I'm a fan of your blog, and I've contacted you once or twice before. I wanted to share my gun registry story with you, as I spent about an hour on the phone with them yesterday.Has anybody out there tested this whole "amnesty" thing? Do the local police departments know about this?
My license expired on August 1st. Six weeks before that I dutifully filled out the paperwork to renew it, got a passport-style photo, etc and mailed it off. Everything was done correctly. I don't have anything fancy either --no prohibited weapons. Just a bunch of hunting rifles and mil-surp .303s picked up after the war and passed down.
And I'm no criminal: at worst I have three speeding tickets over the last twenty years. I passed a CSIS background check to join the military twelve years ago. I've had multiple criminal records checks in the past twenty years because I've worked with children. I'm a good guy.
So throughout September I began to get to get worried that my license hadn't shown up. I finally contacted them yesterday. The surly bitch I dealt with told me my license was approved on the 16th of October. That is, four months after I sent my paperwork in. It should be in the mail sometime this week, she said.
I asked her what the legality of my not having a license was in the intervening months. She told me an amnesty was granted, and even though I didn't have an up to date card, I was okay.
So, what's the point in having a license at all? If I'd gone to Canadian Tire to pick up a box of 22-250, and the clerk had noticed my license was expired, could I have just explained there was an amnesty? Could I do the same thing if a cop pulled me over the way to the range? If I could, what's the point?
Anyway, keep fighting the good fight.
A Reader writes
LOST AND FOUND... yet another tale of the incivil service...
