and so you end up
arguing, you know, on sentencing or something.
Hey, listen, he got this at Home Depot,
you know, we've got his credit card statement.
Here's where it shows that he bought it there.
You know, this guy shouldn't be punished
or at least not punished very strongly,
but it's weird.
And I mean, I think the solution to that is
really to stop worrying so much about what
style of knife it is.
Hmm.
It's weird that I can own a, you
know, a big machete.
Cause of course you can right there,
there, excellent yard work tools.
I've got a couple of, uh, kukri's rather than
machetes, but when I go to do yard work and
I need to trim back a tree 100%, like.
Yeah.
It is the thing to use, but you can't own
a little tiny knife that flicks open.
And, you know, when you think about it,
there's all sorts of circumstances where
these things make sense to have um, if you're
doing anything that is fiddly, it's really nice.
If you can have a knife that opens one handed.
Totally.
Uh, you know, or if you're up on a ladder,
for instance, you know, you want your, your
gripping on, you need a knife, you can open
the knife and then, you know, use the knife.
You know, having to use two hands when
you're up on a ladder is not necessarily
the greatest thing.
Um, you know, if you're off doing all sorts of
things, there's just times when you don't
want to have to, you know, to fiddle with it.
They're always, you know, they're thinking of like,
you know, fifties era, you know, movies of like,
you know, sharks versus jets and people pulling
out their switchblades.
Well, I'm sorry, you know, the, the
switchblades, aren't the main concern
at this point?
No.
So but our laws are really based with a
whole lot of, uh, you can see that they had
fear of like fifties era gangsters and that they
had fear of, you know.
Those greasers.
Yep.
Well, and the, uh, you know, and ninjas,
there's a big worry.
Ninja's yes.
About ninja's in our law.
Stealth assassins.
Yeah.
Yup.
So, I mean, a lot of these rules just, they
don't make any sense.
That's uh, I wish I could say that I had
a good reason for it.
I got to wait.
I'm just trying to remember back to like
grade 12 physics here, but a flick knife
is something that's supposed to open with
centrifical force, right?
Yeah.
Well, isn't centrifical force an implied force
and I'd have to look this up, but I think
centripetal force would be the force that would
actually open that knife.
I wonder if.
Yeah, the uh, I mean, without getting into
the physics arguments about one versus the
other, the court is going to understand
what this means.
Right.
Totally.
Understand what is intended.
The really weird thing about that is that it's
determined by how hard you can flick something.
And so the courts had to grapple with just how
hard is that because like I could build a machine
that could probably flick the blade off of
a fixed blade knife, you know, that could
just spin it and then stop fast enough that
the fixed blade knife blade would be sheered
off by the forces.
Um, you know, if we're talking about machine
assistance, that there is no knife that opens
that can't be opened by that means because,
you know, you could put tremendous force
on things with that.
It's limitless.
Yeah.
You know, you fire it into a centrifuge.
Did you put a hard brake on it, you're going to.
It'll open.
Yup.
It'll open or it might shatter into
pieces, but if it survives, it'll open.
Yeah.
Um, so they've said it as the standards of a
person has to do it.
So basically you got to find a human being
who will open it.
Well, they've said it doesn't matter which
person, you know, you can go and shop around for
a really strong person.
Well, I'm sitting here, you know, I've,
I've got skinny arms.
I am not, you know, a bodybuilder.
I'm not what, so I buy a knife and I'm
trying to see, hey, is this knife legal?
There's only so much force I can, you
know, impart on this knife to test it.
Right.
And there's methods that of flicking it.
That'll open it more reliably than others.
And you know, I might not know these methods,
so I might buy a knife and think it's perfectly
legal, but it turns out that the police force
has a guy who is the strongest guy who they've
specially trained to be their knife opening guy.
It's like, why is the standard for when a
knife is legal, based on the arm of some
dude I've never met.
So arbitrary.
It's like, you know, we've moved away
from measurement systems based on some
dead King's thumb.
But now, you know, in order to measure
a knife's legality, I need to find the
strongest man on the planet and ask them to
open my knife for me.
I'm pretty sure he'd be tired of, you know,
tired of fielding those requests that people
were actually doing that.
So it's such a weird test.
It makes no sense.
Okay.
Well, what would happen if someone
used dog spray on a human in self-defense.
Now this one, you know, sometimes people say,
hey, dog spray becomes a primitive weapon if you
spray somebody with it, and that's not the case.
Um, if you spray a dog spray because
it's not designed for people and you gotta be
careful because there are some dogs sprays
that say works on dogs and also people, in
which case it would be a prohibited weapon.
Uh, but you know, let's say, we assume that it's
just a strict dog spray or strict bear spray.
Well, it doesn't, it can't transform into
being a prohibited weapon in that sense.
However, um, they will probably charge you
for, you know, assault with a weapon, uh,
possibly depending on the scenario, carrying
a weapon, possession of weapon for purposes
of dangerous of public peace, public carrying
concealed weapon.
Um, it really depends on the self-defense
scenario, too.
Like, let's say you're walking along and you
know, some guy jumps out of the bushes and
you spray him and you're walking in a place where
there's lots of dogs and the police roll up.
They find this guy and he's clawing at his
eyes and, you know, which he probably isn't
cause the dog sprays aren't that effective,
but let's say he's really having a bad day.
He has an asthma attack, he's in the bushes and
they find he's got a kit with, you know, duct
tape and bleach and you know, whatever else.
Right.
Um, the police would probably say, you
know what, we're good.
Right.
You know, we don't need to proceed here, but
I say only probably because I don't know.
Um, but it's basically the same as if you use
any weapon, you know, or any object, you know, if
somebody broke in right now and I don't know
what to sort of grab, you know, maybe I ended
up grabbing a glass or a bottle or something
and heck I've got a.
How about that microphone right there?
Microphone might not work all that well,
but hey, I got a jar of pickled onions.
Well, if I threw that jar, it might
do some damage.
They could charge me with all sorts of things on
that, you know, in terms of assault with a weapon.
And so, I got a plastic skull back there
maybe that will work.
That'll do some damage.
Well, here's the last one and it's kind of
an interesting one, is a zap strap or
zip tie considered a legal, secure, locking
device for a firearm?
And this one is one secure locking device
says that a device that can only be open to
released by the use of an electronic, magnetic
or mechanical key, or by setting the device
in accordance with an alphabetical or numerical
combination or that when applied to a firearm
or sorry and that would apply to a firearm,
prevents the firearm from being discharged.
So secure locking device, it doesn't
seem to qualify because it doesn't have an
electronic magnetic or mechanical key or a code.
You know, you'd have to cut it off.
And you might say, well, isn't that better?
Let's say, you know, we're envisioning not
a plastic zip tie, but let's say we envision
like a strip of hardened steel and something
where you actually, you know, you pull it tight
and at the end of it, you drop a weld on it.
So it's, you know, even more tough.
And let's say this.
Totally.
This steel is, you know, let's say it's a good
quarter inch thick.
You had to bend it physically with
tools to block.
The courts have said, basically, even if
your storage is better, then the regulations,
you still have to meet the regulations.
Right.
So I do a video sort of talking about that
a little bit, where I talked about John
Wick's firearm storage, where he's got his guns
buried under a concrete floor, and the case
law suggests that's probably not good enough.
Now, if he takes that, wooden, you know,
there's a cheap sort of wooden box in there.
Once he digs out the concrete, if he puts a
padlock on that, he's probably good even
without the concrete.
But you know, this means that our laws
are often very dumb.
I, they're designed badly, but, uh, the other
thing that is always super ironic about this
is that if you go to a courthouse and you
see them dealing with firearms in court, um,
one of the things the court doesn't want to
deal with is, you know, the actual, that one.
So, you know, they don't want to deal with
a combination lock.
Right.
Sorry my, uh, thing is hunting for, for focus
here, because then they got to remember all
these combinations or if they're keys, they
got to remember, where did we put our keys?
Right.
And, you know, they want something that
just comes in a bag of a hundred or 500 that
they can just reuse.
And you know, it doesn't cost them a whole lot
because think of how many, how much these
would end up costing.
You know, I've seen files with, you know,
somebody brings in 75 rifles, these ain't
cheap, you know, and it adds up with a court.
So let's, so they don't want that.
So what do they use?
Zip ties.
Interesting.
But the court has different exceptions
that apply.
Uh, nobody's going to go and charge a clerk of
the court for securing a firearm with a zip tie.
That sounds like an interesting case law.
Um, nobody would, no , like you would
be, the police officer that wanted to, uh, to
bring that would be mad.
Like they'd just be completely insane.
Just bonkers.
So, and I don't think that they could make out
that case in law, but, uh, ultimately the rules
for the court, because lots of people say,
of course it's valid.
I see them doing this in court all the
time, of course that means it's valid.
Well, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to do
what your house or on the way to the range, you've
got different rules you've got to follow up.
That's a good point.
So.
So unless they were able to get a zip tie that had
some sort of a key that would open it up then.
Well, I mean, that's basically what a
cable lock is right?
Right.
Totally.
Sort of metal zip tie with a key.
Totally.
Interesting.
So out of all of those questions that
we're asking, thank you very much, Ian.
I mean, that's a.
Oh happy to, these
are always sort of fun questions they're, it's
a, it's a weird and fun area of the law.
And I'm sure some of them you've been asked
over and over again.
Yep.
And the other sort of thing I'll do at this
point is given my usual warning, don't take any
of this as legal advice because any of this
stuff could expire as of when I'm done saying it.
Right now.
Um, and I mean, bill C-21 will change some
of the things that are going on here.
Um, all sorts of things can change really rapidly
and your situation may be different sometimes.
So it's always best, if you're looking at
contemplating, you want to do something, talk
to a lawyer that you can tell about your
specific scenario, as opposed to general
information about the law that I can give here.
Um, I just don't want somebody to be
like, well, Runkle said this is fine.
And it's like, Hmm, no Runkle was asking
some questions or answering some questions.
I'm not your lawyer.
We're just discussing.
I'm a lawyer, not your lawyer.
Well Ian, thank you very much for being on this
Silvercore Podcast again.
Thank you for having me, as I said, it's
always a blast, so.
I love it.
All right.
Well, let's see.
Um, that was pretty good.
You had, well, you had some pretty interesting
takes on a lot of these things and got me to look
at things differently than I have before.
And I like that.
Well, a lot of these are questions that
I've sort of had to think about before.
I mean, just about every, not all of
these, but just about every one of these
has in some fashion, uh, showed up in a
criminal case somewhere.
Right.
Um, some of them are very niche cases that I don't
think, I don't think are going to come up.
I haven't seen the side saddle one come up
where somebody has been charged with that, for
instance, but I've seen some really bad charges.
Um, I saw somebody charged with possession
of a firearm for something that was
welded shut and like no portion of it moved.
It had welds all through it.
Wow.
And it was just like, this is
obviously not a gun.
That didn't stick did it?
No.
It did not.
But, uh, yeah.
You know, I was wondering about the, so federal,
provincial, municipal.
Federal can make laws, provincial can make
laws, municipal can make laws, but not one
of those can make laws that can, uh, be less
than the one above it.
If I understand it correctly,
correctly right?
Yeah, it's, so this is getting into the
issue of sort of federal paramountcy.
And so what that means is basically
where there's two laws that are in conflict.
Uh, and it's a federal law and a provincial
law and municipal laws are a subcategory
of provincial law.
Um, they're sort of their own weird thing,
constitutionally speaking, but, uh, the
federal law trumps, however, most people sort
of have a different idea of what conflict mean.
So let's say for instance, that the
federal law says, um, you cannot
transport a firearm by a vehicle period.
And the provincial law says you can transport
a firearm by vehicle only if you have, you
know, a particular permit issued by the province.
You know, this is pure hypothetical's, these
are not real laws.
This is just, and people say, well,
this is in conflict.
Well, what the court would say
is no, it's not.
It's entirely possible for you to
follow both laws.
You just don't drive your car, you know,
with the, uh, with the firearm in it.
And people say, well, what if it's the opposite
where the province is saying that you can't
drive the car at all?
You know, can't transport by vehicle at all.
Still the same result.
They'd say, listen, you know, not withstanding
the fact that the federal government says, this
is a requirement that you have a license.
They don't guarantee that you can, they just
say it's an offense to do so without a license.
So now the province says it's an offense to do
so regardless, but you can certainly follow
both laws just by not having a gun in the car.
So that's kind of its own.
Uh, but let's say you've got two things where you
say, for instance, um, the federal government
says you must do a particular thing.
And the provincial government says, you
must not do a provision or a particular thing.
You know, there, you cannot follow both.
Right.
And so they'd say, well, the federal
government rule trumps.
Well in British Columbia, we've got
provisions for disabled individuals to be able
to hunt from a vehicle.
Yeah.
Which seems to me, if you're hunting
from a vehicle, wouldn't that be less,
loosening, a federal requirement saying you
can't have a loaded firearm in a vehicle.
I don't know.
The thing is is that they don't really let the
province, I mean, I had problems with this when
I was in constitutional law because you know,
when you're sitting there and you're envisioning,
like, let's say the federal government says
you need a license to transport a vehicle or
a firearm in a vehicle.
And the provincial government says you
can't transport a firearm in a vehicle.
Um, typically the way they've had, they
will interpret that as just don't transport a
firearm in a vehicle.
But to my mind, it seems like the
federal government very much wants to
make that possible.
That's their notion of how the law should work.
But they don't that isn't typically how the
courts have gone with it.
Now these are not typically in firearm
related scenarios.
These are typically in things like business
regulations, and there's a couple of
reasons for that.
One big businesses tend to be better able
to bring court cases because they've got the
dollars for the lawyers.
Totally.
You know, you or me, if somebody says,
Hey, do you want to spend $80,000 taking
something to court?
We're like.
See ya.
Where am I going to find 80 grand?
Right.
That's not pocket change, but if you're Microsoft
and it's, hey, this is going to cost 80 grand.
It's like, well, okay, that's less than we
spend on toilet paper in a year or so.
And it might literally be less, you know,
for some of these big major companies, you
know, Walmart might actually spend that
kind of big money on toilet paper across all
of their stores across all of these countries.
So, you know, you might literally be talking
about butt wipe money for some of these guys.
Totally.
Can you tell me about your, uh, your
Patreon account?
How does that work?
So basically people can sign up.
It's a way for sort of recurring donations.
Um, YouTube is kind of erratic in terms
of how much, you know, ad revenues
bring in and so forth.
So it provides some stability.
Uh, it provides that I know that, um, you
know, as part of trying to get the channel
going properly, uh, I've needed to talk to
a lawyer because I am a lawyer, but I don't
do all areas of law.
And one way that lawyers can get themselves
into real trouble is by assuming, hey, I can
just do stuff outside of my area, no problem.
But when you start saying things like, hey, is
that something I can do?
You got to know you've got sort of a consistent,
uh, you know, income too.
So you can say like, Hey, if I, if I'm um,
I also signed up for a better, uh, legal
research tools so that I can get, because
there's a lot of firearm cases that are just not
available on CanLII.
And I wouldn't be able to talk about them if
I didn't have access to some of those tools.
Right.
But at the point where you're signing something
saying for the next year, I'm going to be spending
X much per month.
You want to be able to say, I have some
expectations of what sort of income I might have.
Totally.
Yeah, I guess those weapon offences.
You don't want to be sitting there with, you
know, no revenue and a whole lot of expenses
Yeah, those manuals and the resources,
they're not cheap.
I get those weapons, offenses annual books
that are put out by the law society or whoever
I get those . Sent over, it costs a little bit.
Little expensive.
Yeah!
Costs a bit to keep these things going.
Yup.
Well, and you know, other things like, you
know, um, I'm planning to apply in the near future
for a firearm business license and talking
about this for awhile.
Yeah.
Just sending in that form is thousands
of, you know, is more than a grand.
That's right.
Um, so lets me do stuff like that.
It lets me, uh, I've got some stuff I've picked
up that I plan to test.
I'm getting, uh, molds for ballistic gelatin.
Uh.
So cool.
So, uh, I was trying to develop my own mold, but
I think I'm probably just going to go and buy one,
but, um, you know, uh, one of the things I want
to test is that often the test for if something
is a firearm, is can it cause serious bodily
injury or death, which is, does it, uh, you
know, the sort of eyeball test, but the eyeball
test, uh, you gotta have an eyeball that's in
an appropriate medium.
So I'm, the game plan is I want to sort of take
this, put it in a mold and sort of surround it
with ballistic gelatin for here is flesh
around skull, around eyeball sticking, you
know, and then scoop out the eye sockets and
plunk in a pig's eye.
And then I can do proper testing of
here's what happens when we shoot this
projectile at this face.
You know.
You're going to have to name that skull
Ralphie or Randy, or if you haven't already.
Uh, I, I was asking for suggestions.
I got a whole lot of good ones.
I haven't sort of settled on one at this
point, but, uh, there's a whole lot of good
suggestions out there.
I will have to sort of, uh, go
through all of that.
Um, but I mean, also things like, uh, just
getting a torso shape for ballistic gelatin
because often we're sort of shooting ballistic
gelatin at a block.
Right.
And I think that there's useful things to that,
but a torso shape has, um, some interesting
elements to it because sometimes I see people
shooting at a block.
All of the expansion happens outside
of the body.
Right.
You know, you've got things that expand
late and it might have a really impressive
expansion pattern, but you go, well,
that happens after the bullet has left the,
you know, the body, um.
That's pretty exciting.
Stuff like that.
I'd also like to try to do things like get a pig
carcass and try to embed ribs in it and so forth.
Just to see if I could do a, I want to sort of
do a test side by side.
Right.
Of like, here's what it looks like when there
are bones in there versus here's what it looks
like otherwise, you know, what difference
does that make?
Um, especially with small calibres, because
if you look at .22 going into ballistic gelatin,
it, you know, it makes a nice, neat pattern.
And from seeing files where people have
been shot with .22's um, often the pattern
is not so neat.
You get people who are shot, like, you
know, entry wound here, exit wound here.
Right.
And you're going well, that doesn't happen if
you're just making an arm entirely at a ballistic
gelatin, because what ends up happening, you
know, it goes in, it bounces off the bone,
it deflects weirdly it hits it again and comes
out and makes a weird sort of staple shape.
Um, I've seen even weirder, exit entry
wounds, uh, one with a entry wound, you know,
under the chin exit wound out near the wrist.
Really?
They must have had their hand up or
doing something funny.
You'd think, but it's just, um, sometimes,
and it's very weird scenarios, but you get
sort of bullet tunneling where they start to
tumble through the body.
And they go in weird ways and being able to
sort of play around with that would be at least
interesting to see.
You know, talk about some of these things and just
heck just for my own, you know, own interest,
being able to say, hey, listen, you know, people
say, Hey 20, the, uh, the whole is a 22, a
sufficient defensive, you know, cartridge, which I
think most people would say no, but there are
still people who say, yes, it's just fine.
Um, how does it do against something of
sort of skull density?
You know, they say, well, so long as your
shot placement is good.
It'll be fine.
Well, is it.
Yeah.
You know, and that's the age old question, what
calibre is the best.
And you're going to have a whole bunch of opinions
on it because there you've got the scientific
side and the theory, all of the physics and
it makes perfect sense, but then everyone's a
little different people are moving and then you
start to look at the statistical analysis
of, uh, where it lands.
So, yeah, 22, absolutely perfect.
Is it your, would that be my first choice?
Well, no, but I it's going to kill you just
as bad as a bigger round if placed in
the right place.
Most of the time, if you're talking about
defensive handgun, use people don't have
time to go shopping.
Right.
Even if you've got somebody kicking down
your front door, like let's say you make
it to your gun safe.
You're probably grabbing the first thing where
you can get a gun and ammunition together for
it at the same time.
Um, you know.
.22 will do the job just fine.
Well, and most defensive firearm use,
involves not pulling the trigger at all.
Uh, when you actually look into the, you
know, the research on that often, it's
just, I have a gun it's enough, you know?
Cause you think about, you know, I was talking
earlier about the burglar wants your TV
while he might want your TV real bad, but
probably not that bad.
And he wants to do harm to you.
You know, even if he's somebody like you get
into a fight online, you know, you, somebody
says, hey, you know, this is what the law is.
And I say it actually isn't nieces, I'm going
to come to your house and I'm going to kill you.
And he shows up out of the, you know,
outside and he's kicking down my door.
People don't typically have that much
commitment, you know, a lot of the time if they
see a weapon they're like you know, I've kind of
had a change of plans.
I really like the fight of getting into, the idea
of getting into a fight with a 120 pound guy.
I don't like that idea so much now
that you got a gun.
Right.
Um, I mean, this is why cops carry
firearms, in large part.
The whole, even if the cop never draws
the firearm, simply having it on their
hip is a tremendous disincentive to doing
violence to the cop.
That's their very, very first stage on their use
of force continuum is their officer presence.
Yep, officer presence.
Just being there.
And officer presence, you know, the uniform does
some stuff cause there's, some people are gonna
say, hey, you know what?
It's a big deal.
If I take a swing at this guy.
But I mean, the officer isn't just
present as like random dude in a uniform.
It's also that, you know, they've got the
baton, they got the pepper spray, they
might have a taser, they got a handgun,
you know, that takes some commitment to say,
I want to go get into a fight with the guy,
with all these weapons and some training.
And the radio to call in all the
backup in the world.
Yeah.
So all of this stuff is, uh, you know, you
just, it's hard to say, but, uh, but yeah, in
terms of the Patreon there's all sorts of
things I would love to be able to play with.
Um, high-speed cameras would be fantastic
for looking at some of this stuff.
I want a Phantom camera so bad.
The thing is, I just can't justify it at.
Only a hundred grand.
Come on.
I mean, you can get used ones for like
low five figures.
See, you've been shopping.
I have, but at the same time, like low
five figures is still a lot of dollars right.
It's still low five figures, yes.
And you know, so if you're, if you're
considered and you know, I don't just
want one because it'd be fun to play with
I mean, absolutely.
It would, but things like, um, ranges
get asked, you know, well, what about
ground strikes?
It'd be really great to be able to take
one of those cameras, build a protective
enclosure for it.
And then, you know, take it somewhere where
I know that it's a safe area, you know,
a, uh, a box canyon or something like that.
And see what happens on ground strikes.
You know, what is this actually doing in terms
of the ballistics?
Because you know, maybe they're right.
Maybe these things are a major danger to,
you know, the public.
But maybe they're just full of crap.
So I would love to be able to go and do videos
on stuff like that.
Like here is what is, you know, going on with this.
Um, if I get the business license and can look at
some of these things, one, because one of the
things people always ask me is, um, there's this
knife I'm looking at online, is it prohibited?
Right.
Well, the knife itself, you know, it's really
hard to evaluate that without actually having
the knife in your hand.
And the knife itself might be 80 bucks.
Yep.
But the risk of ordering that knife might be
way bigger than that.
So if I've got the business license and it
allows for prohibited weapon import, I can
say, hey, listen, I'm importing this
knife for the purposes of, you know, the
firearm business.
And then I could do some things like
that, you know?
Um.
Well, there's the other side as well,
that once you've made that investment, it's
done, you can't do anything with it.
And especially like with firearms, if a prohibited
firearm gets imported and a prohibited firearm
is put into a business inventory, become dead.
They can be traded or sold to other businesses
or museums, but they can't go to individuals.
And I'm saying like, let's say a grandfathered
prohibited firearm that an individual
could otherwise have.
So there's that cost as well.
It's not like it's something you can
sell again afterwards, at least not easily.
I mean,
it's, it's a sunk cost.
Like if I go and somebody says, Hey, is
this knife prohibited?
And I get it and go, yeah, it totally is.
Um, at the end of the day, the result of
that is I've got, you know, I've spent money
on something that will never go anywhere.
And in fact, you know, I might, after
I'm done with it, I'd have to basically
say, you know what, it's not worth keeping
this thing around.
Let's just take it to the, uh, the grinding
wheel out back, and just sort of feed it
in until it's a stub.
Right.
So, you know, but that sort of expense
is something that I can only do if I have
some sort of, uh, some sort of accounting
where I can say, hey.
You need that.
Yeah.
And I, and I think people want to see
that and I'm, oh, like.
Yeah.
I'm not like John Q bad-ass, I'm not going to
be going and reviewing, like, this is the best
tactical sling, because quite frankly, I would
not be the guy I can tell you, you know,
10 or 15 people who are absolutely the guy
for that on YouTube.
Um, but I can look at something and go, is
this legally interesting and talk about, you
know, what are the laws around this?
And I don't think there's a whole lot
of, of that out there.
So that's something I'd love to be able to do.
I think you should raise a price for your
Patreon membership, it's really low.
And I mean, for what people are getting
in the content that you're producing.
I mean, the thing is, is I've got different tiers.
People can sort of sign up on, you know, what
they can afford and what they, what they think
it's worth to them.
Sure.
I don't really want to be, uh, the other
thing is I've had people who, you know,
I had somebody sign up and say, Hey, I signed
up, but you know, this low tier and you know,
but money is tight and I'm like, okay, don't.
Right.
What do you mean?
I'm like, if you're telling me money is
tight, like, you know, feed your family first.
This is entirely a luxury thing.
It's, you know, I'm going to be okay.
I'm not going to starve to death or whatever.
Um, as much as I have big dreams for what might,
you know, might happen.
Um, even just like in terms of being able
to afford things like a high-speed camera,
that's a big dream.
Right.
You know, even just like, if I take an entire
year's income, could I afford something like
that even used, you know, that's a big dream.
Right.
Totally.
Um, but it's, these are dreams, right?
Feed your family first is, uh.
And then feed these dreams.
Well, Ian let me, I think we should
wrap it up there.
We'll just keep this a real short after chat.
And I just wanted to make sure people had an
idea of what the Patreon account was about and,
uh, what they can expect to see in the future,
because man, you must be like the energizer bunny.
You're pumping out so much content and
good quality content.
It's uh, it's impressive.
Well, I, uh, I set a goal of trying to get one out
per day or other day.
I don't always meet it, but that's the goal.
And I'll tell you, um, sometimes it's,
it's tough because, you know, you want
to put out an hour of content because you're
looking at a long video.
It probably takes three or four hours to get
that, you know, get that down to a place
where I'm happy with it.
Easily.
And, you know, and that's, I don't
have a whole lot of fancy graphics.
I don't have a whole lot of fancy editing.
I'll cut out parts where I'm like, no,
I was rambling here.
That's stupid.
You know, cut that out and rerecord it.
Yeah.
Um, but you know, I don't have a whole lot of, if
I wanted to step up my production values, I'd
probably have to step down my, uh, my rate.
And maybe at some point, I'll go back.
If I get better at editing, I might go
back and revisit some of my videos that are
particularly important or ones that are lasting
legal principles and do like, here's a
shiny version of this.
Yeah.
That's a good idea.
I'd love to see something like this used and create
case law off of Runkle of the Bailey YouTube.
I know of there's at least a few times where
people have, other lawyers have sent my
videos to prosecutors to say, hey, look,
you've got the law wrong, here's a guy.
And you know, it's not just me saying it just
because I think this because he recorded
this three months ago.
So clearly this is his interpretation,
he walks through it.
Watch the video.
I haven't heard back yet in terms of results on
those, but I am following up on some of them.
I mean, often results are sort of slow.
Sure, sure.
But, uh, yeah, no.
That's kind of the dream and I've already, there's
already places where I've made it an impression on
the legal system as it were, you know, sort of
carved my, uh, my name in the Runkle V Alberta
case is, is still cited.
It was cited.
Uh, not that long ago in the decision off,
out of the east coast.
Right.
That's always nice when you're like, Hey,
I was able to pick this fight and it, you
know, it had an impact.
Um, but.
It feels good.
Yeah.
I mean, I say pick this fight.
It was really, they changed the rules
and I was like, I'm not having this.
Right.
So.
Decided not to back down.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's, that's where I like to be.
That's a, it's always nice to know that you're
making a difference in some fashion.
Totally.
Well, Ian, thank you.
Thank you for having me, as I said, it's
wonderful being