Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I’m Travis Bader and this is The Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses that comprise of the community. If you’re a new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services, and products we offer. As well as how you can join The Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in North America wide liability insurance, to ensure you are properly covered during your outdoor adventures.

Before we get rolling with this episode, I’d like to do a little bit of housecleaning and to that end, I would like to remind everybody that if they’re enjoying The Silvercore Podcast, if they like what they hear, let us know, leave a comment, click like, subscribe, tell your friends, you can find The Silvercore Podcasts on all major podcast providers out there.

We’re also on YouTube and you can find us social media and speaking about different social media platforms, we’re also on clubhouse now, so if Silvercore Club members are interested partaking in a live podcast on clubhouse. We’d asked for two things; number one, let us know, number two, let us know how to use clubhouse so we can do this.

Now without further ado, today I’m joined by the director of directions for International Barrels, the makers of high quality premium grade rifle barrels, Ryan Steacy. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:48] How’s it going?

Travis Bader: [00:01:50] Ryan, welcome back to The Silvercore Podcast. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:01:52] Thanks.

Travis Bader: [00:01:53] As well, we’ve got the publisher and owner of Calibre Magazine, Calibre Magazine’s going into its 10th year producing Canadian firearms content, top drawer, premium quality magazine. If you’re a member of some organizations, I believe the CSSA is one of them, you will already be getting the Calibre Magazine. Thank you for joining us today, Daniel Fritter.

Dan Fritter: [00:02:20] Hey Travis, long time no talk.

Travis Bader: [00:02:22] Yeah, it has been a while, hasn’t it? 

Dan Fritter: [00:02:24] Yeah, I mean, it’s been like years, man, when I was going down there and dropping off magazines back in the day.

Travis Bader: [00:02:29] I remember that. In fact, right, we’re talking off air here, but our first meeting happened right here in the podcast studio, that was my office. Before we turned into the podcast studio. 

Dan Fritter: [00:02:40] Yeah. And for those that are listening to maybe not know, Silvercore, obviously based at a Delta and Calibre started up based out of Delta as well. And our office was, I think about 10 minutes away from your guys’s office. And about 12 minutes away from the brewery, that’s down the street from your guys’s office. 

Travis Bader: [00:02:57] Yes, good times.

Ryan Steacy: [00:03:00] I need one of those near IBI. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:03] Yes, you do.

Dan Fritter: [00:03:04] Hey, you talk to those Four Winds guys around the corner from Travis’ place, they make some good beer. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:10] Well, I’m really glad to be able to be chatting with you again here, Daniel. It’s bill C-21 particularly that kind of got us talking offline here, and then we thought. You know, you’ve got some pretty good insight.

You’re a sharp cookie, you’re a smart guy, you got some good insight that I figured that The Silvercore Podcast listeners would like to hear. And Ryan and I are both affiants on the order in council firearms prohibition and have a little bit of insight from that perspective; providing the court’s information so that they can make the best available decision with all the information available.

[00:03:46] And I guess. You know, Dan, you were, you spoke at the Senate about bill C-71. So I’m going to have to throw in a big old disclaimer at the front of this. None of us are lawyers, but we’re going to spend some time just sort of openly discussing different ideas, different viewpoints in regards to some of the recent legislation, policy regulations that have been coming down the pipe, and then we’ll just see it from a few different perspectives and see if we can kind of get ourselves caught up on, up to where C-21 is.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:18] Sounds good. 

Dan Fritter: [00:04:20] Well, I mean to take it back to C-71, I think,  you know, the problems there. Uh, I mean, as you said, we’re none of us are lawyers, but Ian Runkle is one. I think we’ve all seen a lot of his content and, uh, I think we can all probably say with some degree of confidence that the people responsible for drafting this bill, maybe weren’t the best of lawyers, if they were lawyers at all. Um, or conversely, you know, cause I’m, I’m aware that there will be some lawyer out there that works for the crown that may watch this and goes, wow, that Dan guys’ a dick, I worked really hard, but that other guy.

Ryan Steacy: [00:04:53] He sucked!

Dan Fritter: [00:04:53] He wouldn’t give me any lee way. Um, cause I think that’s probably closer to the truth is, uh, with C-21, I mean I’ve done a video already, but for those that don’t know, my personal attitude is that, um, it comes down to a scheduling conflict. Cause this bill was introduced, I haven’t checked the calendar as of right now, but we’re still in the latter half of the month.

So it should be sitting months. So for those that don’t know the parliamentary calendar for the house of commons, generally they seat, or they sit half the month. Uh, it’s typically been the last half of the month. Um, and before everyone says, Oh, lazy parliamentarian, they’re actually very hardworking people, even some of the liberal MPS are incredibly hardworking individuals that serve their constituents very well.

[00:05:32] And to do so that requires spending time in their constituency. So they spend half their time back home and half the time in Ottawa. So it makes total sense. Um, but that means that they only get half the time to actually do government business in Ottawa.

They can’t vote or debate or have parliamentary procedure progress without the parliament actually sitting. And obviously even with these weird hybrid sessions that they’re having the calendars, the calendar, they can’t take days out of that calendar. It’s actually part of the way the parliament is managed.

[00:06:00] When Justin Trudeau announced C-21, there was only 55 days left in the parliamentary calendar. Um, There’s less than we’re into the forties now, I think. Um, so it’s dwindling. They said that second reading is going to happen sometime later this week, which I will confess, you know, obviously as a gun owner, I don’t think there’s any gun owner up there that wouldn’t be able to get out of a psychologist chair without at least some degree of generalized anxiety diagnosis.

Um, but I mean, I hear these headlines and you get the little heart flutter of, Oh shit maybe it’s real, but um. Oh, can we swear on this pathway? Is that allowed? 

Travis Bader: [00:06:33] Swear away. 

Dan Fritter: [00:06:34] Okay. It might happen accidentally, but we’ll keep it to a minimum. Um, yeah, it may not happen, uh, or might happen. But then I think the reality is 55 days for those that don’t know. So you got your first reading in the house of commons, second reading in the house of commons. Typically not much happens between those two, especially with government bills because private members bills and government bills, government bills are backed, but the government probably member’s bills or smaller bills that a private member puts out that the government may or may not have consulted on dramatically.

Typically private member’s bills don’t make it. Government bills are the big ones that are policy. So this is a government bill, they’ve got lots of background on it. So private member’s bills being first and second reading, they do see some degree of editing. Because someone may read it and go, someone across the isle will go, you’re an idiot, this is unconstitutional, illegal, whatever, and they’ll make a change and they’ll give it a second reading in the house just to say, I’m serious about this. I’ve made the edits right. 

[00:07:20] Now it’ll be read the second time. Obtaining a second reading is very easy on the calendar. It gets really tricky to get the third reading because between second and third, and you have the committee stage. Where the parliamentary committee on, um, I believe the parliamentary committee is the national national security public safety. Um, I think parallels the Senate committee.

Uh, and that committee is comprised of MPS, the makeup of it reflects that of the house of commons. So it is a minority committee with liberals chairing it. Um, but this is where it’ll get messy is because, you know, even if they can get the second reading, which they obviously will this week, it’s just a scheduling thing, they don’t have to discuss anything. 

[00:07:57] But once they put it into the committee, uh, the committee schedule actually, for example, WE, the, WE scandal’s a great example of this. Remember how, like we were seeing all those headlines progress and progress and progress, and then it hit committee and it stopped. Like it just, you heard nothing else about, WE. 

Same as SNC, it was committee committee committee, and then it just stopped because although the liberals do control the committee and they can bring things to a stop, they don’t have the majority to, to progress things beyond that. So things just get parked in committee. So like the WE scandal is still being heard in the committee because the liberals can’t move on, but they have enough people to stop progress.

[00:08:30] And we’re going to see the same thing here, because I mean, this is the bill that determines, this is a multi-billion dollar buyback, the government has to know this at some level. None of the scheduling makes sense. So, you know, to go back to the main point, you’ve got 40 days to get this through a committee where the Bloc Québécois will try and be painting the Liberals into a corner to say, if the gun buyback isn’t mandatory, it’s not a buyback.

So the Liberals will have to be doing some kind of politicking with the Bloc. The NDP doesn’t know how they’re going to stand because they’re probably pulling on it still to figure out, you know, where do we, is it bad. Because in the political scheme, basically, you got the three levels of rollback, which is what the CPC wants to do is roll it back, stop the buyback.

[00:09:10] Then you’ve got the liberals that are, it’s a buyback, but you can keep your stuff. Um, and obviously for gun owners, we look at that and go, well, maybe we get to keep it down the road, who knows? Um, and then the other one is the mandatory buyback. And then the last one beyond that is mandatory seizure. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:23] Right.

Dan Fritter: [00:09:24] Of no compensation seizure. Now that is an, that’s a thing. Gun owners need to realize there are people out there that want that, so like, don’t forget that’s on the table. Cause people do start to, they shift the goalpost and they forget like, no, the goal was always this wide guy’s, like.

Travis Bader: [00:09:37] Right. 

Dan Fritter: [00:09:37] We’ve got to worry about those things. Um, and because there’s the rumoured election coming up in June or the fall and minority governments only last 450 days on average, this one’s already passed the average minority government expiry date in Canada. 

No minority government, I think actually one minority government has gone the full four term, but it was once and it was like in the forties or something, extremely extenuating circumstances. So long story short, I just don’t see this bill beating Justin Trudeau’s next election writ because he has his, when you think of Justin Trudeau’s priorities, winning the last election is like here. 

Travis Bader: [00:10:13] And you’ve got your hand up high.

Dan Fritter: [00:10:15] Actually banning guns, way higher. 

Travis Bader: [00:10:17] Yes. 

Dan Fritter: [00:10:18] Um, and then his actual gun stuff is way lower. So this is just to get votes. So what I think he’s going to do, uh, this is just my, this is conjecture. From someone who’s watched politics on guns for 10 years, what I think is going to happen is they’re going to run this thing through as close as they can get. They’re going to put as much effort into getting it as close to the finish line, and then they’re going to drop the writ and they’re going to try and drop the writ on some sort of leverage legislation or policy to try and make it look like the Liberals are not the ones asking for this election. 

Then they’re going to campaign on the notion that the Conservatives demanded the selection. The Conservatives killed off the gun ban bill, the Conservatives canceled the buyback and you got to vote Liberal to keep the buyback on rails is what I think they’ll do. Because I think this because also too, when you look past this and you go, where do they go beyond this? What’s the next selection promise? 

[00:11:05] If they pass this law, what do they promise the anti-gun people next? Because they’re not going to just let those people swim away from the voting block. Like they’re there in the sales funnel for the Liberal party. They’re not just going to be like, okay, well we’re done with you, you can go vote for whoever you want now. They have to keep those people on the line. 

So, and there’s nothing past this, they can’t ban handguns, the bill’s too big. There’s 2 million of them, it was too much, it’s just not worth it. Like, I don’t think any government wants to go down that road of buying 2 million handguns. Like the bill would be huge, but just fundamentally it’s, it’s something on the balance sheet no one wants politically. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:39] Well, the, on the balance of probabilities here and on that spectrum that you’ve already pointed out, buy back might not be necessary. 

Dan Fritter: [00:11:46] I mean, it depends on when you say it, cause you always have to look at these, whenever I look at stuff now with the gun laws, it’s the question of, do you look at it from the perspective of what will this do from a legislative / punitive / enforcement perspective versus what will this do at the ballot box? Because so much of the legislation and policy that’s come out of this government.

And I’m not just saying this, this isn’t, I’ll be totally blunt, I’m not an overly partisan person. I’m not a big fan of the liberals because I work in the gun industry obviously and I don’t like the way they govern our country in general. But, um, so don’t, I don’t want people to think this is a partisan snipe, but generally speaking, this government has not been terribly effective at governing for the last five years.

[00:12:21] We have not passed many actual laws. They have not actual, like I mean, they haven’t changed much. Gun owners are a prime example of like, I know our lives will change dramatically and it’s a huge, huge concern and we are at, we are at the brink of losing all of our guns, but I’ll be blunt, it took six years to get here. Like six years. This government has been promising to do this for six years. It took them six years to do this, you know? There, they don’t too much, very quickly do they.

Ryan Steacy: [00:12:49] No.

Dan Fritter: [00:12:50] Um, So it’s one of those kind of, this idea that the government is suddenly going to go from a government that has passed, you know, some of the smallest volumes of legislation in history to passing the largest and most sweeping and most expensive piece of gun control legislation in Canada’s history in less than 40 days, during a global pandemic strikes me as far as far fetched.

Ryan Steacy: [00:13:12] Is there any way that they can push it through with a different method other than, uh, I mean, obviously you can’t do the OIC again, but is there another way they can do it? 

Dan Fritter: [00:13:23] He can’t OIC this, cause technically speaking on the, uh, legally, uh, they can OIC things that are regulation. So they can OIC the AR-15 because it’s, it’s a reg like the document is called regulations. Uh, it’s not legislation, it’s not an act. They can OIC acts as well, but the thing with OIC’s is you can’t OIC anything that involves procurement. If there is a dollar bill attached value, it has to go through the house of commons because, OIC’s are intended to change typos. 

That’s OIC’s legal intention for the Parliamentary procedure was literally, cause all of Canada’s laws are passed in English and French, and sometimes when they do the French translations, the words don’t quite match up. And you can end up with laws that say like, you can’t ride your horse down the street, meaning you can’t ride your turtle down the street or something stupid like that. Obviously I don’t speak French cause someone to Quebec, those words mean nothing alike. Um, BC guy. 

[00:14:14] Um, but like that’s what OIC’s are supposed to be for, cause they didn’t want to have the host of common sitting and having 338 paid MP’s go like, yeah, we want to correct the typo on page 284 of the criminal code. So they said the privy council was supposed to have the right to just change small, inconsequential things in general, and then that expanded out into this regulatory framework, but it hasn’t expanded into procurement.

And thankfully the one thing people also should think about, um, the only reason that Justin Trudeau can’t do this is because the Conservative party and even the NDP even, but mostly the Conservative party made a massive issue out of the Liberal party, trying to pass that bill early on in the pandemic that would have given the Liberal party, both taxation and spending powers.

[00:15:00] Because what it would take for Justin Trudeau to pass this unilaterally would be essentially the modern version of the war measures act, which is what they were looking at, passing early in the pandemic. And the government basically said, we’re going to pass this, but we’re not going to give you the spending ability and the taxing ability to just tax and spend however the government wants because that’s that’s pretty crazy. 

Um, but if he had gotten that, then yes, this bill could have just been a essentially, an executive order of I’m going to spend 5 billion. And the only reason, so people, if you’re watching this going well, how can you spend so much money so quickly on pandemic response? We fast track stuff in the house. Um, pandemic response bills were given fast track. So it’s a whole, those bills, do go through that kind of more war measures type framework. 

[00:15:41] It still does replicate the parliamentary framework, but it’s been streamlined. Um, for emergency purposes, but anything that isn’t pertaining to COVID response has to go through the normal framework and it isn’t given the benefits of all those pandemic stuff. So if anyone’s listening and wondering why there’s a disconnect there and why I’m saying they can’t pass this, but they can pass, CERB response in two days, it’s one is an emergent thing and one is a long-term policy. You know, shockingly Westminster parliaments don’t give government the ability to pass anything they want just because there was an emergency.

Travis Bader: [00:16:10] Shockingly. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:16:10] Good. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:11] So.

Dan Fritter: [00:16:12] Close though. A little bit too close I think we can all say. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:16] You know, I’d agree with that. Now The Silvercore Podcast is shooting, hunting outdoor adventures. There’s going to be people who listened to this, who don’t have a firearms background, aren’t interested in firearms, but should probably still be concerned about some of the things that have been proposed and can you speak to that?

Dan Fritter: [00:16:37] Oh, can I, um, there’s where to start? Well, I mean, first off, for anyone that’s listening to this and who is thinking, and I mean, it’s doubtful um, because I mean, they’re, they’re seeking out gun podcasts probably with other kinds of folk. But if they’re talking to someone, if they find someone in their life that goes, you know what, Dan, it doesn’t matter to me. Like, I don’t know how many AR-15 and I’ve had people, like I have people, I own a gun bags and I have people in my family that think that. Don’t know the point, all that kind of thing. 

Those people, you should just tell them that if C-21 passes, it will mean the end of guns in Canada period. Because functionally, what it will do, um, is, is the framework that it provides for is, um, almost completely replicating much of the framework that was put in place by a former Liberal government to remove alcohol and tobacco from the main stream consciousness. 

[00:17:27] Now I’m not saying guns are the same as those two things, because as someone that drinks very sporadically and minimally, because of health reasons that are personal to me, um, I don’t think either of those things are terribly healthy. I do think guns are actually perfectly healthy product. So before anyone misunderstand that I.

Ryan Steacy: [00:17:41] I would disagree on rum.

Dan Fritter: [00:17:45] I would honestly disagree. I could totally make the argument that a nice scotch lead tonight is a very healthy thing for me on certain times when I have a gutter shoe, that means I pay for it the next day. So unfortunately it’s a like, uhh, pick and choose. Um, but I worked in the car industry, back when they were kicking tobacco of everything, uh, and alcohol and people will remember that we used to have a thing in Canada called the Molson Indy. And the clue to why it went away might be in the name. Um, and they’re doing the same thing.

Obviously C-21 has an advertising ban, it won’t actually impact our business. So if people think this is me being, self-interested it, won’t no one advertises guns from a self-defensive perspective in our magazine really. And those that do will have no problem with switching it. It’s usually us advertisers that are just trying to save money on graphic design that, have a budget, to be blunt. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:29] It doesn’t say self defence. It says violence. 

Dan Fritter: [00:18:31] Violence in general. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:32] Violence in general. 

Dan Fritter: [00:18:33] Most of them are just listing.

Ryan Steacy: [00:18:34] Does that count as violence against animals? 

Travis Bader: [00:18:36] Right. 

Dan Fritter: [00:18:37] I don’t think so, cause when you actually read.

Ryan Steacy: [00:18:39] Like what are we’re talking about here.

Dan Fritter: [00:18:40] The law, I think it says violence perpetrated against persons, is actually in the, cause I know the parliamentary summary says that, but in the actual legislation says against persons, because I remember thinking like what about bear defence. Cause Marlin’s always run some big bear defence ads.

Ryan Steacy: [00:18:53] Just hunting in general really. Kind of violent animal.

Dan Fritter: [00:18:56] Um, my bigger concern, however, is that in a really fundamental way, like let’s, let’s say a C-21 Liberals win. This is what’s going to happen. If the liberals win C-21 would likely be expanded to include additional things because they won’t just roll the same thing out post-campaign.

They’ll need to give some fresh meat to the base to try and get them on next time. So there’ll be something else, something stupid and bad. Um, probably some kind of handgun limitation, something around there. They won’t buy ’em back, but they’ll try and get, handguns are still the thing that are not on the table for the Liberals.

[00:19:27] So they’ll find some way of putting them on the table and, but moot point anyways, at the end of the day, the municipal handgun gotten ban, right? What’s the one thing that every gun club has a problem with in Canada right now? It is real estate development encroachment, and the encroachment taking the form of noise complaints.

You see it nationally. Port Coquitl-  like, there’s not a major urban centre where, and major urban centres are the fastest growing areas in Canada. So the cities are expanding faster than the rural areas. They’re encroaching onto where the gun clubs used to be out in the boondocks. And now the developers who just by virtue of having a lot of money and being in a world where they have to interface with municipal politicians on a daily basis to get zoning permits, those have been disposed developer.

[00:20:12] Those real estate developers are closer to municipal staff and council, then gun club executive is, and when you read these things and you go, okay, well, if the  municipalities can shut stuff down, right? What, how long has it, I mean, before every city council in Canada decides that it’s just easier to allow the gun club to go bankrupt by shutting down handguns, because most clubs make their money off of restricted ownership, right?

Like if you have a restricted gun license, you don’t technically have to have a gun club membership, but most people it’s the easiest way, so most people just maintain a gun club membership because they have a restricted license. If they get rid of municipal handgun ownership, the local clubs that retain membership because that’s what the local restricted owners belong to to maintain their hand gun possession. They may only shoot three times a year, I was that guy, when I first got into shooting, I got a hand gun. I belong to the Abbotsford Fish and Game Club. I shot like three times a year, but I still was a member.

[00:21:09] I paid my 200 bucks because I owned a handgun and I had to have it. I had to have a license at our club on my license right. If they pass the municipal band, the officer fish and game club can’t operate because Abbotsford Fish and Game, Abbotsford city council says no more handguns. The Abbotsford Fish and Game Club will lose its membership within years.

Like the restricted guys that currently make up the cohort of Abbotsford Tactical Shooters and all the handgun stuff, all the IPSC stuff, all those core cohort of guys that you always see at the gun club when you go shooting. The guys that used to shoot the AR-15’s there, they shoot the handguns there now, they won’t be there, and that means the gun club won’t be there. 

[00:21:41] And when you look at the larger, I mean real estate is still the fastest growing and the only economic sector that is growing at a time when Canada’s economy is basically looking like it’s going to crater. So in what world do you see city councils putting gun clubs over real estate developers with millions of dollars of development potential?

Like you’ve got a club of maybe three to 400, maybe five, 6,000 people, 12,000 people, if you’re Burlington and Ontario, and you’re in the densest area, what do 12,000 people paying a few hundred bucks in a sport that, if you’re a politician looks like it’s on the dying edge of things, versus a real estate developer saying I can put in on an 80 acre plot, how many towers can they install? How many, how many apartment buildings at $600,000 per unit can they build.

[00:22:27] Gun clubs do not have a chance against that kind of might. And I’m one of those people that if you put a bad thing out there and you make it possible for it to happen, eventually it will happen. Every day, the universe hits reset, Groundhog day runs over again, and that might happen again today, and eventually it will. 

So if they pass this law that saying of every hammer, when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Every gun club will eventually look like a nail. And it, I don’t care if you’re the Burlington Gun Club peel. If you’re right in the middle of a downtown, urban, Southern Ontario area, or if you’re in Fort St. John, at some point that city that you live in, that you drive out of to get to your gun club. If they pass this ban to get rid of your gun club, you’ll never get it back. 

[00:23:10] And once the gun clubs are gone, I mean that doesn’t even get into the issue around gun shops. I mean gun shops in Canada, we don’t get the benefit of the big box stores that have the support of selling fishing gear. Like Cabela’s can sell less guns because they sell fishing gear and boats and all this other stuff. So if they ban one gun, Cabela’s just sells more Gore-Tex jackets offset it. But our local gun shops, the guys that we all love and rely on.

You know, those independent shops. If they been handguns in the city of Vancouver, we all know of various gun shops that would probably really have a hard time making that work, you know. Um, they would probably be able to keep the lights on. We see that in Australia, a lot of shops did manage to stay open, but there was a massive reduction in overall volume.

[00:23:52] Um, and I think that’s where, like this isn’t, we’re not looking at the guy that has the 30-30 Winchester that goes, this doesn’t matter to me. Like you’re not going to have anywhere to sight your rifle in. You’re not going to have anywhere to shoot sporting clays. You’re not going to have a retailer to bring in the latest version of that ammo that you wanted.

Like, we will become a third rate nation of gun owners that just get stuff because you know, for a little while there, it was nice. We were climbing, the market was climbing, we were getting more stuff out of the US and we all saw we’d go to SHOT Show. Readers may not know this , listeners rather, but like, we all go to SHOT Show every year and we talked to US distributors and it was finally reaching a point under primarily Trump because the US sales were kind of levelling off that earlier. 

[00:24:34] That Canada was getting some respect from the US market. And we were starting to see some product come out more timely fashions and were seeing little things like product managers would start to send emails to Canadians and say, Oh, look at this new thing that’s coming out of America. 

Um, now with this new law, we’re just going to become another ulcer because that’s what they thought of us as though we’re the weird country that you can’t own an AR-15. And then once we started to adopt these modern firearms and adopt modern shooting and go like, Oh yeah, 3Gun is a perfectly viable sport.

[00:25:00] People start loving it and doing it a bunch. Ryan Stacey I mean, I remember Ryan. I mean, I’ve known Ryan for years, like predating even Calibre. And when he was shooting for the BCRs, like, I remember thinking like, who does this weird obscure sport? This is going back probably 14, 15 years now. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:15] Yep. 

Dan Fritter: [00:25:15] And I was like, who does this? Now, it’s super main, it’s not mainstream per se, but it’s way more mainstream than it was. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:22] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [00:25:23] Like I’m sure when Ryan tells I’d be curious, right? Like when you talk to people, your backgrounds and you’re shooting Bisley and stuff. Now, when you first got into it and you first started being successful, like 10, 12, 14 years ago with the PCRs, like has, have you, have you noticed like a shifting attitude amongst the general population when you talk about what you do?

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:40] I think so. Yeah. I mean, it’s a lot more acceptable um. By the time I was.

Dan Fritter: [00:25:44] Cause if you like the John Wick, the Jerry Mitchellick videos, the.

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:48] Oh yeah, totally. I mean.

Dan Fritter: [00:25:49] All the Terran videos that are out there, everyone has. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:51] Yep, media has a huge. 

Dan Fritter: [00:25:53] What’s it called? Keanu Reeves. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:54] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [00:25:54] The Keanu Reeves shredding video like.

Ryan Steacy: [00:25:56] I mean, that’s not even really what I do, but, uh.

Dan Fritter: [00:25:59] No, but I think that’s what, like you say, they have a comprehension.

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:02] Yeah, they understand it now more than they did before.

Dan Fritter: [00:26:05] Because I think before, if you told people I do competitive shooting, I don’t think they even had a frame of reference of what that would look like. Like obviously what you do, doesn’t look like what taran does know, but I don’t think people had any idea of what it was.

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:16] I think if you said that you were, you’re a competitive shooter and you used an AR-15 people would look at it like ‘what?’ That, isn’t that just for military people?

Dan Fritter: [00:26:23] And I think that relates to like, I mean, with the OIC, which you guys are both applicants on and, and the, the, um, the recent decision there for the injunction and I, that was relating to culture right. And I remember when that came down and I heard about it, I thought about the culture argument, and I thought, you know, like, It’s really interesting. Like, it’s really interesting to me that the courts are saying that they’re not seeing a culture here that’s being. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:47] They’re just not looking hard enough. 

Dan Fritter: [00:26:48] Reduce. I mean.

Ryan Steacy: [00:26:49] It’s there. 

Dan Fritter: [00:26:51] I mean, it’s, it’s, I all say for me, like it’s a bit tragic because it feels like a bit of a two-time thing, because like I said, like I’m a, I’m a car guy. I like guns, but I’m a car guy first and foremost, I don’t hide that. Um, always have been, always will be. And for me, it’s really sad too. I came out of the automotive sector after the end of the Molson Indy. I used to, I used to work Molson Indy, I was press, I went down there. It was like the greatest weekend of my life. Like we spend all weekend in a race paddock is great. 

Um, and I remember the same arguments because the city council of Vancouver, ironically municipal politics game, and the advertising ban around alcohol and all those things are all, we don’t want these sponsorships of tobacco and alcohol in the public eye, was leading to the exact same discussions of, well motor sports isn’t really a sport. We really shouldn’t be promoting, this is bad for the environment, so noisy. 

[00:27:39] Literally the exact same arguments that I’m now hearing around guns. And it’s so tragic to me that the people in the gun community aren’t seeing it because the thing that’s happened to cars. Car guys will understand this, in the lower mainland, for example, there was a Westwood Racing Circuit. It was big enough that Al Unser Sr race there, it was a global racing circuit. It’s currently a real estate development on the top of Port Coquitlam, a little bit down from the Port Coquitlam Fish and Game Club. If you actually look on Google maps at Westwood Plateau Real Estate Development, if you look at the perimeter, it looks like a racetrack because it is the old racetrack.

Ryan Steacy: [00:28:11] Hmm, interesting. 

Dan Fritter: [00:28:13] The exact same things are happening. And Port Coquitlam Fish and Game Club is on the same freaking road as Westwood was and they’re looking at closing because of real estate development encroachment.

Because again they’re, it’s a cultural thing because I hate to say it, gun owners are not doing themselves any favours with this rapid leap angry rhetoric. We have to reach out, we have to recognize we are the minority. We don’t have the power to change the massive amounts of people’s opinions by simply saying, you know, we own guns and like, it’s okay, we’re not a problem. It’s not enough to say that.

[00:28:49] Because I’ve seen it a lot, it’s something I’ve brought up, like I’ve thought about a lot recently because of the C-21 debate and I see people bring up a lot that they’re targeting. They’re targeting legal gun owners has been a very common refrain in the media that I’ve seen. Um, or gun owners saying, you know, they’re victimizing legal gun owners when they take our guns away.

And I think, I get it, I do, it’s possi-, as a gun owner, yeah, they absolutely are. That is an absolute truth. But there’s a point too, where you have to recognize it within, uh, within the context of the discussion around, around guns. When you think that the discussion around gun policy is actually a discussion of public safety policy. When you’ve got a cohort of people that are involved in the discussion, whether we like it or not saying we’re the victims were being targeted and.

[00:29:39] And the people are, and then you’ve got a third, the third party, you’ve got the anti gun and the pro-gun people saying, you know, we’re being targeted, we’re law, abiding gun owners, it’s not our fault. And then you’ve got the pro the anti-gun people saying, Nope, guns are the problem, get rid of all guns. The massive amount of people involved in this debate are on the sidelines, just watching, right. 

And what they’re watching is a bunch of anti-gun people make frankly very emotional rabbit-end pleas. Logically inconsistent arguments that don’t stand up on their own and gun owners making, to be totally frank, equally emotional, sometimes equally illogical arguments in response.

[00:30:09] Instead of being the rational voice and going Hmm, when it comes to a discussion of young kids killing themselves and each other in the streets with illegal firearms over drugs, because they have no better possible outcomes in their life than a potential being killed in an alleyway, making tiny sums of cash selling dime bags. Cause I hate to say it, but street-level dealers do not make a killing.

These are, these are truly marginalized people living unfortunate existences that none of us would wish upon our best, our worst enemies, never-mind anyone in our family. Um, those are the people that are also involved in this discussion and gun owners are so constantly trying to say, it’s not our fault, it’s not our fault, not our fault, because we, we are kind of been targeted in the past that it’s almost like we’ve lost sight of our role in this discussion.

[00:30:55] Is to be the arbiters to say, look as the legal gun owners as the experts on the laws around gun ownership, I’m not here to tell you that I’m a victim or a target. We don’t have a right, it is a risk. It is. It’s just not a right. It’s not a government, right bestowed upon us to own firearms. We have to make our case with diplomacy and I don’t see that anymore. And it’s, it’s, it doesn’t work. We’re we’re, it’s, it’s, it’s problematic to me I guess, because I just don’t, it’s, it’s really hard.

Cause I have to confront the journalists right. Because what I’m saying is when I see the, this is getting awkward now, but I’ll just leave all this in if you want but. Fundamentally I think it has to be said, I don’t mind that people might not like hearing this, but let’s just put it in the context of, I do a media interview, did one last week.

[00:31:43] And a guy goes, okay, well, this guy online, you know, the guillotine comment, right? Yeah, it was pretty extreme. I don’t, I don’t think that we should be talking about breaking the guillotine out quite yet. Um, the Liberal’s haven’t actually. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:31:53] Is that a thing? I must have missed that. 

Dan Fritter: [00:31:55] Yeah, there was a thing where some people made public comments, because of course on the media, they do have access to social media, so of course they’re trolling the same. I don’t mean trolling as in like they’re typing out and trolling, I mean they’re trolling as in you’re fishing. They’re looking for comments, right? And I, same thing, you want to talk about how high this goes? Not to sound like that sounds super conspiracy. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:14] Here it comes! 

Dan Fritter: [00:32:15] By Alex Jones, tinfoil hat. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:17] Yeah.

Dan Fritter: [00:32:17] When I was giving my testimony on C-71 at the Senate, Senator Mary Lou, um, I won’t say your last name, cause I can’t even remember it, but I remember first name cause it’s the only Mary Lou I’ve ever met in my life. Um, she literally made a point of every single pro-gun witness. She had gone extensively through their social media backgrounds, including as far as when the president of a local gun club was called to testify.

She had gone through the gun clubs Facebook page, and she tried to make him answer for comments left by gun club members and by the gun club, executive posting comments that he didn’t leave on the Facebook page himself. So that’s the level to which those of us that I think the government referred to as stakeholders, ie. people that have skin in the game, when it comes to all these things, or have at least a large background of research. Um, those individuals, like we’re being forced to answer for what everyone is putting out there.

[00:31:11] And I’m frankly getting really tired of people, putting it out there that Justin Trudeau is going to kick my door down and put me in the back of an MLVW. And what drive me to the Vernon cadet summer training camp for imprisonment? There’s, it’s getting a bit, you know, this is a law. We are a nation of laws.

When I see people on my own Facebook page on Calibre saying when I say he can’t, he’s not, it’s unlikely that he can pass this in 55 days. And I go, well he’s and then people go, oh well he’ll,  you’ll see it. And I go, well he can’t, that’s legally impossible, it’s unconstitutional.He’ll do it anyways. No he won’t, like, this is very much not something he can possibly do.

[00:33:47] And I think that we, as gun owners need to strive to elevate our discourse. And when I say that, I mean, everyone’s fucking discourse needs to go up a notch or two, and they need to start thinking like, instead of punching down when you see comments from anti-gun people that make you angry. If you feel angry, do what you would tell your five-year-old to do, walk away.

Come back with a clear head, come back with good arguments, come back with arguments that make the people watching on the sidelines think you’re the professional. I mean, it’s basic stuff, like even little things on interviews where you watch. And I won’t name names because they’re out there, but watch interviews with some people that work at this industry, the anti-gun person shows up to do the interview.

[00:34:28] They’re wearing a doctor’s lab coat because it brings with it an air of authority. You see someone in a lab coat, you listen to them generally, right? The gun industry person shows up in real tree t-shirt and a John Deere hat and you kind of go, I would take that guy’s advice on what brake discs to buy.

You know, like it’s, it’s just a fundamental wear a suit, wear a tie, be the kind of person that people aspire to be. Don’t be the kind of person that always has to argue for your existence. Like how much different. We always use the Swiss example, right? Everyone goes, Oh, the Swiss, everyone’s got a gun in Switzerland. Everyone would probably like to be Swiss. Why? Because they have a shit load of money. 

[00:35:06] They’ve never been in a law. Their country is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of like, good outcomes for the people that live there. It got there because people strived to make it better. They didn’t strive to continuously oppose the other people. I mean, that’s the, I mean, that’s fundamentally my big problem is it’s just, we’ve entered this new era of oppositional stuff and it’s no one’s building anything anymore. Everyone’s just tearing stuff down. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:31] So, what do you see the best direction is to go when you’re engaging people on social media? Just factual stuff? I mean, in, in my own personal case that doesn’t seem to work in a lot of, a lot of ways. Like you can, you can lay out the facts and you can lay it all straight out and you can be polite and professional and away you go. And they still, dump in all the ridiculous stuff that, you know. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:53] Well, that’s trying to fight emotion with fact.

Ryan Steacy: [00:35:55] It’s really what it is yeah. I guess we need to find a way to fight the emotion with our own motion. 

Dan Fritter: [00:36:01] I think it’s also too like, there’s multiple forms of capital out there, right? Like you got, you got your time, you got your money, you got all these things at your disposal that you can do, right? Um, and maybe it’s just having a kid recently, but I mean, laying on your death bed, while responding to the doctors for protection, from guns on Twitter, be the time you appreciate having spent. 

Like, um, and I think that’s where it comes down to. Um, It’s just some people can’t be convinced first off. So there’s, there’s certain like, there’s, there’s definitely a point in at this point. I think it’s, it’s certainly safe to say the pro gun side of social media commands a far larger audience and the anti-gun side. 

[00:36:48] And the pro gun side needs to recognize, you’ll recognize that Calibre pretty much never, ever, ever interacts with anyone anti gun on Twitter or Facebook or any other place because when the doctors for protection from guns had 300 followers on Twitter and Calibre has tens of thousands of people on Facebook, why the hell would I promote them? Like, why would we, even, if they say the stupidest thing, like I could, this is what happens.

Cause again, people don’t see this, if you look on the insight side and we’ll probably, I might do my own maybe video cast or stream or something on this to show people the backend of what social media websites look like to see what works on social media. What gets traction on social media is outrage. Absolutely. The way the algorithms work.

Travis Bader: [00:37:31] Sure, conflict. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:37:32] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [00:37:33] Yeah, as again. So for way of explanation to those listening and the algorithms on social media are the things that decide what you are shown, right? Like your friends post, you know how sometimes on Facebook you’ll see some things from one guy and not other things.

It’s the algorithm deciding you’re supposed to see. It decides based on what gets lots of feedback. Now, what usually gets lots of feedback is things that have high emotional attachments, ie. things people hate or things people love.

[00:37:54] As a result, when I put up a post on Facebook saying, Hey, look at this really great new gun, it’s awesome. Like great example would be, um, the first modern sporter, which was the first kind of non-restricted thing that was similar enough to an AR-15, that got like 120,000 impressions on Facebook within the first day maybe, thereabouts. That was a big, that was a big deal. Um, that video I did on C-21 got 130,000 impressions in the first three hours.

Everything political, everything to do with the debate always gets the most likes. So yeah, I could have absolutely shared a bunch of doctor’s stuff. I could have shared a bunch of anti gun stuff and I could have gotten a whole shit load of Facebook likes and impressions, and it would have expanded Calibre, social media presence, but it also would have expanded the social media presence of those anti-gun groups, which I do actually think we are seeing a bit of the aspect of now.

[00:38:44] Those doctors for protection from guns was literally one person with a Twitter account initially. Now they have 300,000 or $200,000 from Airbnb and like they’ve expanded. They’ve they’ve eclipsed, both of the other groups. And when you look at the only thing that’s different between doctors, any other anti-gun groups, it’s a doctors has been engaged more with the, with the program groups.

Ryan Steacy: [00:39:05] Interesting.

Dan Fritter: [00:39:05] They choose to, they both do. The pro-gun groups, engage the doctors and the doctors engaged with the anti gun groups or per vice-versa. This is getting very complicated, but you know what I’m saying. Um, The doctors are engaging and it’s, and there everyone is feeding off it cause it does, I think on both ends, I think people are seeing social media growth and they’re interpreting that as success when Twitter still hasn’t made a profit, you know.

Social media is only social media is not, it’s not actual legislation. I don’t think a gun owner out there would say we’ve made progress on gun rights in the last five years. You know, it’s not, we haven’t. Um, we have, I think inadvertently, propped up the creation of anti-gun groups or made them stronger. I think we have done a disservice and lowered the discourse that we have.

[00:39:48] And I think that as a result, we, we do stand to potentially be ostracized from the political parties that stand to  hold power in the future. Because unless we start to look like, we always like to say, we’re the best Canadians, but we’ve got to act like it. And I think that involves recognizing that, like, when you hear these stories about these gun laws and stuff, I hate to say it, but you do have to think if they want to take my AR-15 how would I explain why I should keep my AR-15 to the mother of a kid who was shot. Is I think what gun owners need to think about, because there’s a mom out there who’s thinking that.

And if that was my kid or if that was anyone’s kid, I think, I think we can probably see that emotionally, my kid was shot and I want guns off the street would be two very easy dots to connect. Um, and I think that because those dots are easy to connect, it’s why people do. I don’t think it’s logically consistent and I don’t, I don’t think it’s. I don’t think it’s good for our country. I think it’s, I think it’s hurting our young people at this point and it’s increasing violence to not focus on the real problems. 

[00:40:50] But again, I think gun owners need to think that before they type something out on Facebook or they say some smart ass comment about how libtard, snowflake this or that, think, you know, there are parents out there who are losing their kids.

There are families that are losing loved ones to suicide, and simply saying, well, stop targeting me. That doesn’t make you feel better when your kid was shot. That doesn’t make you feel like, like your kid’s friends are going to be safer. You know, we gotta give these people hope. We need to show them that we care and it’s, we’ve gotta get there somehow and it’s not going to be by continuously, I hate to say it because I have been a member of the NRA, my membership lapsed only because I let it in the magazines stopped coming. But, um, we can’t,  we’re not the NRA, we’re not Americans. We don’t have a second amendment. Um, we do have a Westminster parliamentary system.

[00:41:40] We do not live in a Republic. All those same reasons that Canadian gun owners like to say we’re different than the US we don’t have the U S gun violence problem, et cetera, et cetera. All those differences, um, are also the same differences that prevent us from effectively deploying US style arguments because US style arguments hint around that rights, the second amendment, that’s their, that’s their real foundation, which we just fundamentally lack.

So if we’re coming at it with the argument and we’re bringing in that US style rhetoric, we don’t have the foundation for that to stand up on. It’s essentially, it’s building a house on quicksand, you know. Um, it looks really good and people think it’s great right up until the one legislator goes, you don’t have a right. This whole right was never a right. 

[00:42:23] You know, you have a legal responsibility of all these other things. And we have, because the other thing too is it’s we have, we don’t have a right to own guns, but the government does have a legal right to uphold the law. The law states that they can’t just take shit away if it’s going to reduce the amount of hunting, if guns can use for hunting, if it can reduce culture, you know, all those things, we want them to abide by their responsibilities. I think we also have to have a certain degree of respect for our responsibilities and what those are. And it’s it’s to show people we, we are safer. We do care, you know.

Travis Bader: [00:42:53] Man, you’ve brought up a lot of stuff. You went really macro on this one. Uh, I really like what you have to say on this. Cause I agree, I agree with what you’re saying. Um, I, it was an eye-opener for me a number of years ago, corporation of Delta before it was the city of Delta, says we’re going to ban firearms businesses and I went into the city hall, municipal hall there and had all my notes prepared, had all the arguments and the statistics and everything, all, all ready to present. And as I’m going through it, I forget the fellow’s name. 

Barry I believe it was, he say’s,  Travis I’m going to stop you right there, hold on a second. You’ve got a lot more of this stuff? I said, Oh yeah, I sure do, right. He says, you got to understand, I agree with you a hundred percent. Everything you’re saying is true and I agree with you. That said we’re in a position where if we think our constituents want something that will take steps to  implement that, whether we agree with the facts behind that or not. 

[00:43:54] And that level of honesty, and we’re going back about 10, 15 years now, and it’s a little bit younger, it was quite an eye opener for me. And when you, when you talk about, uh, how to properly comport yourself in an argument on social media, you know, there’s some simple steps that I typically take, when I look at an issue. 

I try to separate the people from the problem. I take a look at what the problem is, take a look of the person and as angry as I can be at that individual or group of people who are making certain statements, because they’re completely off base, at least in my opinion, I do my best to separate them and take a look at addressing the problem. 

[00:44:32] If I can’t separate the people from the problem, I extricate myself because there’s, there’s no way to be able to properly work within that framework. The second thing I do is, I agree. Essentially, any offence is taken and not given, if they say something as crappy as it can be, and as much as they try to offend and get my goat, it’s me, who ultimately will take.

Ryan Steacy: [00:44:54] Have that power.

Travis Bader: [00:44:55] Right. It’s that old adage. And you see it on Tik Tok and these different things, people are bringing it up again. A guy gives you a present, but you don’t accept it. Who’s that present belong to? Oh, not to you, right. Belongs to the person who brought it in. And finally, I’ll do my best to approach a problem from a position of curiosity, rather than conflict. 

So when you’re talking about how, how do you convince a mother whose child was killed by an AR-15? I can put my mindset in all the statistics and say, it wasn’t the firearm, we should be combating, uh, violence or what, however it took place. Whether it was a straight bullet from gangs, and so we should be looking at gangs. Or whether it be suicide because suicide is it, uh, largest killer of people with firearms in Canada. 

[00:45:44] And you can say I’ll just look at the suicide. They can get a knife, they can get pills, they can take, get a rope. Put myself in a position of curiosity, what would it be like to be that individual and to have gone through that? Because maybe there’s nothing you can say to that person. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:45:57] I think that a lot of the time there’s nothing you can say.

Travis Bader: [00:45:59] Right. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:00] Not even worth an argument.

Dan Fritter: [00:46:01] Your job’s not to say anything. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:03] That’s it. 

Dan Fritter: [00:46:03] And I think that’s the fundamental thing is like.

Travis Bader: [00:46:05] Exactly.

Dan Fritter: [00:46:06] Like Ryan you’ve got kids, right? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:46:07] Yep. 

Dan Fritter: [00:46:07] Like if your, if your son was killed, is there anything anyone, anyone, I don’t care if it’s the president of the United States, anyone, is there anything anyone could say to you to soothe that? And the answer’s no, right? Like there’s nothing anyone can say to make a mother feel better. It’s not our job to make her feel better. What our job is to do as gun owners, is to show her that we are being responsible. 

So it’s not saying, you know, it’s not saying I should keep my AR-, cause I do see it like literally there is a very, there’s a high profile, she’s very emotional. She’s tied into the anti-gun movement. She will likely, never change her mind. But she’s the, she’s the mother of a, of a son that was killed in a gang murder and it’s tragic. Um, And, and I, I think it’s, I think what’s happened to this one is of her, or sorry, a daughter. Um, Lindsey’s mom has her name on Twitter.

[00:46:55] I’ll just say it. I mean, she’s on Twitter, so everyone knows it. She’s a staunch anti-gun person, she, she posts quite prolifically. Um, I’ve purposely tried to avoid engaging her because I can’t, I don’t know how to frame that discussion. I don’t know how to talk to someone that, that has lost their child like that. I don’t want to say. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:08] Who does? 

Dan Fritter: [00:47:09] But I would say, you ask the question. If you, if they say, you know, I want you to get rid of your AR-15 because it’ll help prevent murders. You say like, well, why? Like what, you know, what, what do you think is causing these murders? And you ask questions. Cause the big thing is, is there’s there’s there’s, you can be on broadcast or you can be on receive, right? Like people are generally, we’re the old CV radio system. We don’t do two way so well, right. 

And when you get into a conversation with someone it’s, it’s natural, it’s very natural. People want to talk about themselves. Look at me. I’ve spent most of this podcast talking cause I am the most verbose person in this industry bar none. Proud to say so. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:45] I would agree. 

Dan Fritter: [00:47:47] Happy to say it. Um, I’m fairly certain people don’t take my calls cause I talk too long, but nonetheless. Um, at the end of the day, like you just don’t have that, like, you have to ask questions and people are so much on broadcast because in the modern social media world, that’s all it is.

That’s what bro, like when people talk about Twitter, people rarely talk about the things they’ve read on Twitter, unless it’s the things they’ve interacted with because social media is a broadcast thing for most people. It’s how they express themselves. They express themselves on Facebook, they express themselves on Twitter and then occasionally they see how other people express themselves.

[00:48:17] And because of the algorithm, they only see the people they hate and the people they love, they express themselves in matters and they hate and they love. Um, and the problem there is that, between the torquing of the messaging by the algorithms that people don’t see cause that’s behind the curtain, but at that, you know, wizard of Oz sort of effect, but also too, just the overwhelming sense of, uh, the bubbles that are created because that algorithm creates, um. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:40] Echo chambers. 

Dan Fritter: [00:48:41] Bubbles,  echo chambers, yeah exactly. Very good echo chambers. So you basically just get surrounded by people who like what you have to say and that say similar things. So you naturally start to like what you have to say more and more. So when you enter these conversations with a mom, instead of, instead of thinking, because I think in most cases, if you were to ask the average person that doesn’t own guns, to sit down in a room and have a conversation with a parent who’d lost a child, most of them would say I would have a lot of questions.

I don’t think they’d have much to say, because most people wouldn’t feel like they would have much appropriate input on that scenario because admittedly it’s such a tragic occurrence and unless you’ve gone through it, I don’t think you can really provide much input. So most people would go, I’d be very curious to, you’d probably find it on a videotape, they asked more questions. 

[00:49:23] What was it like, how did you get through it? What were the first days? Like, you know, do you think you’ll ever have another, all these questions that you would want to ask. I don’t know why gun owners immediately, it’s because of the victimization we do have that, I think it’s innate.

We have, we’ve kind of wrapped ourselves in this cloak victimhood of, we’re being targeted by the government, we’re being targeted by the government. And it’s, and because the laws that they pass are always created because someone was shot, like people were killed in Portapique that did not deserve to die. Gun owners have allowed the perpetrator of that shooting and the nature by which he obtained his guns to completely dictate the manner in which they respond to that event.

[00:50:01] And I think fundamentally, if people take anything away from the podcast, that’s what I want them to stop doing. Because when you can watch that many people get killed in a short window of time for no goddamn reason and your response is, but my guns, you need to take a hard look. Seriously. As someone that works in the gun industry, who, who flat out, I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I’m looking at potentially if the liberals win the next election, I’m not sure if my business will survive. 

And yes, this is my voice breaking that you’re hearing, because it’s incredibly hard to talk about. But even as someone that’s considering losing this much of what I’ve put my life into, if someone were to say, Hey, would you give up your AR-15 if it saves everyone’s life on that day in Portapique? Absolutely. How could you not. Those are, those are sisters and brothers and friends, you know, like I think we as gun owners have lost a bit of the perspective and we need to get back around all that. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:56] Well said, Daniel. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:50:57] Nice. 

Dan Fritter: [00:51:00] That said, I don’t think giving up my AR-15 would save anyone’s life, just for the record. Um, I think what would save lives is good government. And I think that’s where it gets problematic because I say that and I get very emotional because it is very saddening. And I think that’s the perspective we need to come at it from because it tempers the anger, it tempers the frustration that I feel because I sat there. I’ll confess, I was a gun owner the sat there on the, on my couch on May 1st and thought, why is he doing this to me? I never thought about those people. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:51:25] I think we all did. 

Dan Fritter: [00:51:27] It gets, it’s a knee jerk. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:51:28] Hard not to. 

Dan Fritter: [00:51:28] Right? In the days that happened afterwards, but in the days that happened afterwards is when the rhetoric picks up. And that’s when we need to be cautious of that rhetoric and say, no. Like when they say, I think when you hear about these shootings and when people say we need to let the dust settle before we make comments and stuff, this is why. Because in those first few minutes, everyone’s reacting to emotional inputs.

You know, people are watching it and going those people are, I don’t know those people. It’s the same as when there’s a tornado in Idaho. There’s no tornadoes in Idaho, Iowa? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:51:57] Iowa.

Dan Fritter: [00:51:58] Kansas? That’s where tornadoes occur. Yeah. Uh, floods in New Orleans. Like a lot of people look at the headlines and they think it’s similar. Its people elsewhere, it’s not my problem, but when Justin Trudeau bans my guns, that is my problem. Um, but the problem then becomes when that rhetoric takes over the pro gun side of the debate, we then enter it from. To be honest, kind of a morally bankrupt perspective because it’s really as someone that sat across the table from media interviewers and had to defend why I don’t think these gun laws work.

[00:52:27] The only reason I can say is, cause it’s, it’s wasting resources. Like these resources, this could be spent on actual progress. And I think that argument is the only argument that matters. And I think that argument would be a hell of a lot stronger if more of our movement would take into account that like, shit’s bad out there, folks. Yeah. Like young people are shooting each other and shooting at each other more than they did when I was a kid. That’s for freaking sure. And I’m 35 years old, I’m not that old. Like I grew up on Tupac Shakur died, you know, like this is more violent than then. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:00] Well I’m not going to discount the fact that there probably are some people out there who will look at it and say, not my guns and completely right off the tragedy that’s happening out there. But I think it might be a little disingenuous to say that gun owners in general, their head immediately goes to the firearm issue from a perspective of, what are they taking from me? And I think the outrage that is felt from the community though, those, the victims those directly involved called and the firearms industry in general is outrage over the event.

Empathy and compassion for what’s going on and further outrage over the fact that, as firearms owners, most of them will have done their homework and have an idea of what the statistics look like and have a better idea of what could possibly be done to prevent tragedies like this. And they see that the knee jerk reaction of let’s just ban guns will do nothing to stop the tragedy that happened.

[00:54:03] And that can create a higher sense of anger. But I don’t think firearms owners are properly conveying that. It comes across as, yeah don’t take my guns as opposed to what the hell? You think that we’re going to, if we let’s say we’ve got a problem with suicide, suicide, men will predominantly use firearms, women will predominantly use pills. People have their preferred methods, but if we don’t have that implement, we don’t have that instrument of implementation. Would that person just find another instrument?

And maybe we should be the tried and beaten that old drum. Why don’t we address what the actual problem is? So I, I think, I think that the, I think the anger is there, but I agree with you that the way that we’re, and I say we’re as I put myself in with the firearms community, obviously, the way that we’re conveying that anger and conveying our message needs a lot of work because it’s so easily misconstrued and becomes positional down to the firearm issue, as opposed to solution issue. How can we find a solution? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:55:09] Yeah, for sure.

Dan Fritter: [00:55:11] I agree. And I think, um, the only thing I would say there is, I think, I don’t think the majority of gun owners. I’ll just say it to them, majority of gun owners is on our side on this one. Um, specifically the assault weapon ban. I would’ve thought that, and this is where it’s been interesting moving.

Cause I moved out of Delta four years ago now, coming up on five. Um, and when I lived in lower mainland, it Abbotsford like Ryan knows he lives lower mainland. Like lower mainland shooting community is predominantly a sporting community, you’ve got the trap guys at Vancouver Gun Club, Abbotsford is like the centre for all the tactical shooting type stuff.

[00:55:45] You’ve got IPSC all over the place, Poco is big on it. Like there’s lots of AR-15’s, there’s lots of handguns, there’s lots of trap shotguns, it’s all sporting stuff, right? And hunting is kind of a bit more of the minority, cause you’ve got to drive like three hours to shoot an animal in lower mainland. Unless you. 

Travis Bader: [00:56:00] Unless you’re into ducks. 

Dan Fritter: [00:56:01] Live in Delta like Travis does. 

Travis Bader: [00:56:02] You got it. 

Dan Fritter: [00:56:02] And then it’s like five minutes from your house. So then when I moved up to Kelowna, it was this weird inversion, which I noticed right away. Because I was, I used to go to like Reliable Gun and Wanstalls and those sorts of shops. And it was just a sea of, you know, tactical stuff and ammunition and .223 and bulk stuff and handguns. And then I came to Kelowna and the gun clubs here, like Kelowna has, Kelowna Fish and Game has an IPSC range. It’s never been used to my knowledge, not since I moved. 

The Joe Rich Club, I was one of two people with an AR-15 in the club when I first joined it in the second largest metropolitan center in British Columbia, in the second largest gun club. When I took my AR-15 to the Kelowna Fish and Game Club, some guy didn’t even know what it was like. There’s no gun, if you tried to buy an SKS off the shelf in Kelowna, you can’t do it right now. There is no SKS. 

[00:56:49] There’s no AR fif- well, obviously no AR-15’s, but there’s like maybe double digits of handguns for sale in this entire city of six figures, like quarter million people in this Metro area. It’s insane. And I think that’s where, also to gun owners need to recognize there’s a disconnect. And I think that that the, the rural gun owner does not care, by and large, and this is a gross generalization. So please do not email me with your, I’m a real gun owner who cares, cause the exceptions always prove the rule folks.

By and large, if you were to drive through rural Canada and knock on the doors of people with PAL’s and say, do you care about the AR-15? They go the what? Because it’s just not, if, because fundamentally when you think about it, the AR-15 is a restricted firearm, it can only be shot on ranges. If you live in rural Canada, where’s the nearest gun range, probably hours away, right? 

[00:57:39] What’s the nearest competition to shoot your AR-15 in? Hours away, if not days, depending on where you live and where you’re driving, right? 

Ryan Steacy: [00:57:48] I think we’re starting to talk a bit of a change with the non-restricted versions of things.

Dan Fritter: [00:57:53] Oh a little bit. 

Ryan Steacy: [00:57:55] And we’re starting to bleed in. 

Dan Fritter: [00:57:56] For sure. We were seeing that in Kelowna big time, the non-restricted stuff was finally opening people’s eyes up because where you lack the infrastructure for AR-15’s to be beneficial, the stags, the NEA’s were showing people, these are perfectly viable, modern firearms that weigh seven pounds, that are more accurate than your bolt gun, that allow you a better up shot that you can make fit your wife.

Yeah, so it’s, it was growing, but they’ve cut that off at the knees. And I think that’s where, again, I go for the macro views because people do need to look at these policies. People need to look at gun control in Canada from like a 10 year scale. Not a, like C-21, C-71, all these bills last few years. What’s the only thing that’s mattered?

[00:58:33] Travis and I, before the podcast, we mentioned it, the end of long gun registry the single most important thing that’s happened in our lifetime. Well, my lifetime anyways, I mean, was that. The long gun registry was created in my lifetime, but I was so young I don’t count it. I couldn’t change anything then, I was 10.

Um, but that’s the only thing that’s mattered. And ever since then, they’ve just been kind of fiddling with things. C-21, I’ll be honest, bad bill, terrible bill. Hope it doesn’t pass. If it passes, how many guns are they going to get back? We’ll they’ll get the AR-15’s back because they know where those ones are.

[00:59:05] And the people that want to give them back will give them back and get a cheque. There’s what, 150,000 of those 120,000 AR-15’s out there? I got to figure, they don’t get more than maybe 10% back in the buyback, I can’t see more. AR-15 owners are pretty staunch guys, and most of them have handguns too, so they’ll have a reason to keep the restricted license, already.

So the endorsements not really going anywhere and we’ll all just wait for the next government change. And that’s that, you know, that’s where I say gun owners kinda need to stop making it about ourselves and about the guns we’re losing and about the gun policies from our perspective and start thinking as like, we are the experts on firearms in Canada. You know, these are the laws that they currently work, these ones clearly aren’t. 

[00:59:47] Like, I think gun owners could seriously, like, we always say like, Oh, gang bangers, look at, they don’t, they don’t have gun licenses because they don’t have an ATT. Instead of saying the ATT is clearly not working because we have the system by which we’re supposed to be authorizing the transport of firearms and there seems to be a whole shitload of people moving firearms around the country without ATT’s. 

We know this because they keep shooting each other with them. So, instead of saying like there’s a public safety concern that the ATT system is not fulfilling the role that was supposed to., we use the laws that we hate to prop up why we’re better than the people that are shooting each other as evidence of, that’s a different population of people. They don’t have this fancy plastic card in our wallets, they’re not us, they didn’t get ATTs. 

[01:00:28] When in reality, the ATT isn’t doing anything. So why are we, like it’s convenient for us, it doesn’t mean it’s good. It costs a fortune for the government to maintain the ATT stuff when they could spend more on cops and that’s where like, we need to be consistent. It’s always gotta be able to safety. Anytime we see there to be room for improvement on safety, we should be doing it. And that includes, you know, things like we’ve seen the CSAAA do with industry. 

Cracking down on  fraudulent purchases and like doing, working with, uh, so the cane industry group worked with the RCMP to develop, uh, basically like a sort of quasi training program to help train, uh, retailers on recognizing straw purchases. And like, that’s a great, that’s, that’s worked.

[01:01:08] I know there are cases where people have been arrested because they were straw pursing firearms and that purse was identified because of the training that the employee received. And that was a hand in glove industry, law enforcement working together and like, that happened in like, I think it was like a six month, it was a fast program and it made results. And like, man, if we had more of that, there’d be a lot less people getting shot. 

Travis Bader: [01:01:32] Well.

Dan Fritter: [01:01:32] Again, it all has to be from that perspective of safety first, it’s all, it’s all about safety. Because as you know, when you talk to the city councils, politicians only care about what the voters told them to do. Um, and safety, like what’s safe. When I talked to Steven Blaney when he was the public minister, it was always, he never really talked about gun policy, he was always safety policy. It was always, everything was from a safety perspective. It was never like politicians never think from a gun owners perspective or about gun clubs. It’s always as a larger guns in a safety environment. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:02:03] Which is what the liberals are pushing right now. They’re, they’re talking about guns, but it’s always backed by a safety. Some sort of a safety thing. 

Dan Fritter: [01:02:11] And when we’re arguing and when they’re arguing, they should get rid of guns to make us safer. And our argument is, don’t take our guns away, that’s a pretty shitty argument for the guy on the sideline, is it not? Like we need to be saying this isn’t going to make us safer. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:02:24] This is the reason why. 

Dan Fritter: [01:02:25] You need to do this to make us safer.

Ryan Steacy: [01:02:27] It’s not going to be safer. 

Dan Fritter: [01:02:27] Um, but because it’s literally like, I think Travis you’re entirely, right. It’s not that we need to change the argument. We just need to change the order of operations in the argument. Because when we start the conversation with, don’t take our guns, they think that’s the priority. And the conversation has to start with, we want people to be safe.

So when you’re talking to those people, that’s the other thing is if you’re talking to people, if you’re getting a tip and people are trying to figure out how to talk to people, tell the fuds that it’s going to be the end of all the gun clubs, because restricted owners make up what keeps gun clubs in the black. And the anti-gun people that fundamentally like this isn’t going to work obviously and all that kind of thing, but tell them it’s a distraction.

[01:03:06] Tell them there’s only 55 days left. Tell them it’s the middle of a pandemic. Tell them that the IBM. So the other thing on timing, if anyone needs further evidence to convince people, the IBM contract that was awarded for the um, planning out of the buyback. Uh, the preliminary report was delivered the week before the law was announced. So like literally five business days at most between IBM delivering the preliminary report, which was a $200,000 document I think that took five weeks. 

So it’s not comprehensive in any way. And this preliminary report that Bill Blair took from IBM that I’m guessing informed bill C-21, uh, has an option where to, once they’ve completed the initial report and the government has given them direction on which specific model to go for that the overall, um, enrolment of the program will take an additional two years. So like they were saying, this was supposed to be a two year, five week project. And now he’s saying we’re going to have a law ready? Like legislation passed in 40 days? 

Ryan Steacy: [01:04:07] It’s not going to happen. 

Dan Fritter: [01:04:09] Or, or conversely, we’re not going to an election in the fall. And the Liberals think that after this pandemic, that they’re going to be somehow be able to maintain and retain their mandate, after the vaccine stuff, after everything else, it just doesn’t seem likely. And then again, thinking from the political perspective, it would be great if the Conserv-, if I was a Liberal political strategist, I would look at this and go, this is great. 

We’ll get this thing real close to the finish line and just when the anti-gun people think it’s in the bag, we’ll pull the old lucy football trick and we’ll say, drop that ballot in the ballot box baby. And we’ll see how she rolls again. So, and I think also, to gun owners on that front, need to kind of understand the political pastoring that occurs here and understand that it may change the way the Conservative party or other parties confront these issues. 

[01:04:55] Um, if the media jumps all over it and starts making it look like these assault weapons have to get off the streets, there’s some massive shooting that puts guns at a bad light again, you can fully expect Erin O’Toole to absolutely not make any statements, both guns between now and the election, because, why would he? Like.

Ryan Steacy: [01:05:11] I’m a little surprised he did, came out with that video the other day. 

Dan Fritter: [01:05:15] Yeah. We won’t, I’m not.

Ryan Steacy: [01:05:17] I thought he would stay a little more quiet on the whole thing. Because the reality is, is you have to pull the middle voters over right. And I know people want to want them to come out and say all kinds of stuff. But the reality of it is, is if you want to pull those middle voters over, um, you have to be a little more centrist than.

Dan Fritter: [01:05:36] And it’s been extremely frustrating. I gotta say, and I, and I hope if someone from the Conservative party is listening to this please, dear Jesus, God, please, like get someone that knows about guns into the OLO to help out with policy messaging on this, because I mean, from, from Harper to, to Scheer to now, the Conservative party’s messaging on guns has basically been everything I’ve complained about today, wrapped up in a nutshell and paid for, because that’s what it is. 

Conservative party members are paying for communication staff and policy experts to draft the policy and communications that we’ve seen from this party on guns. And that’s where I will say like, again, we’ll probably piss people off, but it’s 2021, some shit went down last year where were things are different and I’ve got a kid now, so that’s changed my perspective too. 

[01:06:22] But, um, I’m getting really frustrated cause I mean, those, those Conservative party, they work for us. Let’s not forget everyone forgets these politicians, they kind of get the impression that they kind of represent the party in Ottawa, in our ridings, it’s supposed to be that way around. And uh, I’m just getting kind of tired this constant like, we’ll tell you what our policy is going to be and then me getting it and being like, what the F, this isn’t even good.

Like, I get the whole, like, trying to achieve the voting, like, get the, get the gun, vote out. That’s what the goal always is in politics. But like, I don’t know. Some of that, it’s just, it’s just been. It’s like the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act. It’s like, come on guys, like if you’re going to open the books, open the books, you know, do something, do something right. Make a substantive change so that we can look at a  violent crime rates statistic that is declining and say, yeah, we were part of the solution.

Ryan Steacy: [01:07:14] And address the root causes that actually are going to have an effect instead of.

Dan Fritter: [01:07:20] And that’s the thing is I, Erin’s statement I thought was, it’s a very strong, strong statement. Um, Surprised me. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:07:28] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:07:28] Uh, I think it’s a good statement. I think it’s all good law. I mean, obviously yeah, rewrite all that stuff, but I mean, we don’t know how to be re-written. Um, that’s always a concern is Peter McKay said he was gonna rewrite firearms act and you always go a little bit of like oh hmm, if Justin Trudeau said he’d re-wrote the firearms act, I might respond to that a bit differently than if Erin O’Toole does, but you should probably question that at the same time as a rational person. 

Um, cause they can rewrite good or bad. But the other thing is, um, it’s just it’s. Yeah, it’s that lack of, I don’t know, lack of productivity, I guess it’s frustrating to be sitting on the sidelines and say like, Hey, you know, there’s a lot of things you could do that would frame the gun discussion in a much more positive light. And I don’t mean that for the anti gun groups that are listening to that and thinking I’m going to spin that into a thing. 

[01:08:16] What I mean by that is like, like Ryan said, address the cause. Instead of saying, I’m going to roll back all this stuff to gun owners, like instead of putting a video out for the gun community, the video should have been to the general Canadian population.

Justin Trudeau is going to spend probably between 2 and 5 billion of your tax dollars, buying guns back from people that don’t commit crimes. I would like to spend that money standing up a mental health system. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:08:39] Yup. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:40] Mhmm. 

Dan Fritter: [01:08:41] There, you know. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:08:42] Yep. Or stronger borders or more policing and gang units. Like there’s a giant list of stuff that could be done.

Dan Fritter: [01:08:48] But that’s, again, where a lot of the messaging on them recently, I got to say, I don’t understand it in general. For politics at large things, like when the vaccine, like Erin O’Toole is saying we’re at the end of the line for vaccines. And then everyone was like, no, you’re wrong. And then it came out he was right. And he never said, I told you so. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:09:04] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:09:04] And that was one of those like fundamental, like you’re a politician, you have to say, I told you, like it’s you know, it’s your job. It’s literally what opposition does, hold the government to account. If you were correct, you know, weeks before the government. Own it, say, yeah, we were right. You know, we said this was gonna be a problem. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:09:19] And guess what. 

Dan Fritter: [01:09:20] Start to show people. And I, I, I think that’s the big thing is show people. This is where I guess fundamentally at that oppositional side of gun owners continue to saying it’s all about the targeting and the victimization. We lose our guns, all that kind of thing.

Is it, the oppositional, don’t, don’t stop thinking that just because someone wants to take your AR-15 away from you, they’re not your ally. We’re all Canadians, we all want to live in a safer country. So I’ll start off from that common ground. And if they want to maintain distance and they don’t want to find common ground with you, then so be it.

[01:09:47] But be it an anti-gun group or a politician, like I think the conservatives need to stop opposing and start saying what they do, how they lead, like same as gun owners stop saying, don’t take AR-15. Start saying, spend the money on a mental health program. Spend the money on opioid addiction counselling, spend the money on border patrol, spend the money on drug interdiction, spend the money on money laundering investigations. 

Like spend the money on any one of those other things, then we can talk about the guns, would be a way better discussion to have, and I just. Everyone’s just butting heads it’s gets super partisan, man. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:10:22] I think it’s almost better to almost ignore the gun thing and just, uh, just aim towards the root causes of what’s going on and how they would fix it. And in turn, that’s going to, that’s going to fix the gun issues in the end. Uh, everybody’s gonna be happy. And the gun owners are gonna know that if you, if you achieve those things that you’re promising to do, that in the end, everybody’s going to be safer. And the gun folks will more than likely still have what they, what they have.

Dan Fritter: [01:10:51] I think lik if, if I think that’s a good perspective for people to have is if you were to think like what you said, Ryan, about, if gun owners were striving for a safer Canada. If Canada’s gun homicide rate was single digits, there is no government that could justify spending any amount of taxpayer dollars pulling guns out of civilian hands. 

So gun owners should be striving for that number to drop too. Um, obviously there’s the law of diminishing return. So it does get really hard once we’re at, I mean, we’re at 200 people on average, it’s for a country of 32 million is pretty small number for. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:11:23] That’s very small. 

Dan Fritter: [01:11:24] Murders. But I think too, you know, one of these bad things happen, what you said, Ryan kind of spawned a bit of a thought in my head of like this, what I’ve talked about with regards to gun owners thinking a little bit beyond the scope of their gun safe when they see these headlines.

 Is, um, I’m a young guy that who sadly is like, you know, like I said, growing up in this nineties, 2000 generation of school shootings, Columbine was during my childhood and I grew up in a era of just constant school shootings, pretty much, um, they’re not the gun’s fault.

[01:11:55] I always get media interviews where, okay, well, what does this have to do with guns is always the response, because it doesn’t have anything to do with guns because if a kid wants to shoot up a school, they’ll find some other thing to do, you know, Timothy McVeigh or you name it, is a common, I honestly do.

Like if a kid’s going to grab a 12 gauge and shoot another kid, I don’t know like, I’m not the guy to, to say, you know, what do you do? Like kid needs mental help, not like, not to take a shotgun away, like taking a kids shotgun away, he’s still gonna try and kill another kids. So it’s a little weird. Um.

Ryan Steacy: [01:12:22] Yeah.

Dan Fritter: [01:12:23] But what I’ve always thought is like all of the, so I don’t associate with that as a gun owner, but I do associate with that as a young man, because I’ve never seen a mass shooting perpetrated by a young woman. And that’s where I’ve that, that thought. I don’t know when I had, I think it was a few years ago that it suddenly occurred to me and I thought, you know, um, it was when Courtney, we’re talking about having our first kid and you inevitably think, well, what if I have a son, you know, and mini me kind of thoughts.

And you think about what’s going on with the kids these days. And I have concerns about Tik Tok like everyone else, but then you see these shootings and you think young men um, might be in a certain, some, some young men clearly find themselves in a, in a state of very clear distress. Um, and obviously while the school shootings themselves are, are super, super sad.

[01:13:09] I think that, and it’s, it’s obviously very hard to think about the perpetrators as victims themselves, but I think fundamentally, as someone that has a background in mental health, you do have to look at that and realize that. Like, if anyone is wondering, just go watch a prison documentary and tell me you don’t feel bad for the guy who was abused sexually from the age of three to 16 and then entered a life of crime because he’s never known a life of normalcy, right? 

Like you have to feel sorry for these people. They, they were not given the opportunities that some of us were. Um, I think it’s the same thing goes on with the gangbangers in Toronto and Vancouver is it’s, they’re not doing it because they’ve got a great job and they’re like, man, I really don’t like my boss at this cushy nine to five, I’m going to go sell drugs. 

[01:13:47] Like it’s not really how it goes most of the time. So keeping in mind, you know, when a gun enters a violent situation, there is no one winning and chances are, there was no one winning when that happened in the first place. Um, it was just a bunch of people who are trying to find a way to win and don’t know how, and I think guts it’s on all of us to help them out. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:10] Well, Daniel, Ryan, I’ve got a bunch of notes that I had taken just on C-21 alone. Some on C-71  some on the OIC and I much prefer where this conversation went. I think it was much. 

Dan Fritter: [01:14:25] Bomb through them  quick. I got a 20 second, hammer through yellow flags. I can just, you tell the, say the word I’ll give her man.

Travis Bader: [01:14:34] You know what? 

Ryan Steacy: [01:14:34] Givin’ ‘er the whole time.

Travis Bader: [01:14:35] I was, I was going to throw it up on the website and I still might do that as well. Just a quick synopsis so people can look at it. Of course, on The Silvercore blog, we have complete transcripts knowing full well that some people would prefer to read or watch or listen.

But, hey, you know what Daniel, if you want, uh, we’ve got a real quick list here. Red flag, yellow flag, turning your guns during a legal challenge, replica firearms. Uh, deletion replacement of grandfathering, municipal firearms bans, uh, ammo, individuals without a firearms license cannot obtain ammo abroad, uh, mag capacity, uh, new, uh, terms for, uh, unpinned magazines.

[01:15:18] Um, mail order transfers and centralize authorization to carry. So no longer the CFO now a central commissionaire, cause we know the CFOs are run off their feet, giving out, uh, authorization. 

Dan Fritter: [01:15:30] ATC’s. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:30] To carry right, for. 

Dan Fritter: [01:15:32] Mhmm. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:33] Uh, so that those are the main bullet points I have. Uh, I did have one interesting thought on, on replica’s cause that touches on a lot of people who are into airsoft and some paintball and .

Dan Fritter: [01:15:44] And that’s, that’s closer to your,  there’s a bit of a venn diagram overlap with your, some of your background training and stuff too. There isn’t ever-. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:51] Perhaps a little bit, you’re talking about disabled deactivated, active, destroyed. Uh, I think I’ve got a little bit of authority to be able to speak on.

Dan Fritter: [01:15:59] A little bit of knowledge on it. 

Travis Bader: [01:16:00] On these ones. Um, in fact, I’ve sitting in this podcast studio, which was once my office, we’ve had the, um, uh, some very high ranking people from the firearms program uh, having some discussions on this who flew in specifically from back east to talk on it. I remember one individual who, uh, suddenly couldn’t speak anymore when, uh, she noticed that there were cameras in the office because we are a security related, related business. And, uh, tried to conduct the entire meeting through hand gestures, but, uh, it was, it was interesting. But did you want to. 

Dan Fritter: [01:16:40] Fricken heck man, like. 

Travis Bader: [01:16:43] And I still have that video I’m sure kicking around somewhere. 

Dan Fritter: [01:16:48] The puppet show. 

Travis Bader: [01:16:50] So yeah. Did you have any on, on those things, did you have any, I mean, obviously abrogating control of the handgun issue from the feds to the municipalities. It has some huge. 

Dan Fritter: [01:17:00] It’s insane. I dont. 

Travis Bader: [01:17:01] Constitutional issues. 

Dan Fritter: [01:17:03] I don’t, like. 

Travis Bader: [01:17:03] And it can bleed over into other areas that are not even firearms. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:17:05] Oh yeah, people don’t even understand what’s going to happen.

Dan Fritter: [01:17:08] I mean, like for those listening, fundamentally the constitutional problem with this, and I’m not a lawyer, but I do know a constitutional lawyer. And my first call after this was to him, uh, fundamentally your firearms license is a federal document, right? Like the federal government issued that to you.

Travis Bader: [01:17:21] Right. 

Dan Fritter: [01:17:22] And what C-21 is saying.  

Travis Bader: [01:17:22] They call a it geographic extent, I think is the actual words that they use in the firearms act. 

Dan Fritter: [01:17:27] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:17:28] Right. 

Dan Fritter: [01:17:28] And you can’t see it, but I’m, I’m laughing and smiling. Cause this is legitimately just a farcically comical portion of this law and that they want to have a federal license, where your city council passes a bylaw that says you can’t own a handgun. Or if you do, you have to have these special laws. 

Cause like, they haven’t said that municipalities can opt into an existing set of laws. They just said, municipalities can make some laws and whatever they say for handgun storage, possession, transport, you name it. They will put on your license as conditions, making your bylaw of federal statute essentially.

Travis Bader: [01:18:01] Right. 

Dan Fritter: [01:18:01] Because if they’re going to enforce it on the back of your license to federal condition on your federal license and like. I don’t think, I mean, hey, like I said, I don’t think any of this will happen. And I will say so for the big synopsis of people want a better run down on a lot of these things in detail.

I can highly recommend, I like Ian Runkle’s channel lot, the YouTube lawyer out there talking about this stuff. Um, the red flag laws terrible, it’s just an extension of what’s already out there as an existing system. I know within private RCMP Facebook groups, they don’t like this because specifically, uh, they don’t actually like RCMP frontline officers don’t like the idea of going into your house and seizing stuff, a little warrant because RCMP officers, they do have to go to court. 

[01:18:40] They do have to testify on all these things and they look at it and go like, this is just going to get abused. They’ve all seen it. They know that this is just going to be abused by a bunch of people to ruin their ex-husband’s deer season because newsflash, if they take your guns. Now, the new system is the red flag law. They take your guns away for 30 days while they do an investigation to find out if the supposed complaint levied against you from a public safety perspective was verified or not.

The yellow flag laws that you can’t move your guns, use your guns, buy your guns, or sell your guns, they’re parked in your house for 30 days while they conduct the investigation. The law in both cases allows for the 30 day period to be extended, I believe once. And then an additional complaint will allow the courts to levy these penalties against you for a maximum of five years. If the complaint has found justified, obviously that’s different because then the courts decide within the framework of the law.

[01:19:27] But yeah, 30 days it’s not judicial, there’s no judicial oversight, and what that means that if it happens to you, there’s nothing you can do. You, there’s nowhere to call. Um, judicial oversight is when you can call a lawyer who can get you in front of a judge who can tell the government, this is illegal, you can’t do this. There’s nothing in this for that, because you don’t have a right to gun. 

So if the CFO says you can’t have him for 30 days, you have no compensation. Um, that’s obviously insane. Um, no one likes it and this is where again, I think people will find, you know, the advertising ban it’s poorly worded. It makes no sense. 

[01:19:58] Um, the municipal handgun ban, unconstitutional and completely illegal. And talk about like, you want to talk about, if anything, the buyback is going to cost two to 5 billion, maybe up to 8 billion, depending on how they count it. I think the municipal bylaw bank could even eclipse that amount because the amount of lawyers that will have to be hired to figure out each individual case like, it’s nuts.

Um, and I mean, when you think like, and I know that there are people, oh no one’s going to sue. I guarantee you, if The Shooting Edge is going to be put out of business by a municipal handgun ban, the first phone call J.R. Cox makes, is to a freaking lawyer. Like everyone thinks about these laws from the perspective that individuals, but they forget that even with the buyback, I, you know, I have a decent amount of guns, but I’m probably not suing to keep them. A lawyer will cost me more than the guns are worth in some cases.

[01:20:48] I’m not North Sylva so if North Sylva’s sitting on millions of dollars, worth of Bushnell AR specific optics, okay. Am I going to go after the government try and compensation? Yes, because it’s probably easier to sue the government to get my full retail purchase price and taxes and duties and storage out of the government on those optics than it is to sell them. Because what do you put it on now? Right. Um, so that, shit’s just going to go nuts, um.

Ryan Steacy: [01:21:13] Had a buddy that had an interesting point on a municipal handgun ban and driving out, uh, conservative voters. So, his thought was that, uh, if you have a, uh, like a purple riding or whatever, that could go either way, and it would be easy enough for the government to say that we’re to, uh, not implement, but, uh, sort of point them in the direction to, hey, maybe you guys should implement a municipal handgun ban.

So then the vote, the Conservative voters at that point have choices. They can either get rid of their stuff or they can move. Uh, and if they end up moving, what happens to that riding? Well, the riding goes red. 

Dan Fritter: [01:21:54] It almost gerrymanders in reverse. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:21:55] Yeah. And so after, at that point, you’re picking up seats in the house, uh, because each one of those ridings is a seat and away we go.

Dan Fritter: [01:22:04] It certainly would increase the, the partisanship, I mean that rural, urban divide and the East, West divide, for sure. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:22:11] Yeah, for sure. 

Dan Fritter: [01:22:12] And I think that relates to the, uh, Travis mentioned about the centralized CFO thing. For those that don’t know, um, CFOs do have massive amounts of, of leeway when it comes to ATCs. Um, as in like a CFO could just issue you one.

You could, you could, may issue or shall issue is potentially within reach within Canada. If a CFO decided it was, they would just have to make a personal decision and have a provincial government that didn’t fire them for it. Um, I mean the head of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, I think it was Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, there’s two, the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, and then another one.

[01:22:42] I believe it was him, Bob is his name, he’s the current CFO of Saskatchewan. Um, He’s obviously a gun guy, right? So, uh, with, with Jason Kenney potentially higher, I think that’s what this is, there’s a  Jason Kenney. Cause there’s been lots of talk about Jason Kenney hiring a provincial CFO.

Ryan Steacy: [01:22:56] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:22:56] And. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:22:57] So that’ll be two provinces that have.

Dan Fritter: [01:22:59] Well, and the big thing, and I think the Trudeau’s worry about is it Kenny is, Kenny and Alberta are the only province in a position right now to politically, Saskatchewan could, but they’d get crushed by, Saskatchewan’s big enough to go up against the national media. So when the entire weight of Canada comes down on them going like, no, you shouldn’t carry guns and Saskatchewan might acquiesce. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:23:17] Yep.

Dan Fritter: [01:23:17] Um, but Alberta’s not like that. And Alberta’s got nothing to lose anymore, with all the pipeline stuff. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:23:23] Yep.

Dan Fritter: [01:23:24] Trudeau has to be looking at it and going Jason, like in the same way that Trudeau looks at this and goes, this is a great way to get votes, which is again why I think it’s reprehensible because to be clear, a 14 year old was shot in the face and Justin Trudeau’s response was bill C-21, which is never going to become a law. So instead of actually helping kids, he’s decided to just use them as votes. So not done nothing, that’s the clar-, what pisses me off. He’s done something. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:23:45] He’s done the things to help. 

Dan Fritter: [01:23:47] He’s chosen to get votes. He’s chosen. Like he has the entire weight of the Canadian government and armed forces behind him, including our strongest ally being the United States. And he thinks the best way to stop kids from shooting each other in Toronto is taking away my gun, which is fucking bullshit. So in other words, he’s choosing to use dead kids to get votes. That’s literally what it is. 

And I would challenge, I don’t care if Rosemary Barton wants to do interview with me, I would stick to my goddamn statement on that cause they ain’t changed it. You can’t tell me otherwise, there’s no justification for this. Bill Blair himself said as chief of Toronto police, municipal handgun bans don’t make sense. You know, and now he’s changing his tune, because it makes political sense. 

Travis Bader: [01:24:23] Sure. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:24:23] Of course. 

Dan Fritter: [01:24:24] I think like it’s just, you know, ugh, I got all angry and lost my train of thought, but.

Ryan Steacy: [01:24:28] It was good.

Travis Bader: [01:24:29] It was good. We liked it. 

Dan Fritter: [01:24:31] Fucking Trudeau, man. Um.

Travis Bader: [01:24:34] So replica firearms, replica firearms are prohibited already. It sounds like they’re looking at some expansion to what is deemed a replica firearm, and that is to include airsoft. And so there’s a whole slew of people out there that have never owned firearms and not interested in firearms in general, right. 

And I guess people, some people listen to this will have a distinction and they’ll think, well, a firearm is something that goes bang over 500 feet per second, 5.7 joules of energy, that’s a regulated firearm. Airsoft, pellet guns still fall under the firearm label and if you use, let’s say a pellet gun to go and hold up your local liquor store, you will be charged with a firearms related offence right. 

[01:25:18] And then provincially firearms and municipally on the firearm side. So the, the concept here, I guess, is these guns that, these, these items that kind of look like guns. We’re going to just make the replica law a little bit more robust. And of course, these guys are going to be affected by it, guys and girls, of course, they shouldn’t talk in the one way there. 

But I was thinking based on some of my experience I’ve had in the past, dealing with different regulatory bodies, I actually can see a solution. Not that I would advocate for this. But the solution for the airsoft is out there, if they still wanted to do airsoft. Would be to use real firearms. And let me explain what I mean by that. 

Dan Fritter: [01:26:09] Mass murder. 

Travis Bader: [01:26:10] If something is developed. If something is developed as a firearm, it was never developed to imitate a firearm, it was a firearm. If you deactivate that. And now there are some guidelines for deactivation and you can exceed those guidelines and not be deemed deactivated or fall below it and be deemed deactivated. Whatever you do once it’s deactivated in the eyes of the law, it is no longer a firearm. 

You then pull the guts out through some CO2 or green gas and the, whatever you want inside the thing. And you can run around and play airsoft again with what was originally designed to be a firearm. Does that make logistical sense? No, but if you look at it from a, just a common sense perspective. 

Dan Fritter: [01:26:58] Legal practicality. 

Travis Bader: [01:26:58] The work around for these people to go out here and to do it. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:27:00] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [01:27:01] It’s ridiculous. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:27:02] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:27:03] It. Uh, and I think this is where the, it can be beneficial to take the tenure perspective. Um, cause I’ll admit, uh, I, I have shot airsoft. I played airsoft when I was a young guy and it’s tons of fun. Um, I think taking the guts out of real guns and de-wating them, uh, I think it’s a great argument because it really addresses the core cause of this, of if the problem is criminals running around with replica firearms and using them to intimidate people and police not knowing the difference because, legitimately, they don’t. 

Travis Bader: [01:27:37] Right. 

Dan Fritter: [01:27:37] I mean, these guns are very realistic so. 

Travis Bader: [01:27:39] Sure.

Dan Fritter: [01:27:39] If the problem is coming from the law enforcement caucus in the Liberal party, um, and as people like Harjit Sajjan, getting, getting things from his ex VPD guys, which I seriously doubt he is, but nonetheless, um.

Ryan Steacy: [01:27:50] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:27:51] That could be what steering this, if, if the practical solution for airsoft is, well we’ll just use real guns, the gangbangers will be right behind them, right? Like, if a gangbanger goes, okay so my airsoft gun that I used to steal from the airsoft store is no longer available. I guess we’ll just go to the surplus store and steal that de-wated handgun that they’ve got hanging from the ceiling, right? Like, or they’ll just get a real gun or they’ll just produce / continue to trade an airsoft guns.

Cause I mean the big thing there’s, how many of these are soft, guns are out there. And I got to say like, I brought this up with the OIC. If they ban M14’s say right, they’re not registered. So there is literally, and this is just reality, if a gang banger goes into a gun store in rural Alberta and says, I will give you $8,000 for that M14, and I know it’s illegal, just grind off the serial number and that gun shop owner is going well. Trudeau’s just past C-21, my city might put me out of business. I could really use the eight grand right now. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:28:48] I’m gonna eat all the money from all these. 

Dan Fritter: [01:28:51] Yeah, right. Like you’re putting people in between a rock and a hard place. And then basically you’re putting them in a rock and a hard place that is also like front of the line for organized crime to take advantage of. So, I mean, if you don’t think that that gang bangers and, and people that criminals that would want to obtain these things for nefarious reasons, don’t go into airsoft for sale groups and buy airsoft guns for this reason.

You’re insane. Absolutely they do, same as they do on any gun for them. They’re on CG and they’re everywhere trying to get guns. It’s just the fact that gun owners are generally pretty, um, fastidious with their, with their documentation and checking PAL’s that it’s not really a problem. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:29:26] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:29:26] So I think that’s evidence, the system works, but it’s so weird to me that the government and the people that elected them that were like, I love these guys because they’re going to make pot legal and then we can just stop that whole crime from happening. And we can dedicate law enforcement resources to better crimes. And you know, when you make something illegal and you prohibit it, it just makes it into the black market and we can’t control that anyways. 

Look at prohibition or the same people that turn around and go, well, we’ll make airsoft guns illegal. These made in, made in China, Chinese things that are dirt cheap, that are imported by the million, that are sold by companies like Walmart by the, literally like Walmart orders, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of airsoft guns every calendar year. And they think, yeah, we’ll make those things illegal.

[01:30:08] A bunch of 13 year olds turning in their Tokyo Marui Beretta 92’s that they paid 300 bucks after they did newspaper route for six weeks. You know, not that I’m bitter or anything, thing broke after two days, but. 

Travis Bader: [01:30:18] Yep. 

Dan Fritter: [01:30:19] Got into real guns afterwards, it was a way better way. Um, but it’s just, yeah, it’s such a, like when you put it into the realistic perspective, that’s the, like the comical part, because when people read it as a legislation or as an order paper item, or as a legislative summary, it has all the way to the federal government behind it and Justin Trudeau and all this pomp and circumstance.

And then you go like, wait, so you’re telling me a cop is going to go up to a 12 year old and he’s, and be like, that’s a prohibited device, get on the ground. Like, is that what we want. I thought we were in for less of that. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:30:47] Are they, they’re banned for import now as well by that, are they not?

Dan Fritter: [01:30:52] I think so. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:30:53] Yeah. I think I read. 

Dan Fritter: [01:30:54] Yeah, CBSA does all the funky stuff because even before they. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:30:56] Yeah, they just do whatever they want. 

Dan Fritter: [01:30:57] Declared it illegal, they ban it. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:30:58] So that’s going to be an issue for the film industry in a lot of ways, because, uh, uh, airsoft guns, gas guns, are a huge portion of what takes place and even more so now, uh, with the way the film industry is. With all the safety stuff that’s going on. I know in Vancouver, uh, there’s productions that I used to work on that no longer allow any, uh, real guns on set and that’s written into their contracts. 

Uh, so when they’re dealing with, uh, firearms and shooting and all that kind of stuff, uh, In their production uh, it’s basically CGI’d with, uh, airsoft guns. So as you well know, like you already mentioned, airsoft guns break and they fall apart and they don’t last very long. 

Dan Fritter: [01:31:46] Constantly. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:31:48] Constantly. Uh, and so there is not an unlimited supply of airsoft guns uh, in Canada. So at some point, those are going to run out. So I would ask what they’re going to do at that point. They’ve already, uh, made it so that, uh, productions can’t use real firearms written into their production contracts. Then, now the airsoft guns are all basically gone. Um, and anything really that looks like a real gun is, uh, going to be a prohibited as a replica. So where do they go from there? 

And the part that kind of, kind of makes me interested is that a lot of the people in film obviously voted for, uh, you know, it’s for film is fairly hardcore left. They voted this stuff in, uh, basically without really understanding the full impact of what kind of problems is going to cause, even possibly in their own job. And I think. 

Dan Fritter: [01:32:45] I’m reminded  of some of the facebook  arguments there.

Ryan Steacy: [01:32:46]Well, I know for a fact. I know for a fact that some people are suddenly realizing what is going to happen, uh, possibly to their job. Or to the amount of jobs that they get, or even the TV shows and productions and movies that arrive in Vancouver and, and undoubtedly the rest of Canada, because we’ll be all under the same, uh, rules.

So, um, you know, action films were a huge thing. That’s basically what I worked on back in the day.  Action films, TV shows, all that kind of stuff and a lot of that, in my opinion, is probably going to have some issues with coming up. 

Travis Bader: [01:33:26] You know what they do, they make an exception.

Ryan Steacy: [01:33:29] They can make an exception. Yes. 

Travis Bader: [01:33:30] And then if they’re going to make an exception on that, you have to turn around and say, well, what was the point of this to begin with?

Ryan Steacy: [01:33:36] Yeah. And why in the beginning then, if this is not a problem. 

Dan Fritter: [01:33:39] But that’s where, so like when I was, when, for the, for the Senate testimony, when they email you for it, they basically give you some instructions right. And they don’t tell you what to say or anything like not, it’s obviously like it’s very, very, very professional. So anyone listening, it’s very cool. It’s a really neat thing to do. But if you ever get a chance to highly recommend it. 

But they tell you like you can’t change big things. Like when the Senate gets it to start making amendments. And even when the parliamentary committee start getting it to make amendments, like the bill should be a little bit closer to, to ready. And actually like what Ryan brings up with regards to the film industry, cause I thought that right away as well. 

[01:34:12] I mean, anyone that lives in Vancouver can’t help, but think of that, especially in the gun world, because film armourer’s in Vancouver are like a big, big deal, um. And with Netflix and in with the, with the streaming services now buying so much more content, like the hours of content being produced now. Uh, I mean, Ryan, you don’t better than I, but I’m pretty sure it’s, it’s just gotta be a lot more actual hours. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:34:34] Even when I was getting out of the industry. 

Dan Fritter: [01:34:37] Was already climbing 

Ryan Steacy: [01:34:37] The Netflix shows and stuff were growing exponentially. They were building, uh, studios in BC specifically to do Netflix productions. 

Dan Fritter: [01:34:46] And Netflix, those shows can’t afford the real guns, right? Like, I didn’t know. It was like, I knew that film was going more towards gas guns. I thought it was a cost thing. Not so much a safety thing. I knew the safety was there, obviously. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:34:58] Yeah. It’s more of a safety thing. It doesn’t really make any difference to the production. They, they end up renting, um, either a gas gun or a real gun and they can operate those on set without one of us there, without one of the armourer’s generally. Providing the, the prop master has a you know, a firearms license and there’s somebody there.

Dan Fritter: [01:35:16] Gotchya. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:35:16] That can deal with it. 

Dan Fritter: [01:35:17] I think it’s just evidence though that this exception isn’t already baked into the law is, is another case of, I just don’t think they really intended this to go the distance. Like I think they basically just drafted this thinking. Yeah, it’s about, it looks to me to be a law that is about 60% of the way to something that’s actually capable of being.

Ryan Steacy: [01:35:33] It’s not thought through it all really. 

Dan Fritter: [01:35:35] No, no. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:35:36] So. They didn’t consult anybody on where it’s gonna go. 

Dan Fritter: [01:35:39] And I mean, in some ways we can probably take a little bit of like, oh, that’s good, because I’m glad to hear they didn’t waste a bunch of time drafting a law they didn’t intend to pass. I’m glad they just wasted minimal amounts of our time drafting a law they didn’t intend to pass, at a time when there’s some other stuff that they probably have on their priority table. But yeah, that, that film thing, how many, so percentage wise, when you were working, or if you have any idea now from like talking to people that, mutual contacts and all like what’s the percentage between real guns and gas guns on film?

Ryan Steacy: [01:36:10] Uh.

Dan Fritter: [01:36:11] In your experience in Vancouver, just in your experience. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:36:13] When I was working, and I think I left at the end of 2015, I would say it was probably, I bet you, it was probably 60% airsoft.  

Dan Fritter: [01:36:26] Really? 

Ryan Steacy: [01:36:26] Gas guns. 

Dan Fritter: [01:36:27] And you think it’s gone up from there?

Ryan Steacy: [01:36:28] It’s a hundred percent gone up because there were still all the WB shows like Supernatural and, uh. 

Dan Fritter: [01:36:34] God I love that show. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:36:34] Aero and all those, uh. 

Dan Fritter: [01:36:36] God I hate that show. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:36:37] All the superhero um, uh, stuff, the DC comic shows. I worked on all of those and, uh, it was pretty regular, like Arrow, we’d you know, I have M 60 machine guns out on it and handguns all kinds of different things. Now uh, none of those shows uh, allow live fire, like real blank fire going on on them. 

Dan Fritter: [01:36:59] Do you feel like that decision was made, was that decision made entirely from a safety perspective or do you feel there was a degree of politics in that decision?

Ryan Steacy: [01:37:06] Um, I think it, I think it was a cover your ass decision, uh, there, especially. 

Dan Fritter: [01:37:12] Lawyers, liability. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:37:12] Yeah. Liability for sure. I mean, we were always going through issues, uh, uh, with the production lawyers wanting to rewrite the contracts and all that kind of stuff. Uh, like our liability contracts that we added at the time, and it was always a big huge back and forth. And I think eventually it came to the point where they’re like, well, you don’t need a liability contract when, uh, when you’re running airsoft. So it’s a, it’s a safety issue, so let’s just get rid of the real live fire guns. And that, in turn got basically rid of the armourer’s unless there was something specific that there wasn’t an airsoft gun for there’s no airsoft 50 cal’s. So if you had those out on set yet to have the guys. But now, it’s, it’s different. 

Dan Fritter: [01:37:59] Well, sucks to be film industry guy all of a sudden. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:37:59] I don’t know how the film industry. Yeah. You know, I got buddies that. 

Dan Fritter: [01:38:04] Especially with our dollar being at that money spot for film normally too, right? 

Ryan Steacy: [01:38:07] Yup. Yup. Yup. I mean, it should be a very lively with the, with the dollar and everything right now and the tax credits and all that stuff, you should be pretty lively here, but, um, all the people I stay in contact with, if they’re like, eh, there’s, you know, it’s, it’s moderately busy at this point.

Travis Bader: [01:38:26] You were talking about putting something on the back of the license and putting conditions on the back of the license earlier and it just brought to mind the back of my license. And by virtue of my age alone, I was not able to get a 25 or 32 calibre handgun or short barreled firearm, a section 12.6 type firearm, but I was able to get a 12.7 inherited firearm. And you know what happened when my license renewed? I bet you do. You know what happened. 

Dan Fritter: [01:38:59] I don’t. 

Travis Bader: [01:39:00] To my 12.7? Okay. Well, this might be an interesting one that you can write about in Calibre magazine. Uh, my 12.7 inherited it turned into a 12.6 and guess what I could purchase and buy and sell other 12.6 firearms from other individuals out there. And I was concerned, I thought like, what’s going on here? And I had actually, you know, in a CYA way, contacted the firearms programming, um, like what’s going on here?

And they said we don’t make mistakes, you’re 12.6, we don’t make mistakes. Okay, fair enough, I got it in writing, good to go. I can buy, sell all the rest, but the interesting thing was, it didn’t just happen to me. It happened to every other 12.7 inherited.

Dan Fritter: [01:39:48] Really? 

Travis Bader: [01:39:49] Firearms owner in Canada. I’ve got pictures of the license and I’ve talked to other 12.7 owners who became 12.6. And now they’ve got a situation where they got, some people, myself, by virtue of age, I was never able to even take advantage of the 12.6, who were able to purchase other firearms and sell the firearms and they had to turn around and try and quietly clean up this little mess. 

So when we look at these laws, when we look at C-21 and even if we were to say this was the most well thought out in their intention in the way they’re going, we can’t discount human error in these things and what those implications will have to the individual and to the businesses. Like for example, in the film industry, um, just, just an interesting aside on all of that. And if you wanted to write on that in Caibre Mag. 

Dan Fritter: [01:40:45] I’m interested. I’m kind of curious, I’m interested into why. Cause I thought that was, I actually looked into that a few years ago when I, I got the impression that it was pretty expressly included for most of the assets I looked at that like, that was not supposed to be the case. Like I, a 12.7 was supposed to be 12.7,  you get inherited only. 

Travis Bader: [01:41:03] They made a mistake. 

Dan Fritter: [01:41:04] You’re supposed to be expanded, but if it’s happening to everyone, um. 

Travis Bader: [01:41:08] Every single 12.7 became 12.6. 

Dan Fritter: [01:41:11] That sounds more like an internal policy change because legitimately once that stuff’s like, I could see if yours did once and I could see the CFO saying we don’t make mistakes to cover yours. But if it’s everyone’s, that’s, that’s an internal, that’s a. 

Travis Bader: [01:41:23] That’s an error. 

Dan Fritter: [01:41:23] An ATIP that I need to file to say, like, why is this happening? Cause there’s something happened. There would have been an internal, like from my knowledge of how the firearms program works, there would have been something internal circulated to dictate that transition occurring because it’s changed, right? Like it’s, they, they didn’t renew your license. They changed your license. They had to do something to do so. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:41:41] Have you renewed since that went down?

Travis Bader: [01:41:44] I have.

Ryan Steacy: [01:41:44] And it stayed?

Travis Bader: [01:41:46] Until the point where they had to correct it all. And they had to course correct with all other 12.7’s who we’re, became 12.6 and they have changed them all back. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:41:54] Hmm. 

Dan Fritter: [01:41:54] Hmm. That’s weird. 

Travis Bader: [01:41:55] So that that could be human error. That could be computer glitch. That could be whatever it might be. But when we started going down this road of trying to make policy and trying to make laws and regulations, we have to look at it like you were saying from, Daniel, from the perspective of the victim or the person and how, how they will be impacted on it. We have to look at it from the perspective of the film industry, from the individual owner and how, how they may be impacted. But what rights are we giving away when we bring these things in, should a mistake like this happened to happen and they happen more often than you would think. 

Dan Fritter: [01:42:36] Well, that’s why I would say like my big take home message for people when I’ve done radio interviews, is always TV and stuff is just don’t you have an amnesty period, use it. Like the government has given you that amnesty period, just like they give you back some money at tax time, you know, use it like when the government gives you something, take it and use it. Um, so don’t do anything until then, because the more time elapses, the more this stuff will get fleshed out. And for all we know, I mean the long gun registry amnesty continued until the long gun registry ended so.

Ryan Steacy: [01:43:07] In your opinion Dan, is this gonna, is this gonna stretch on and the amnesty will have to be extended at some point? 

Dan Fritter: [01:43:14] It’ll have to. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:43:14] I mean, that’s, that’s kinda my thought.

Dan Fritter: [01:43:16] I think the amnesty extension will be predicated by the compliance rate.

Ryan Steacy: [01:43:20] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:43:20] And the compliance rate is going to be dismal. So the amnesty will be extended indefinitely because at the end of the day, they don’t want to reach a point where, because that’s what the, that’s what the liberals got into with long and registry, right? Was it was people that may have supported it initially. Um, even in a passing way. 

Like I know people, I was at the Vancouver Gun Club arguing why the long gun registry should die when it was first killed because people that shoot shotguns at clay pigeon sometimes think gun control is good and in that discussion, like you just kind of go like it’s, I don’t know, man like, I don’t. No one will comply and the government will be stuck with this. Like, do we put everyone in jail? 

Ryan Steacy: [01:43:58] Yeah, how do we deal with it? 

Dan Fritter: [01:43:58] Or, or is, or is leaving the thread of that over their head, ostracizing voters, like, like. Let’s say you’re the, it’s 150,000 AR fifteens in the country, 130, whatever it is, right. There’s a lot more Norinco M14’s in the country, a lot more. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:44:14] SKS’s. 

Dan Fritter: [01:44:15] A lot of SKS, but the big one is I use the M14 specifically, because I think it’s the most, maybe the Mini 14, is maybe the most popular, newly prohibited firearm, right. Um, If I have an M14, but I don’t own AR15. I feel a bit insulated from Justin Trudeau’s gun ban. I probably feel somewhat slighted by it by going like, I can’t use my M14, but you got to remember too, like we are all hardcore gun guys for whom guns are part of our daily lives. For a lot of people, their M14 might be something they haven’t seen in two years, right?

They, they got it before they had kids, they were shooting with their buddies. Everyone had kids shooting less and less. He keeps it for the eventual hunting trip he plans to go on at some point in the next 10 years, right? He probably doesn’t like AR-15’s because he probably looks at the headlines and he’s never been in the gun world, and he thinks it’s a quote, unquote, weapon of war. Like these are the sorts of people that Justin shows. He’s not worried about us because he knows where we stand. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:45:08] Yeah. 

Dan Fritter: [01:45:08] But it’s those sorts of people for whom the amnesty will be extended because he’ll be looking at those guys going, if I keep looking like I’m going to throw this guy in jail, he might vote for someone else. 

If I keep looking, like I, I don’t really mean to hurt him, this is intended to like, if the law says I’m going after legal gun owners, but the government does not go after legal gun owners, by default, a whole bunch of those legal gun owners will still vote for the party that is not going after them because they are not doing the thing they said they would do.

Ryan Steacy: [01:45:38] Not following through yeah.

Dan Fritter: [01:45:39] And the Conservatives need to realize is talk is cheap. The Liberals talk all the time and then they don’t do anything, like they won’t take the guns, even out of the houses. Like when you actually think about those arguments, the anti-gun people said of like, you’ve promised to take assault weapons off the street, et cetera, et cetera and now you’re just going to let everyone keep them. If you were an anti-gun person and you’d spent years lobbying, you would be super super angry, right? Like. 

Travis Bader: [01:46:02] Mhmm. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:46:02] I think there are a few that are pretty angry. 

Dan Fritter: [01:46:04] You finally get, you listened to Bill Blair across the table, tell you, yeah, we’re making, we have the single strongest anti-gun bill in Canada’s history and you go, but everyone gets to keep their AR-15? Like, I’m sure they’re just as pissed as we are, because we’re coming at it from the opposite sides of this is not going to do what either of us.

Ryan Steacy: [01:46:20] Were allies. 

Dan Fritter: [01:46:21] And that’s the ironic part is we argue with the people that are on like, and some of them aren’t on the same team because I’ll admit like some of the groups. Just want all guns gone. They don’t want you to hunt, they don’t want you to have any guns, no guns at all, they don’t like guns. They’re hoplophobic. And they’ve managed to find a way to turn that into a hobby.

But for by and large, a lot of things, these people, and we’ve seen it. Cause there have been some people that started out on a staunchly anti-gun argument that if you say, look, I’m on your side dude, like I’m not, I don’t. I’d like to keep my guns that’s, but that’s besides the point. What I want to do is save lives and stop these kids from shooting each other and stop the suicides and stop this and stop that. 

[01:46:59] Then oh, okay, all right then, this, they start to nod their head and they go, this makes sense. You’re on the same side. Okay, yeah. You know, and if humanizes us a bit too, but it also gives us some credibility that we’re, we’re kind of lacking these days. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:47:12] Empathy. 

Dan Fritter: [01:47:13] Yeah, it’s empathy, a bit of, yeah, so it’s hard though, because I mean, the other thing too is, I think for Canadian’s at large, it’s really hard because the people that are victimized by these crimes are always, and I’ll say this, this is showing to sound super woke myself, this is showing my own privilege, so I’ll freely admit that I am. The people that are victimized by a lot of these crimes are people that are not, the people like myself have trouble associating with. 

I am not a gang banger, I’ve never been involved in the drug trade, I’m not a violent person, in the freaking least, um, So for me, it’s, it’s another world. It’s like reading about. I mean, when I read about the stories that come out of Jane and Finch in some of those downtown areas of Toronto, I’ve been down there, I’ve driven down there um, it’s pretty eyeopening. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:47:58] Yeah. It’s pretty crazy. 

Dan Fritter: [01:47:59] But it doesn’t feel like Canada. Like, it doesn’t feel like the Canada I know, cause I come from the mountains of BC. Like I drove through downtown  Toronto, looking at the, the areas where these shootings happen and I go like, well, like I don’t even recognize this place. It’s another world. And when I see the headlines coming out of those areas, it feels like something else and I think that’s what, especially because gun owners are typically, we have higher than average household incomes. 

We have more stable lives. We have more complete family units amongst our population than the national averages. And that gives us a different perspective that is, it makes it hard for gun owners to, it makes it very hard, I think for gun owners to have sympathy and empathy for the people on both ends of these violent crimes, because. 

[01:48:37] And you see it writ large amongst the population that more people have been killed by opioid overdoses than by COVID. But more people are willing to make massive concessions to their daily lives because of the COVID. But no one would make a single concession about opioids because quote unquote, the people that overdose are not like me.

And that’s, if you want to know where I think Canada is going wrong, that’s where it is. And it’s across the board and it’s it’s, we just don’t read out the gang bangers and gun owners. It’s almost like they’re proud to say that’s not me. Instead of going, that could have been me. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:49:12] He’s one of us.  

Dan Fritter: [01:49:12] There by the grace of God go I, right? Like, your childhood unfolds a little bit differently, you know? 

Ryan Steacy: [01:49:19] Yeah, exactly. 

Dan Fritter: [01:49:19] That could be you. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:49:23] That’s good. 

Travis Bader: [01:49:23] Well, Daniel, Ryan, thank you very much. This was an excellent podcast listeners out there. If you have thoughts, please let us know. You can email them, leave them on YouTube. Leave them in the, in the comments on the, uh, the podcast there., make sure checkout Calibre Magazine, there’s plenty of good content in the magazine, just like you’ve been hearing from Daniel here. And if you want to take your rifle to 11 checkout IBI, get yourself an IBI barrel. Thanks guys. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:49:55] Oh, thanks for having us. 

Dan Fritter: [01:49:57] Yeah, likewise. And I’ll continue to be the strongest reason why these podcasts need a mute button for the guests. 

Ryan Steacy: [01:50:01] No. Need to talk more and not less Dan. 

Travis Bader: [01:50:05] Absolutely. 

Dan Fritter: [01:50:06] I’m trying, we’re hoping.