CUFOA

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

President's Message Spring 2003

Wednesday 02April2003

Dear CUFOA Members and Supporters,

Protecting Our Liberty: What We Have Done

Members of CUFOA have been very active in protecting our Rights, Freedoms, and Liberty from certain destruction by the Firearms Act.

On the first of January in Ottawa over 200 CUFOA members and supporters applauded as Ontario gunsmith Bruce Montague marched with our Declaration of Non-Compliance up to the very doors of Parliament. Our President Jim Turnbull then supervised as Jack Wilson used his Zippo lighter to ignite "Ole Smokie", our galvanized fire barrel, and Dr Joe Gingrich burned a copy of the Firearms Act while other responsible firearms owners from across the Canada tossed their firearms licenses and registration certificates into the flames.

Our Parliament Hill Freedom Demonstration climaxed as I transferred a British .303 Lee-Enfield receiver from myself to Jim Turnbull. The RCMP ended this action with the arrest of President Turnbull. They drove Jim off to jail where the police authorities later charged Jim and me not with illegal possession of a firearm, but with the bogus charge of "having a weapon at a public meeting". Trial date is set for September; our legal counsel is confident that he will beat this rap.

We then repeated this demonstration on the slopes of Mont Royal in Montréal and at the capitol building in Regina. The police in these two cities made absolutely no attempt to prevent us from destroying our licenses or to arrest any of us as we publicly disobeyed this unjust law.

Dr Joe Gingrich and I subsequently publicly traded another .303 receiver in front of Saskatoon Police Headquarters. We were arrested and charged, but not for violations of the Firearms Act.

On our third trip to Ottawa, Al Muir and Jack Wilson personally hand delivered a declaration to the Prime Minister that they own firearms without a license. Al and Jack delivered their notice twice, once in Ottawa, and again in the Prime Minister's constituency office in Shawinigan, Quebec, where we demonstrated in the defense of a young hunter. Al and Jack have not been arrested.

All these actions were in direct contravention of the Firearms Act. We have amassed five arrests, twenty-six hours of jail time, and ten thousand dollars of legal fees, but not one charge under the Firearms Act. The government knows that this unjust law will fall apart under judicial scrutiny.

There now seems to be some light at the end of this dark tunnel. Belatedly the Canadian population has begun to awaken to the horrendous cost of this useless, ineffective, unjust law, and Parliament has begun to offer some resistance to shoveling more money down this buttonless rat hole.

We are proud of our actions to date, but we have much to do to protect our Liberties and Freedoms from destruction by the Firearms Act. We can not sit back and wait for a cowed, fearful, Liberal dominated Parliament to act in our behalf.

We must force the government to repeal this unjust law.

Protecting Our Liberty: What We Plan to Do

We have launched two very active campaigns which require your support and direct involvement.

Our most ambitious project is the "Sea-to-Sea Freedom Ride", a five-thousand, six hundred, kilometer, four-week cross-country "Rolling Rally". During July we intend to proclaim the death of the Firearms Act by burning a firearms license in every provincial capitol in Canada.

We begin this trek at the Legislative Building in Victoria on Monday, 30June2003 at 3 p.m., the very moment the phony six-month registration "amnesty" ends. We plan to travel coast-to-coast, from the Pacific to the eastern tip of the country on the Atlantic in St John's, Newfoundland. We will then return to Ottawa the end of July where we will ceremoniously place the ashes from our firearms licenses and registration certificates beside the Eternal Flame on Parliament Hill.

Mark your calendar now. Plan to participate in some aspect of this trip. We need you this July !!

Grab your spouse, your kids, your neighbors and join the trek for a day or a week as we proclaim to all of the world that we are not going to sit back and watch as our Rights and Freedoms are slowly flushed down the toilet. Your presence and support are vital to the success of this action.

Our second project is Operation Personal Prosecution, another challenging program which also requires your direct involvement. Enclosed you will find a Information Form 2 which needs your name and address for completion. You then take the completed form to any justice of the peace in your home province and swear out the information by making the charge under oath.

The objective of this action is two-fold:

(1) we hope to hereby get a charge laid under the Firearms Act which we can defend in court, and,
(2) this action will place the court system under considerable stress as the crown prosecutors attempt to deal with the increased workload of applying these provisions of the Firearms Act.

PLEASE NOTE WELL:

This action is completely legal.

The information which you lay before a justice of the peace is completely accurate; these people are confessed law-breakers who deserve to be investigated under the authority of the Firearms Act. In laying these charges you will be acting in good faith as a responsible citizen acting under the provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada. Even if the crown ignores your Information we win.

We are asking you to get directly involved in protecting your Freedom. Mark your calendar and attend the Rolling Rally nearest you this July. And complete the Personal Prosecution Form 2 and turn in a confessed law-breaker.

For more information on these activities please call anyone listed on the CUFOA pamphlets.

Peaceful civil disobedience to this unjust law IS your duty !

Sincerely,

Jim Turnbull
President, CUFOA

Edward B. Hudson DVM, MS
Secretary, CUFOA