CUFOA

Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association
Association canadienne des propriétaires d’armes sans permis

Registration is bad, but licensing is worse.
Licensing will kill us.
- Dr. Gary Mauser, professor at Simon Fraser University

The Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers rejects support of C-68, the registration and licensing sections as they pose ... no measurable effect on the criminal element.
- Murray Grismer, Saskatoon Police Force, Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers
FED UP II Rally, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 1998 September 22

Stockholm syndrome, a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage who shows feelings of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger in which the hostage has been placed. Stockholm syndrome is similar to battered person syndrome, rape, child abuse, and bride kidnapping.

Does the new Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee suffer from
Stockholm Syndrome ?

On August 23, 1973, a convicted bank robber on leave from prison, walked into a bank in central Stockholm, opened fire injuring a police officer, took four bank employees hostage, kept them imprisoned in the bank’s vault for a week, and threatened to kill them if the police did not meet his demands. When finally rescued by police action, the hostages expressed more sympathy to their captor than to the police. Thus was born the expression “Stockholm Syndrome.”

Jerrold Lundgard, President of the Responsible Firearms Owners of Alberta, thinks that some very prominent firearms owners are suffering the effects of Stockholm Syndrome.

Mr. Lundgard points to the members of the newly inaugurated Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee (CFAC) as prime examples. He may be right; consider:

Public Safety Minister Day formed the new CFAC in August 2006. They had their first meeting by teleconference on 24 August. By the conclusion of their second meeting on 24 October they announced:
We would like to thank the Minister for the opportunity to contribute to the public safety of Canada through the establishment of the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee.
It is the recommendation of this Committee to enhance the existing licensing system by merging the Possession Only and the Possession and Acquisition Licenses into the Continuous Firearms License.

In less than a month this committee which is composed of some of the strongest advocates for the total repeal of the Firearms Act repudiated their long held beliefs and accepted licensing. And they had the temerity to add, “We feel licensing will be welcomed by Canadians”!

What else besides the Stockholm Syndrome could explain such a total betrayal of our twelve-year fight for our Right to possess firearms without a government license?

Police Sergeant Murray Grismer probably understands the feelings of inadequacy and dependency on the government of his fellow CFAC members. He once described firearms owners as “young abused children who are desperately looking for any friend.”

Before joining the CFAC Dr. Gary Mauser compared the Firearms Act’s mandate for a firearms license to “slowly boiling frogs in hot water.” Yet even he seems to have capitulated. Dr. Mauser initially wrote a scathing review of the CFAC’s EKOS Survey, stating that the survey was fatally biased towards a predetermined goal. Now he says that the survey is “the best data available.”

While Mr. Lundgard and I are dismayed by our former comrades, others have expressed similar concerns with our “new” Conservative government. Link Byfield in a recent Citizens Center for Freedom and Democracy column says that Stephen Harper’s budget shows that he has been “Otta-washed” - federally brainwashed. And Gerry Nicholls, who was recently fired from the National Citizens Coalition, rebuked the Tories “for their general abandonment of fiscal conservative values.”

There seems to be something about going to Ottawa that causes otherwise good, sane people to become benighted - welcome to the Stockholm Syndrome.

Edward B. Hudson DVM, MS
Secretary
18 April 2007

Canadian Unregistered Firearms Owners Association
402 Skeena Crt Saskatoon
Saskatchewan S7K 4H2
(306) 242-2379 hm (306) 230-8929 cell
edwardhudson@shaw
www.cufoa.ca