Firearm Registration and Licencing Requirements

As of December 1998, the firearms licencing and registration laws include the following:

Licencing

All Canadians must be licenced in order to possess a firearm or to purchase ammunition.  There are two basic classes of licences.  The Possession Only (POL) licence allows firearm owners to keep their firearms without the ability to purchase more firearms.  This licence did not require the completion of the Canadian Firearms Safety Course.  As of 1 January 2001 this licence was no longer available.  1 January 2001 was also the date on which all firearms owners must have had a licence to possess firearms.

The Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL) allows the holder to possess as well as purchase firearms and ammunition.  This licence requires the successful completion of the Canadian Firearms Safety Course.  

Both licences must be renewed every five years.  At present the Canada Firearms Centre is enacting provisions of the legislation to offer a blanket extension to 800,000 POL Licence holders. This is being done to ease the huge licencing renewal bottleneck which would otherwise occur in 2004. The persons holding current POL Licences which will be extended will be selected by lot on a geographic basis.

The penalty for neglecting to renew a firearms licence can include a criminal conviction and up to several years in jail.

The Canadian Firearms Safety Course is comprised of two parts Non-Restricted and Restricted.  The Restricted section is only required for Canadians who wish to possess restricted firearms.  There are several Federal Privacy Commissioner.

A PAL licence for both non-restricted and restricted firearms costs $80.  The Canadian Firearms Safety Course can cost anywhere from $55 to $200.  

Registration

The deadline for all firearms in Canada to be registered is 31 December 2002.  Presently all firearms being transferred must be registered at the time of transfer.  Firearms not being transferred must be registered at the end of 2002.

The RCMP has run a handgun registry since 1934.

A firearm is registered once in its life.  Under the old system, firearms being registered were physically inspected by trained police officers to ensure that the information being recorded was correct.  Under this system, the error rate ran from 30-50% because there was no standardization and there are simply too many types and variants of firearms.

Under the new system, the firearm is not inspected by any government official or other experts.  Presently RCMP estimates the registration error rate is running to 90%.  The firearms registry has been removed from the responsibility of the RCMP and placed under control of a civilian run and staffed burocracy.

As of November 2001 the registration system is only recording the following information to identify each individual firearm:

Make
Type
Class
Serial Number
Barrel Length

For those unfamiliar with firearms the following shows how this system would be applied to a vehicle.

Obviously, without a Model, Year or other detailed description it is simply impossible to accurately identify this vehicle.  It could be a 1920's Model T with a modified engine or a new 2002 Mustang.  The only thing in this description that "identifies" a specific vehicle is the VIN number.  What are the chances that in the 103 years since the automobile was invented that no two Fords were manufactured with the same VIN number?  This includes all Fords manufactured anywhere in the world.  This assumption could be the only thing keeping a law abiding driver out of jail should a criminal choose to commit a crime with a Ford. 

We know, from factory records, that many makes and models of firearms were produced with duplicate serial numbers.  Sometimes serial numbers were duplicated from year to year or from country to country.

The new registration certificates, which are supposed to last the life of the firearm, are now being printed with a laser printer on standard photocopy paper.  The average life of a firearm is greater than 100 years.

These flimsy paper registration certificates, with their incomplete description of the firearm, are all that stand between firearm owners and jail.  

Types of Firearms

Firearms can be classed as non-restricted or restricted.  Non-restricted firearms are generally long-arms, shotguns, hunting rifles etc.  Restricted firearms include all handguns, some semi-automatic rifles, any firearm under 26" in length, any firearm with a non-factory barrel less than 18" in length, all converted automatic firearms, all fully automatic firearms and any firearm so designated under the law.

Some restricted firearms have been listed as prohibited with grandfathering.  This means that current owners may keep these firearms but no-one else may purchase this class of firearm.  There are many sub-classes of prohibited restricted firearms.  These sub-classes often depend on when the firearm was prohibited, what the firearm looks like or how the firearm works.

A good example of this is the 12(6) class of short barreled (less than 105mm) and .25 and .32 calibre handguns.  This class was proclaimed (in 1996) retroactively to 14 February 1995.  However because the law was not given Royal Assent until 1998, it was legal for non-grandfathered persons to purchase these firearms until December 1998.

As a result, this is a very confusing class.  There are grandfathered owners (owned a 12(6) firearm before Feb 1995), grandfathered firearms (registered to an individual before Feb 1995), non-grandfathered owners (purchased 12(6) firearm between Feb 1995 and Dec 1998) and non-grandfathered firearms (not registered to an individual before Feb 1995).  

If a grandfathered individual owns a grandfathered firearm, there is no problem.  The other three combinations all fall into a grey area that even the government doesn't know how to fix.  Since 1998 they have proclaimed 4 amnesty periods to avoid the situation where hundreds of thousands of innocent firearms owners would be criminalized through action of law.

In many cases, firearms have been listed as prohibited, which look and function identically to non-restricted firearms.  This can result in confusion, which because of the nature of the law, can result in unjustified criminal charges being laid.

Now that you are aware of the state of the gun control laws in Canada do you think that we need more or stricter gun control?

Government polls showing that many Canadians want more gun control always avoid the question of the public's lack of knowledge of the current state of gun control laws.  Most people, once they are made aware of the laws, do not feel the need for stronger laws.