Public Safety committee  Absolutely. It's a factum that was written on that subject that deals with the dangerousness of airsoft and pellet guns.

Public Safety committee  It's no problem.

Public Safety committee  I think that's a very good question. First of all, I'm certainly not against tighter gun control laws; I am against laws that do nothing but criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens. Firearms are dangerous and they need to be controlled and regulated. We're very proud to live

Public Safety committee  I wish I could give this answer in a minute and a half. I'll tell you that I have the sincere dishonour of having lost this case at the Supreme Court of Canada. It was Her Majesty, as she was then, and Christopher Dunn, and it defined firearms in the context of airsoft and pelle

Public Safety committee  In our Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, there is no definition of the term “assault weapon”, nor is there a generally accepted technical definition. In general, the term “assault rifle”, which is a technical term and not a legal term, refers to a select-fire light-ammunition-f

Public Safety committee  That's a great question. Let's all focus on what we're trying to accomplish here with this law. What we're trying to establish is that there is a public safety concern about someone who is in possession of firearms, either legally or illegally. If there's a concern about someone

Public Safety committee  Well, it's not about setting aside justice; it's about the fact that the police have a statutory mandate to protect the public. I can tell you this, as I'm sure our police witnesses today can as well: The moment the words “firearms” or “firearm” or “gun” or “pistol” are uttered

Public Safety committee  You know even better than I do that you're going to have credible and reliable witnesses use the same dataset and draw different conclusions from it. Data is very much in the eye of the beholder, but using it for explicit partisan purposes just can't be the basis of good crimina

Public Safety committee  We don't hear you on the translation. I'm plugged in, but I don't hear anything through it at all. Now I hear you.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much for that question. It's an excellent question and an important issue. I echo much of what Chief McFee said about this mechanism, which is that right now it is unknown exactly who is going to enforce it. I have two primary concerns. The first one is access to

Public Safety committee  Yes. I think it's an important point that police already take a very active stance when they get public safety complaints about firearms. The concern is that the courts will be flooded with people with complaints that have been investigated by the police and found to be meritle

Public Safety committee  Particularly when it comes to handguns that are registered to the licensed owner, it's legal suicide for somebody to buy handguns to divert them to the illegal market. They are tied to them both by serial number and registration certificate, and that's why in the homicide and sho

Public Safety committee  The proof is in the pudding. As I said, it would take a very foolish individual—not just foolish, but once again, someone who wants to spend years and years in the penitentiary—to sign themselves up to a list, put their name of a government database and then go and commit a crime

Public Safety committee  I echo Chief McFee. I think a really important perspective is being lost here. The only thing it will do is alienate 2.2 million law-abiding Canadians who were told to license and register their firearms, and then they would be able to own them safely and lawfully. Instead, we're

Public Safety committee  I listened closely to what Inspector Rowe had to say. It's an interesting perspective. I guess there are competing points of view here. As a criminal defence lawyer, I'm of the view that if something's illegal once, it doesn't have to be illegal two, three or four times. It's a