From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #469 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Cdn-Firearms Digest Thursday, September 11 2003 Volume 06 : Number 469 In this issue: Formal Notice: Hunting with an unregistered firearm 'Sober' club to file rights challenge on smoking A day in court can stretch into weeks RFC Ottawa URL Unbearable Gag law is fair Ongoing discussion of bullet deflection, etc. Re: ARTICLES OF INTEREST ON BREITKREUZ'S WEBSITE LIEberal-speak Re: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #468 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:15:13 -0600 (CST) From: Edward Hudson Subject: Formal Notice: Hunting with an unregistered firearm To: Easter.W@parl.gc.ca Cc: Prime Minister , "Garry Breitkreuz, MP" , Firearms Digest The Honourable Wayne Easter, P.C., MP Solicitor General of Canada House of Commons Parliament Buildings Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Easter.W@parl.gc.ca Thursday, 11 September 2003 Dear Mr Easter, Formal Notice: Hunting with an unregistered firearm and without a firearms possession license We hereby officially inform you that members of CUFOA will be in the field hunting migratory game birds with an unregistered firearm and without a firearms possession license this Saturday, 13September2003. We take this action deliberately. We are intentionally contravening the Firearms Act of 1995, purposefully being in open, public noncompliance. The Firearms Act destroys our Canadian heritage and culture. This unjust law violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically our rights to privacy, security of person, presumption of innocence, association, representation, mobility, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. We will never submit to this unjust law. We will never surrender our Liberty to a law which is based upon a lie; a law which can never deliver the false promise of increased security. We demand the opportunity to have this unjust law declared unconstitutional in court. We will be hunting on the Saskatchewan Wildlife Habitat Land at Argo Bush just southwest of Bigger, Saskatchewan. We will hunt on this site from 10 a.m. until noon. We have personally notified the Bigger RCMP Detachment, speaking directly with Constable Davies of our plans. We will be hunting with an unregistered Cooey 12 gauge shotgun, serial number 39346, owned by Jack Wilson of 33 - 2401 Koyl Ave, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. You can easily verify that neither Mr Wilson, nor this shotgun, are on record with the Canadian Firearms Center. As we have consistently demonstrated in our previous seventeen public non-compliance actions all across Canada, everything we do will be peaceful and non-violent. Mr Easter, your government has wasted enough time and money on this futile exercise. Demonstrate your common sense. Protect our Canadian heritage of responsible firearms ownership and use. Repeal this useless, unjust, unconstitutional law. Sincerely, Edward B. Hudson DVM, MS Secretary, CUFOA CC: Prime Minister Jean Chrétien Garry Breitkreuz, MP Sgt Kevin Weber, RCMP Detachment, Bigger, SK Canadian Unregistered Firearms Owners Association 402 Skeena Crt Saskatoon Saskatchewan S7K 4H2 1-306-242-2379 1-306-249-2359 fax edwardhudson@shaw.ca www.cufoa.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:15:45 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: 'Sober' club to file rights challenge on smoking http://www.canada.com/edmonton/story.asp?id=199DE8BA-A575-4629-9F38-3DD85FEAF616 'Sober' club to file rights challenge on smoking Argues addicts should be considered disabled Dan Lazin; With files from Kelly Cryderman The Edmonton Journal Thursday, September 11, 2003 EDMONTON - A club for recovering alcoholics says it will file a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission over the city's smoking bylaw. City council voted Monday against looking at an exemption to the bylaw for the Keep It Simple sober club. The organization says that's discrimination under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, since its 300 members should, as addicts, be considered disabled. They say it's dangerous for them to hang out in regular bars, where they would be allowed to smoke. The city, however, says smoking isn't allowed in the Keep It Simple club unless they get a liquor licence and serve alcohol. "We're just a bunch of ex-drunks. We're nobody special," said Tom Charbonneau, a member of the club's board. "But I've got to get a liquor licence to make sure that my customers are going to stay sober? It's ridiculous." He said a bylaw officer visited the club Wednesday and warned they would be ticketed if smoking didn't stop within a week. The club plans to file a complaint with the human rights commission by Friday afternoon. Charbonneau said the board of directors is also seeking lawyers who would take on a direct court challenge without charge. "We can't afford lawyers, we're just a little sober club, but some of the ones we have talked to said it should not be a problem. It's against our charter of rights," he said. Premier Ralph Klein said city council should take another look at the issue of smoking at the club. Klein, who is a smoker, said he talked to Mayor Bill Smith about the matter "and he said that he was going to deal with the issue." City council, Klein said, "should really look at it, but I have my own opinions on the whole smoking bylaw issue." Asked if he would try to intervene on the club's behalf, Klein said "if they care to write me a letter, send me a note as to how I might become involved, I'll take it under consideration. But I don't know exactly what I can do." Smith said he would like to accommodate the club but is worried a change to the bylaw could open the door for challenges from other groups. "I would say the better course of action would be to continue to negotiate a dialogue and try to find out if there is a way," he said. "My position has been the same since Day 1 -- that if any change or exemption for them would trigger a challenge, then I wouldn't support it." But Charbonneau said challenges from other businesses aren't the point. "I don't care about all these other big highfalutin' rich people that are going to try to fight the mayor on this," he said. "I care about the drunk who's going to walk into my door that hasn't had a drink in 24 hours and is shaking like a leaf and he's a chain-smoker. He won't want to stay for any length of time to get the help and support he needs (if he can't smoke). That's the one I care about." dlazin@thejournal.canwest.com © Copyright 2003 Edmonton Journal ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:16:11 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: A day in court can stretch into weeks http://www.canada.com/search/story.aspx?id=a36fb36a-bad3-405a-9ed1-322cd8ca1dd9 A day in court can stretch into weeks Twenty years ago, a 15-day trial was considered long. Today, proceedings may take months, exhausting lawyers and tying up the courts Neal Hall Vancouver Sun 5/8/2003 5:32:27 AM CREDIT: Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun Crown counsel Ron Caryer, at New Westminster Law Courts, says long trials strain everyone involved. CREDIT: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun Don Brenner is chief justice of the Supreme Court of B.C. 'The long criminal trial is a vexing issue across the country,' he says. Defence lawyer Peter Wilson says "monster trials" of six months and longer arose after a 1991 Supreme Court of Canada ruling known as Stinchcombe, which concluded that the Crown has to duty to disclose the entire investigation file to the defence. Before then, Crown disclosure would usually fit in a three-ring binder, Wilson recalled. Now it can amount to hundreds of thousands of pages of wiretap and surveillance logs. "The amount of paper we have to read and understand has become almost unmanageable," Wilson explained. The sheer number of days in court can be exhausting, he added. That was his experience as defence lawyer during the 10-month trial of Shannon Murrin, who was accused of killing eight-year-old Mindy Tran. Murrin was acquitted after Wilson successfully proved the DNA evidence wasn't conclusive and that police conduct was questionable -- three men were allegedly allowed to beat a confession from Murrin, who almost died from his injuries. "That case almost killed me," Wilson said. "It drove me to the edge of exhaustion." Last year, about 125,000 new Criminal Code offences were handled by B.C. courts. And while the number of criminal cases hasn't increased in recent years, trials are becoming longer and more complex. It's one of the trends noted in this Vancouver Sun series called Crime and Consequence. Twenty years ago, a 15-day murder trial -- three weeks of court time -- was considered a long trial. Now, it's not unusual to have four and five-month trials. "They are getting longer and longer," said Ron Caryer, a prosecutor for 23 years who recently did a seven-month murder trial. "The trend now is long, long voir dires." "After an interminable series of voir dires over the course of one and a half years, the case began before the jury in mid-May of 2002," B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Preston wrote in a judgment about a Prince George murder trial that went for 257 days. A voir dire -- sometimes called a "trial within a trial" -- takes place in the absence of a jury so a judge can determine what is or isn't admissible evidence. Defence lawyers use a voir dire to challenge everything from search warrants, which are used to seize evidence, to police conduct in obtaining confessions made during an operation involving undercover officers posing as members of a criminal organization. In recent years, defence lawyers have begun to routinely challenge wiretap authorizations -- a judge must authorize police to secretly record phone conversations of "targets" suspected of criminal activity. Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has been in effect since 1982 and enshrines the rights of a person accused of a crime, is universally cited as one of the main reasons for criminal trials becoming longer and more complex. Victims' rights groups have long complained that the Charter has given too many rights to the accused and not enough to victims of crime. "There seems to be more and more latitude given to legal requests by the defence," observed Ben Doyle, chairman of the B.C. chapter of CAVEAT (Canadians Against Violence Everywhere Advocating its Termination.) But defence lawyers say the Charter protects all citizens from improper conduct by police and the Crown, which carries out prosecutions. The criminal trial also has been affected by recent advances in such scientific evidence as DNA profiling, which didn't exist 20 years ago. So has the rise of such relatively new technology crimes, such as distributing child pornography over the Internet, computerized electronic embezzlement and money laundering. In computer-crime cases, police sometimes rely on outside experts to help analyze computer hard drives. Vancouver police Detective Noreen Waters, who used to specialize in child pornography investigations, recalled there can be a vast amount of evidence to examine, citing one case where a man had about 700,000 child-porn images on his computer. Toronto police recently did four searches in connection with a case and found more than one million images, she said. "The technology has made it so easy for a person to molest a child and distribute the images over the Internet, especially using digital cameras, which don't require processing," Waters explained. Caryer observed that long, complicated trials make it difficult for everyone -- the Crown, defence lawyers, the judge and the jury -- to remain focused. During the seven-month murder trial he prosecuted last year, he pinned a photograph of the 10-year-old murder victim, Heather Thomas, on his office wall. "I put it there to remind myself what the case was all about," he said. The appeal courts also have an effect on the trial courts, often sending cases back for retrial if there was a substantial error in law or a misapprehension of the facts by the trial court. Caryer, who has done several retrials, says the prospect of trying a lengthy case a second or third time is an exercise in patience, especially since the memories of witnesses fade. Victims of crime also resent having to recount their ordeals over and over again, he said. "People get tired of coming back," Caryer said. "For families of [murder] victims, it's pure injustice to relive the loss of a loved one." And sometimes, witnesses refuse to testify again. (A B.C. man was facing a fourth trial in May for the first-degree murder of a woman who had been raped and killed in 1981. The man, Jean Beaulac, won a Supreme Court of Canada appeal in 1998 to have his new trial conducted before a jury that can speak both of Canada's official languages, French and English. His earlier trials were conducted solely in English. Last month, he pleaded guilty to the murder, ending 15 years of trials and appeals.) Caryer acknowledges the appeal process and retrials are the price of our justice system, which is the foundation of a democratic society. "Our system is very, very careful to make sure there is no injustice, to make sure that no one is wrongly convicted," he pointed out. "We must make sure we don't ever put an innocent person in jail. It's an excellent system, but it has an inherent frustration built in." Still, Caryer thinks jurors could be better trained to sit on longer trials. "I don't think jurors are trained enough to be good fact finders," he said. "You can't tell them what to do, but we could teach them a simple shorthand to be better note takers." The provincial government recently recognized that longer trials were making jury duty a severe financial hardship because the $20-a-day rate for jurors was inadequate when trials could last 10 weeks or more. Last December, the government announced it would increase the daily rate for jurors to $100 a day for criminal trials lasting more than 49 days. The move, effective April 1, will make it easier to find jurors for lengthy criminal trials, including the pending trial of alleged Coquitlam serial killer Robert (Willy) Pickton. The Pickton case, currently in a preliminary hearing that began last January, involves allegations that Pickton killed 15 of 63 women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Allegedly the worst serial murder case in Canada, it has the potential to become one of the longest murder trials in Canadian history. The trend toward longer criminal trials has drawn the concern of B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Don Brenner and other jurists across the country. "We can be frustrated by what we see going on in the courtroom," Brenner said of lengthy trials. But defence lawyers have the right to advance all available defence for their clients, he added. "The long criminal trial is a vexing issue across the country," Brenner said. "It was the topic of discussion at the Canadian Judicial Council meeting last September in Calgary. It's been raised with both governments [federal and provincial] and it's clearly a complicated problem that has to do with provisions of the Criminal Code, provisions of the Charter and the state of appellate law." He suggested the judiciary, along with lawyers and both levels of government, need to work together to find answers to the problem. Still, Brenner pointed out that the long trials that attract public attention are usually the unusual, high-profile cases. "The number of hours we are spending on criminal [cases], in our court, hasn't changed that much," he said. "Ninety-nine per cent of the criminal cases are dealt with relatively quickly, as they always have been. They are heard in two to four days. "The last criminal case I heard took two days from start to finish, including sentencing -- a relatively straightforward case with one accused, a couple of counts. So it isn't that they are all extending for months and months and months." But trials that take longer than expected cause scheduling problems and delay other trials, resulting in a backlog of cases and possibly charges being stayed if cases drag on too long. Trial coordinators overbook the number of cases set for trial by about 300 per cent because, as a general rule, up to 50 per cent of criminal cases won't proceed because of guilty pleas. Other cases may be delayed for various reasons: illness of a juror, lawyer, witness or judge involved in a case, or one of the lawyers is busy with another case that is taking longer than expected. In Canada, the Charter guarantees that an accused person has the right to a speedy trial. The Supreme Court of Canada has said trials should be held between eight to 18 months after a charge is laid, unless, of course, the accused or defence lawyers cause the delay. Anything beyond that period, if attributed solely to the Crown or systemic delay, could lead to charges being stayed by judges because of unreasonable trial delay. That applies even to simple offences. Earlier this year, for example, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg ordered a stay of proceedings against a law firm, SRC Law Corp., which had been issued a photo radar ticket for an offence that allegedly occurred on Aug. 28, 2000. The judge noted the matter took 17 months to get to trial. The law corporation, which had been found guilty in provincial court, successfully appealed to B.C. Supreme Court on the trial delay issue. "I find that the appellant's Charter right to be tried within a reasonable time under Section 11(b) has been breached and I order a judicial stay of proceedings pursuant to s. 24(1)," Koenigsberg concluded. nhall@png.canwest.com © Copyright 2003 Vancouver Sun ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:19:27 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: RFC Ottawa URL I know that I had the URL for the prototype of the webpage for the RFC Ottawa Office initiative, but damned if I can find it. If someone has this, could they send it to me? Yours in Liberty, Bruce Hamilton Ontario ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:57:54 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Unbearable http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/letters/story.asp?id=4D564A4F-6CD9-4CE7-96DA-756BD46C5735 Unbearable Calgary Herald Letter to the Editor Tuesday, September 09, 2003 Re: "Grizzlies on candid camera," Sept. 4. Are we studying our wildlife to death? Why do the biologists chase, dart, and tranquilize these animals just to hang bulky cameras and tracking devices around their necks? Don't they realize how uncomfortable it is for the animal to carry this equipment for six weeks or more? I fail to see the benefit in monitoring the bears' eating and mating habits by having it suffer with this huge collar around its neck while it's preparing for hibernation. If the biologists don't know what the grizzlies eat or their mating process, perhaps they should embark on another career. Harry Stech Calgary © Copyright 2003 Calgary Herald ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 11:58:15 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Gag law is fair http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/letters/story.asp?id=1EF8B687-90E8-48C5-A014-7309FE963A2C Gag law is fair Calgary Herald Letter to the Editor Monday, September 08, 2003 Re: "Top court to settle election spending-cap law," Sept. 5. The National Citizens Coalition is so hyped up about not limiting campaign contributions to political parties, one would think that they were true champions of free speech. You don't have to be a media studies student to figure out that just because speech is "free" it doesn't mean that everyone can hear you. To be heard, you need big bucks. Anyone can run around with a placard, but only big money can buy the air time necessary to get heard and actually persuade people to agree with them. The placard carrying citizen would also like to persuade people, but in reality can't do that, because broadcasting is only for those with money. So, the idea of limiting funds in a democratic election is an attempt to level the playing field. It's not complicated and downright fair. Or does free speech only belong to the highest bidder? We're already inundated with advertising by companies with lots of money set aside to persuade us about one thing or the other. Could we get a break at election time? Anita Roy Nanoose Bay, B.C. © Copyright 2003 Calgary Herald ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 12:39:04 -0600 (CST) From: "Todd Birch" Subject: Ongoing discussion of bullet deflection, etc. I get a lot of kidding about my .308 Win. "pop-gun" from guys toting 7mm Mags, .338's, etc. Gee, everything I shoot drops dead, sometimes literally in it's tracks. I don't shoot beyond my known abilities with the rifle and I don't ask it to so something it wasn't designed to do. As for any difference in reality between the effectiveness of the .30-'06 and the .308 on game, prove it to me. I've taken deer, moose and bear with the .270, .30-'06, .308 and .45-70. Because of proper bullet design and placement, nothing got away except for one mule deer. I believed the propaganda about the effectiveness of "light magnum" ammo and tried to turn a .308 into a .300 magnum by over reaching. Never again. The late African guide and hunter Finn Aagard became a believer in the .308 as a result of American clients bringing them on safari. Handsome is as handsome does. He used 150 gr. bullets exclusively in his Scout .308, changing bullet design to suit the task. Regarding bullet deflection, I had a good lesson in that years ago during a practical rifle match. On a 'jungle trail', targets were placed at distances from 15 to 75 yards. Some were screened by brush, others partially covered by 4"-6" trees, mostly poplars. None of the 'relic' battle rifles in .303, .30-'06, 8mm or the modern semi-autos in 7.62mm had a problem printing their rounds on the targets, even penetrating the trees first. The .223 shooters were greatly displeased that many of their rounds failed to hit targets screened by twigs and those that did tumbled badly. This parallels combat experience with the M-16 5.56mm in Vietnam. The NRA "American Rifleman" published a letter from a company commander re: this problem shortly after the M-14 in 7.62mm was phased out of service. He recounted how he observed a VC crew served gun position and ordered a rifleman to engage the target with his M-16. After emptying the 20 rd. magazine, not only did he fail to hit even one man, they never even knew they were under fire! He then indicated the target to his M-60 7.62mm machinegunner who rapped off a few rounds from the shoulder and dropped the entire crew. They had been lightly screened by brush. Todd Birch ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 12:39:36 -0600 (CST) From: Jim Powlesland Subject: Re: ARTICLES OF INTEREST ON BREITKREUZ'S WEBSITE On Wed, 10 Sep 2003, Jim Powlesland wrote: > Gary: > > It is a royal pain trying to find this highly useful info on your > website. Oops. I didn't mean to post this to cdn-firearms. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 12:40:19 -0600 (CST) From: "jim davies" Subject: LIEberal-speak > According to RCMP spokesman Cpl. Brian Jones... "He was fatally shot by a > gun," Obviously, Jones is an up and comer in LIEberal lalaland. Normal people would say "he was fatally shot" or "he was fatally shot by a person or persons unknown." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 13:16:11 -0600 (CST) From: wmartind@telusplanet.net Subject: Re: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #468 > According to RCMP spokesman Cpl. Brian Jones, Broadview RCMP were called to > the Whitewood-area reserve late Tuesday afternoon after receiving a report > of a shooting. > > Jamie Bear was located in a wooded area, Jones said. > > "He was fatally shot by a gun," he said. I feel it's inappropriate to get really picky at this point, because a 9-year- old has lost his life. The RCMP Corporal has it wrong. The boy wasn't "..fatally shot _by_ a gun," - the boy was fatally shot _with_ a gun, by a _person_ presently not yet identified.... WM ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #469 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:akimoya@cogeco.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) 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