Lady Justice and Scales
episode 53 | Jun 29, 2021
Education

Ep. 53: Firearms Legal Questions Answered

Canadian lawyer Ian Runkle of the popular YouTube channel “Runkle of the Bailey”, answers questions posed by Silvercore Club members. This is a remarkable opportunity to hear an extremely well versed lawyers thoughts and opinions on matters of particular interest to Canadian firearms owners.
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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 the community. If you’re new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services, and products that 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.

[00:00:43] In this episode, I sit down with a lawyer, Ian Runkle and ask firearms related questions, which came directly from Silvercore Club members. There is a ton of great information crammed into this podcast that you won’t want to miss. Backed by very popular demand, I’m again, chatting with Ian Runkle, Canadian lawyer and host of the Runkle of the Bailey YouTube channel, which deals with legal commentary, heavily leaning towards issues of interest to the firearms community.

[00:01:10] Ian doles out countless hours of high quality content and has a Patreon account where he can support us endeavour and get the inside scoop at the same time. If you haven’t checked out Ian’s work, there will be links in the description. I highly recommended. Welcome back to The Silvercore Podcast, Ian. 

Ian Runkle: [00:01:29] Oh, thank you for having me back. It’s always a good time, so. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:32] Man, I had so much fun speaking with you in episode 43. And even though we spoke for quite some time, I felt like we’re still just scratching the tip of the iceberg. 

Ian Runkle: [00:01:43] Oh, firearm law is such a, uh, it’s such a complicated and kind of broken area that there’s so much to it. I mean, it’s, uh, I kind of fell in love with it because I was in law school, uh, and started shooting. And I, just because law school is stressful. I remembered I enjoyed it as a kid, but I hadn’t really kept up with it, but I needed a hobby. 

[00:02:09] So I started that and then I thought, I don’t want to be the guy who blows up his legal career by getting himself into some sort of trouble. So I’d better actually go and, uh, figure out what the law is. So I don’t run into it. And at first I thought, I don’t understand this at all. This is making no sense. And later as I dug into it more, I went, I think I’m understanding it just fine. It just makes no sense. 

Travis Bader: [00:02:36] Yeah. That’s kind of the conclusion I’ve come to as well. And I don’t have any legal degree, but I have heard, being a firearms instructor and being in the industry since about 94. I tend to hear the same questions coming up over and over again. And you probably see the same thing as well. 

Ian Runkle: [00:02:56] Yep. And I try my best to sort of answer some of them. I, uh, I have the optimistic notion that some of my videos might settle some of these debates. Um, it’s overly optimistic, but I am glad every time I see one of these fights starts up and somebody goes, no, we got an answer for this. Here’s a video. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:15] Yeah. Well, in preparation for this podcast, we thought it’d be kind of fun to provide Silvercore Club members an opportunity to ask questions and we could just generally discuss it. And Ian, you graciously obliged. 

Ian Runkle: [00:03:28] Yep. I see there’s a whole bunch of questions here. I can sort of dive into them or let you ask the ones that are most sort of key on your mind here, but, uh, yeah, there’s a lot of questions that sort of keep coming up and a lot of them are fairly complicated when it gets down to it. I’ll try to be kind of clear and concise as much as possible 

Travis Bader: [00:03:47] Well, you know what I thought it would be kind of fun was we can generally speak about the question and kind of discuss it. And if you have, for a lot of these, I do know that you already have content in long form on your YouTube channel. And what I’ll do is I’ll break them each one down.

[00:04:04] And if we feel like, Hey, we’re getting a little bit far into this, we’ll just put a link over and the listeners can go check it out on The Runkle of the Bailey YouTube channel. 

Ian Runkle: [00:04:12] Sounds good to me. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:14] All right. So the first one is a really, really easy one. Um, I’m sure no one’s ever asked this one before. Of course I’m being facetious. Are Canadian gun owners permitted to defend themselves with their firearms? And if so, in what situations? 

Ian Runkle: [00:04:30] So this gets real complicated because, uh, self-defence law is what lawyers like to call highly fact-specific, which means it comes down to the very precise elements of, you know, of moments. So what is valid self-defence, uh, at one point might have been a serious criminal offence, four or five seconds previous.

[00:04:53] Um, as an example, you know, if you think of somebody who’s got a knife and they’re 45 feet away and you’re standing there with a rifle and the rifle is drawn on them, the standard sort of, uh, you know, the Tueller drill and all of that, those assuming you’re talking about a holster pistol, you can, you’re effective at a much closer distance if you’re drawn on somebody, but you know, they’ve got a knife and you’re standing there.

[00:05:16] It would you know, a court would probably not be okay with you pulling the trigger on them if they’re just standing there at that 45 foot distance. But they lean in and start a charge and the equation changes and the court would be much more likely to find that that was a reasonable time to pull the trigger.

[00:05:35] Uh, the problem is, is that when you get into highly fact specific things, people want simple answers. Like I can do this at this point. The general sort of rule is if you’ve got another option, take that other option. Um, there are plenty of cases where people have used firearms in self-defence and been acquitted, but keep in mind being acquitted at trial is incredibly expensive.

[00:06:00] Um, you know, if you’re thinking about somebody leaving with your TV or your truck, I guarantee you it’s cheaper to just buy a new truck, you know. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:10] No kidding. 

Ian Runkle: [00:06:11] So, you know, that trigger pull ends up being possibly the most expensive decision you would take in your life. And, you know, it could also cost you your freedom. So if you have another option, take the other option. And if you’re ever in court, in this situation and you never want to be in the, in court, being able to articulate, here’s why I couldn’t do anything else. You know, you know, if you say like, and couldn’t, and didn’t want to, or different things like the guys leaving with my TV, I don’t want them to leave with my TV.

[00:06:48] I like my TV, but I can, you know, I’m still gonna be alive. But if the guy’s coming after me with an ax, you know, then it’s like, well, I can’t leave out the back door because that’ll take too long. I got to fiddle with the back locks and you know, the guy’s coming after me. I don’t have time. You know, I tried telling him to, you know, to stop, he kept coming. 

[00:07:10] I had the firearm in hands, you know, that’s itself, a use of force and a show of force. And he kept coming. You know, I, I tried everything I could, this was my last, last option. That’s always going to be a better position, but there’s, there’s never any guarantees. Um, sometimes those cases surprise me in both directions. You know, I see situations where I think. You know, in case law, I think this was a good use of, you know, self-defensive force and the court says we disagree. 

[00:07:43] And sometimes I think, well, that was pretty shaky and the courts says nah,  that was fine. Um, judges are people too, as much as we love to think of the law as sort of this machine where you plug things in and the right results come out, um, sometimes. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:00] Not always.  

Ian Runkle: [00:08:01] Not always. And there’s sort of a school of thought that basically says sometimes decisions get made for reasons that are more complicated than you think. Like the judge just takes a dislike to you or something like that. Um, and that can shade how they look at the evidence. So if you have another option, take the other option. 

[00:08:20] And I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of people happy about, you know, a lot of people would like me to say, oh, well, you know, go ahead. But you don’t ever want to be hiring somebody like me. And especially not if there’s a body, like that’s, that’s a bad place to be. Um, I have represented people. Who’ve used defensive, you know, force in defence and just about everybody says they wish it never happened. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:47] No kidding.

Ian Runkle: [00:08:48] So, and that’s including people who really had no choice, you know, that’s including people who were cornered, who had no other option. They’re still like, I wish I could think of some other way that that could have gone because I don’t like the outcome. And that’s people who win people who, you know. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:06] Well, when in one respect the win, the fight, but maybe not the full battle, the next eight years of your life in criminal and civil. 

Ian Runkle: [00:09:14] Well, uh, Marie Henein, who’s a lawyer who I’ve got tremendous regard for. Uh, she, uh, did a talk and one of the things she was saying, and I really liked this line is, you know, as a defence lawyer, we’re never going to be able to put you back where you were before it happened. But we can try to put you in the sort of best place going forward, but you’re always going to be worse off just by having gone through the process so. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:40] That’s a good point. 

Ian Runkle: [00:09:41] Um, you know, if the guy’s walking away with your TV and you let him walk away with your TV, you’re not ending up being charged most likely, and that’s a much happier place to be. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:53] Yeah. No I agree with you on that one. When, uh, armoured car guards, they’re carrying firearms, they’re using that firearm for protection of their life and they are civilians. They don’t have any police powers, anything else. And I know the training system that they go through, they try and simplify it as much as possible. Obviously it’s not a, uh, not from a, a lawyers perspective, but they say weapon, intent, delivery system. They take these three pieces. 

[00:10:24] There needs to be a weapon. There needs to be actual intent and there needs to be some mechanism for delivery and the guy can have a weapon and intent, but no means of actually doing damage. 

Ian Runkle: [00:10:35] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:10:36] And that was one. And the other one was, um, and reasonable. If I’m recalling this correctly, reasonable grounds to believe that your life or life of a third party is an imminent danger of death or grievous bodily harm and no less violent means available, like leaving or letting them walk away with a TV.

Ian Runkle: [00:10:55] Yeah. And you know, I, this one is always especially hard for farmers because you know, in my house, you know, a TV’s a valuable object. There’s various things, but you’d be hard pressed to walk out with more than say a few thousand dollars worth of stuff. Um, you know, vehicle, you’re probably getting into the five digits of, you know, but they’re old cars. I’m not, I’m not the sort of guy who likes to roll around in a Mercedes. That’s never been me. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:22] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:11:23] But you know, you get onto a farm property and you’re talking about six-figure pieces of farm equipment that somebody might be stealing or damaging in the course of stealing it. You know, somebody going out there with, you know, an all to steal or with some sort of drill to steal gas out of a big piece of farm equipment, uh, might be costing a huge amount of damage.

[00:11:47] And if he takes that equipment out of line, uh, before a key portion of, you know, the season that could ruin somebody, right? It’s, you know, harvest, you’ve got a narrow window if somebody taking your equipment out. So these get to be hard considerations, but the law doesn’t typically weigh money, very highly, they weigh life.

[00:12:11] And so I might not say necessarily weapon, although a weapon is a, a sort of major factor, but like credible threat to life or the like, because somebody may not need a weapon for that.  

Travis Bader: [00:12:27] True. 

Ian Runkle: [00:12:28] Um, you know, if you’ve got somebody who’s built, you know, they’re an MMA fighter sort of build, uh, they may not have a weapon, but if you are 80 years old and this guy is going to come and lay a pummelling on you just with fists and boots, uh, you could very well die from that right. That’s and so there’s size considerations at play there’s age considerations, gender, build, all of these things. 

[00:12:50] Training, if you’re aware of it, you know, it might be that somebody you’ve had a dispute with somebody online, they show up at your house and you know, this guy is, you know, serious ex-military and you’re not, you know, that may weigh into it right. You know, are you going to win a hand-to-hand transaction? And what kind of damage are you likely to sustain? Because the court doesn’t want to see lethal force used, unless there’s a risk of you being killed or seriously, seriously, injured. You know, not just this is going to hurt, but this may affect you going on, you know, in future.

[00:13:29] So, but the real simple rule of thumb is just if you’ve got other options. And frankly, if you’re still thinking about this question, like if this question of, can I shoot this guy is really even something that could enter into your head. The answer should be no, you know, find another solution. Um, the times when sort of it tends to be more justified are somebody’s charging you with a weapon and you don’t have time for this kind of introspection.

[00:13:58] It’s just going to happen. And yeah, I really wish I could give a simple answer to this one, but there just isn’t a simple answer other than, even if you win, you’re going to hate the result. So if at the point where you’d be okay with spending the rest of your life in jail pulling that trigger, that’s probably the point where you start to hit uh, legal justifications. Uh, because otherwise, you know, you’re talking about somebody crippling you or, uh, you know, or murdering you. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:30] Wow. Thank you. Yeah, like I say, not an easy one at all. 

Ian Runkle: [00:14:35] No, it’s, uh, it’s one of the more complicated and difficult areas of, you know, of law and it’s always going to come down to arguments, um, sometimes over really subtle things. You know, did the guy actually start to charge forward when you pulled the trigger or was he just standing there?

[00:14:54] Um, did he have a knife versus not? Uh, sometimes people think they see a knife and they don’t. Um, so that becomes a thing because mistakes are relevant, you know? And the question of how sure am I about this, is a good question to ask. I will tell you you’re in a much better situation in terms of a self-defence argument. If that guy has a knife versus if you’re like, well, I thought he had a knife, but he didn’t. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:22] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:15:23] You know, um, all of these get to be interesting questions and, um, and the crown tends to be very willing to proceed with charges in these. Uh, I just recently did a video where a woman who, uh, she was apparently beaten quite badly, you know, broken ribs could barely breathe.

[00:15:42] Uh, she manages to get ahold of a knife in the course of this altercation and stabs the guy once in the leg and he dies and, but she had serious injuries and she was almost certainly smaller than this guy was, you know, and this guy, you know, has a record, all of this stuff. They still charged her with murder. They didn’t proceed with the charges to trial, but she spent a month in jail. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:07] Wow. 

Ian Runkle: [00:16:09] You know, and think about you as an ordinary person. Like what does a month in jail do? Um, your job, they’re not going to stick around with you, you know, for a month while you’re facing murder charges, you’re, it doesn’t matter how much your boss likes you. They don’t like you that much. They will drop. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:28] Your social network, the gossip. 

Ian Runkle: [00:16:30] Yeah. Well, and I mean, you know, that’ll get reported in the news as well. So any time anybody looks you up, which employers do all the time, they’re going to see murder charge. That’ll be a big thing. Um, your, your, you know, your landlord, probably not so keen on you missing a month of rent.

[00:16:52] So lots of people sort of get out in a situation like this and they find that their life is entirely destroyed. You know, hey, you’ve got bail on murder. Um, your friends don’t want to talk to you, your job isn’t going to take your phone calls. They’re telling you you’re banned from the site. Um, your landlord has evicted you and thrown your stuff in a dumpster. You know, so. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:16] Massive.  

Ian Runkle: [00:17:17] Yeah, lots of people are like. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:18] Life altering. 

Ian Runkle: [00:17:20] Hey, I won in the self-defence case, but I ended up homeless for awhile. That kind of thing. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:25] Yeah. Good point. So we have another person who says that they own firearms that have been prohibited by the recent ordering council prohibition that they’re moving. And they’ve asked for an authorization to transport, but the firearms program, isn’t giving them an ATT for that. I don’t know if this is typical or just happens, is this one individual, but they want, yeah. 

Ian Runkle: [00:17:50] Sometimes people are being able to get ATTs. Often the CFO is saying, no, you don’t need one. Uh, we’re not going to give you one. Um, really, if you can try to press them to give you an ATT anyway, because the circumstance that may come up is let’s say you’re moving and the police say, Hey, you’ve got this firearm, it’s a restricted firearm, or it’s a prohibited firearm, where’s your ATT? 

[00:18:16] Um, you can’t show one and they go, great, you’re in custody while we figure out the ins and outs of the order and counsel, um, there’s actually an amnesty order that went with it. And one of the things that it provides for is transporting a firearm to where it’s going to be stored, pending whatever disposition.

[00:18:34] So that would, would seem to include moving. You know, if you’re moving house, you obviously can’t leave it there, but I you’re going to want it to read the amnesty order very carefully. Because one of the things that says is can’t be in a vehicle with, ammunition. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:51] Hmm. 

Ian Runkle: [00:18:51] Now most people who are moving, are moving everything all at once.

Travis Bader: [00:18:55] Right.

Ian Runkle: [00:18:55] You write a big moving truck, you throw all your stuff in there. And I don’t know anybody who doesn’t, who shoots, who doesn’t have at least some ammunition on hand at all times. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:05] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:19:05] Right. Because if you decide, Hey, I want to go to the ranch. You want to be able to just grab your ammo and go, you know, the gun store is not always open. And you know, often if I’m going to the range, it’s like 8:00 AM head off to the range, spend the day shooting. Uh, you don’t want to go 8:00 AM drive to the gun store, pick up ammunition, drive home, pick up your restricted’s. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:29] Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. 

Ian Runkle: [00:19:30] So, um, this whole thing of you’re driving your prohibited firearms. They can’t be in the same truck as the ammunition. You’ve got to make some separate trip. And for some people, this has been a big deal. I’ve talked to people who were like, listen, I’m moving from British Columbia to Manitoba. What do you mean I got to take two trucks?

Travis Bader: [00:19:54] Yes. 

Ian Runkle: [00:19:55] It’s a terrible amnesty, it’s was really poorly thought out. Um, honestly, as with a lot of these things, it seems like they don’t have anybody in the room. Who might be affected by these things or who even, you know, has experience with shooting, who could say, wait a minute guys, what about this problem? So, um, it is possible to move them without the ATT.

[00:20:22] Um, you will, however want to make sure that you are careful in reading the amnesty. The other thing is if you own some of these firearms that are prohibited by the OIC, you may also own other restricted firearms. In which case, like, what is the harm of them adding the prohibited firearm to the ATT. You know, oh we’re listing 10 firearms that you’re moving, but we’re not going to list that 11th one.

Travis Bader: [00:20:48] I know. I think there, there might be a fear that they’re getting trapped into something by legitimizing it by issuing an ATT. I don’t know. 

Ian Runkle: [00:20:57] Yeah. I don’t know either, it’s. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:58] It doesn’t make sense. 

Ian Runkle: [00:20:59] It’s unnecessary. But just having that piece of paper can protect you from an officer who doesn’t necessarily follow the law. You know, I am not always the hugest fan of police, but I recognize that most police aren’t trying to be bad guys. There’s very few police out there who are like, I am a bad guy. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:19] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:21:20] What there’s a lot of is police who are trying their best to deal with a giant catastrophe of laws. Um, you know, they, haven’t gone to law school. They’ve taken a much shorter course, and that course includes all the other things in policing. You know, how to deal with evidence, how to talk a guy down. If he’s looking like he’s going to be violent, how to use force, if he’s being violent, um, you know how to talk to a grieving widow, how to talk, you know, all of these things are in policing.

[00:21:54] And so they only get a little bit of the law and they can’t, they don’t have time to follow up with all of the developments because you know, something like the order in council comes up. Well, they’ve got paperwork to report that, you know, what happened on that file, where they went and somebody’s dog bit somebody else, you know, they got write down a report about this noise complaint.

[00:22:17] They got it, you know, all of these things. So they just, they’re trying their best. But they may not understand what’s going on. And so they may see prohibited firearm, no ATT, uh, and you might get it sorted out, but you might get it sorted out like six hours from then. And you know, when you think you’re trying to move across the country and six hours you were spending in a cell. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:43] No, thank you. So make it easy for them, make it easy for them. 

Ian Runkle: [00:22:46] Yeah. I would love to see the, uh, I mean, even if the CFO would do something like just, here’s a letter on our letterhead that we’ll fax you saying, we are aware this person is moving. This firearm here is why they don’t have an ATT. Please present this to any officer. And here’s a number to call us if there’s a problem. Something like that would make people’s lives easier, but they, I’m not aware of anything like that so. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:13] You know, uh, running a firearms business for quite some time now and dealing with the firearms program and you’re getting a different answer from five different people if you phone five times on the same day, I started just requesting emails. Can you just email me? Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:23:31] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:31] And you know, sometimes they do sometimes. Yeah, not a problem, I’ll give you an email. Here’s a, here’s a response. Um, I know some people will record their conversation just as something in their back pocket that they have. And I think with a single party consent law, that’s a permissible. But I agree having a piece of paper or something unofficial letterhead, man, that’d be a good, easy, wouldn’t it? 

Ian Runkle: [00:23:53] Yeah. Just something where you can present it to them and say, you know, cause saying, hey, I talked to this Runkle guy and here’s what he said.

Travis Bader: [00:24:01] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:24:01] Well, the officer doesn’t know me and doesn’t care and quite possibly, he doesn’t like me if he does know. So, you know, it’s uh. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:11] C’mon now. 

Ian Runkle: [00:24:13] Well, I mean, police have varying opinions of defence lawyers. There’s lots of police out there who will say like, you know, if I get in trouble, I want a good defence. Uh, we recognize that we’re all parts of the system and so forth.

[00:24:25] And we may have individuals that we don’t like, or that they do like better. Um, but there’s some officers and there’s some defence lawyers, you know, who just don’t like the other side right. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:37] Yeah, I’ve seen that. 

Ian Runkle: [00:24:39] And so you never know, right? It’s uh, I will say, you know, if I’m being stopped by the police at a traffic stop, I don’t go, hey, I’m a criminal defence lawyer.

Travis Bader: [00:24:49] Keep that little tidbit to yourself.

Ian Runkle: [00:24:52] But, uh, yeah, you never know what they’re going to think of, hey, I talked to a lawyer and this is what they said. Um, it’s not going to be a whole lot of value.

Travis Bader: [00:25:04] Next. 

Ian Runkle: [00:25:05] Oh, sorry. Go ahead. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:06] No problem. I was just saying the next one we have here is one that I’ve actually seen a video on, on your channel and we’ll make sure we link that over as well. Actually a number of them on the list here, but I’ve heard this question over and over again.

[00:25:20] And it’s about, is my firearm considered loaded if I have, let’s say a side saddle or a little sleeve or sock on the, on the stock where I can put ammunition in storage, is that considered loaded? 

Ian Runkle: [00:25:33] And this is one of these things where it’s, I can’t give a 100% answer, however I can give a, a pretty good answer. One that I’m pretty confident in, but the court could go the other way. Um, now interestingly, there isn’t actually a definition of loaded in the appropriate regulations. There’s a definition of unloaded. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:53] Okay. 

Ian Runkle: [00:25:53] So firearm has to be unloaded. And presumably that means not anything other than this definition, but it says in respect of a firearm means that any propellant, projectile, or cartridge that can be discharged from the firearm is not contained in the breach or firing chamber of the firearm, nor in the cartridge magazine attached to or inserted into the firearm.

[00:26:15] Now, in terms of a sidesaddle, a sidesaddle isn’t typically considered a cartridge magazine because the cartridge magazine is something that feeds into the sort of the firing path. And I’m just trying to see if I can pull up the actual definition of cartridge magazine here, but. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:34] Generally.

Ian Runkle: [00:26:35] Like a side saddle doesn’t feed into the firearm, except possibly by action of your hand. And if we’re including action of your hand in the whole equation there, then everything is a cartridge magazine because your pocket, you can, you know, a side saddle just like your pocket. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:53] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:26:54] And if every container is a cartridge magazine, then we end up into a horrible land of everything in the world is bad. I got a bag of chips here. 

Travis Bader: [00:27:05] Cartridge magazine. 

Ian Runkle: [00:27:07] If we’re going to consider, you know, operation of the hand to be, I could fit a whole lot of .22, you know, cartridges. You know,.308, .223, whatever you want to talk about. Certainly, you know, more than 10, more than five. So is this a prohibited device? I can’t see the court ever wanting to get into that scenario.

Travis Bader: [00:27:29] Yeah, that gets pretty, pretty crazy, pretty quick, doesn’t it? 

Ian Runkle: [00:27:32] Yeah. And so they say cartridge magazine means a device or container from which ammunition may be fed into the firing chamber of a firearm. Uh, I would sort of say that the proper interpretation of that would be by action of the firearm, which, you know, you moving a bolt would count.

[00:27:49] Um, these, uh, semiautomatic action would count. Uh, but not you physically moving it a cartridge with your hands. Um, now I can’t say that for certain, because a court could say could go in some weird direction, but if they do, they’re going to enter into crazy town land where we suddenly banned you know, backpacks and Ziploc bags and all sorts of things.

Travis Bader: [00:28:15] And there’s going to be a YouTube video all about that. If they go over there, I’m sure. 

Ian Runkle: [00:28:19] Oh it would just be like, they have really screwed up. But, uh, the other sort of interesting question is, let’s say you’ve got yourself a cartridge magazine and you know, I’ll show the pin just in case the RCMP is watching, pinned magazine here folks, not a, not an unpinned. 

[00:28:36] Um, but let’s say you take this and you decide to duct tape it to your firearm. Would that count as attached to or inserted into the firearm? A court could say yes, on a very technical reading, I’d say the proper interpretation, and one that I’d hope a court would go with would be to say no.

[00:28:56] When they say attached to are inserted into, they mean in a way, uh, it seems clear to me on reading this, that they mean in a way where it’s actually completing the firing path. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:06] Mhmm, yeah I’d think so. 

Ian Runkle: [00:29:08] But I mean, I also have like a 10/22 with a backpacker stock that has a little compartment that opens up where you can store magazines.

Travis Bader: [00:29:16] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:29:17] That’s into the firearm, but it’s not into the firearm in a way that allows for firing or feeding or the like, so. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:25] What a quagmire. 

Ian Runkle: [00:29:26] I think, I think properly a court should interpret this as unloaded, but I put that at like 80% in terms of if that question ends up in front of a court. Um, so yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:39] Definitely, maybe, I love it.

Ian Runkle: [00:29:42] Yep. It’s that’s the situation we end up with a lot, um, side settles, I’d say like 95%. Um, yeah, 95% sure that the court would find it to be fine. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:57] Well, next one was about loaded firearms in a vehicle. Of course you can’t have a loaded firearm in a vehicle in Canada, but what about, let’s say your doing some target shooting or your hunting, and you wanted to use the hood of your vehicle as a steady rest.

Ian Runkle: [00:30:13] So this is going to depend on your province and you’re going to have to read your provincial regulations because lots of them have different rules. In some provinces, for instance, um, discharging a firearm within X many meters of a vehicle, is itself an offence. And so it isn’t the fact that you’re using it as a rest. In fact, if you were using a rock next to the vehicle as a rest, they’d still go after you. Um, but. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:39] Interesting. 

Ian Runkle: [00:30:40] Some places say things like not inside or on a vehicle and what they meet, what they’re probably trying to capture in terms of the, on a vehicle is like somebody who’s riding in the bed of a truck.

Travis Bader: [00:30:54] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:30:55] But the on seems to me that it would probably capture using it as a rest. I can’t sort of give a, a blanket answer here because we got a whole lot of provinces. I haven’t even read all of the different provinces hunting rules, but check your regulations real carefully. Um, you don’t want to mess with fish and wildlife.

[00:31:15] They actually tend to have some pretty giant fines available to them. And so you get people going, you know, what do you mean the fish and wildlife guys want 20 grand in fines. And it’s like, well, that’s what they’re asking for. People may get lesser fines than that, but they tend to come in asking for real high numbers.

Travis Bader: [00:31:36] Yeah. And they got teeth too. They seem to be able to get what they’re asking for. 

Ian Runkle: [00:31:40] They have a lot of powers of searching. And so they’ll often get warrants to say like, hey, we want to go and look through somebody’s house, looking for, you know, any poached animals and those kinds of things. So, um, you never really want to be on the receiving end of a home search. They’re very stressful. They’re very invasive and yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:01] Okay. Well, what about the next one talking about replica firearms and this person’s a little bit confused over what a replica firearm might be. 

Ian Runkle: [00:32:08] So replica firearms currently are basically things that closely resemble with near precision an actual firearm, but are not themselves firearms. And when I say actual firearm, I mean, something that really exists in the world. So if you design something that, uh, looks like, um, you know, some fictional like the, uh, the rifle from halo say.

[00:32:34] You know, which is a firearm that doesn’t exist, it’s a fictional item. So if you have something that replicates that, you’re not looking at a replica firearm, because it’s not a real firearm. Um, even though it might look like it could be a firearm, you know, you can design something that looks like it. You know, that looks like a handgun, but so long as it doesn’t look like a handgun that actually exists in the world. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:00] Okay. 

Ian Runkle: [00:33:00] It’s going to be fine. Um, near precision is, gets to be a matter of debate, you know, what does that mean? Although the courts in terms of import rules have said like colour probably isn’t enough to do it.

[00:33:13] Um, but like size might be, uh, there’s all sorts of things that factor into it, including, you know, coloration, size. Um, does it have moving parts? Does it have branding on it? Um, does it, uh, does it have the same sort of weight? Does it have, you know, all of these sorts of things and it ends up being kind of a judgment call.

Travis Bader: [00:33:36] Okay. 

Ian Runkle: [00:33:37] But, uh, the not a firearm part is kind of critical here because most people don’t understand what firearm means. There’s two sort of steps of gun. Step one is, can it shoot a projectile through a barrel that can cause serious bodily injury or death? So pellet guns and airsoft guns and paintball guns are all firearms under this definition because they can put your eye out. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:01] Right.

Ian Runkle: [00:34:01] We, we really have the, put your eye out test in Canada, but a lot of these things are what I call 84 sub three firearms, which means you don’t need a license for them. And they don’t count as a firearm for certain purposes of the criminal code, but they do for other purposes of the criminal code. And it’s very complicated.

[00:34:22] So, um, this is why a nail gun, for instance, doesn’t count as a firearm, you know, when you’re going to the Home Depot to buy one, but it would count as a firearm if you were to use it to rob a convenience store, you know. Or if you actually go and, you know, drive nails into somebody that would be, you know, using a firearm on the person, discharging a firearm with intent to wound, kind of thing so. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:51] Okay. 

Ian Runkle: [00:34:52] Um, yeah. So airsoft guns, you know, currently, although the government is trying to change this, uh, airsoft governance currently avoid being called replicas because they are actually firearms. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:05] Right. They can discharge a projectile, they got a barrel and it can cause bodily harm. Ralphie and Randy must have written that one, I tell ya. 

[0 Ian Runkle: [00:35:15] Uh, just complicated laws and working in ways that maybe people didn’t expect. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:21] I remember picking up some, uh, ASP, uh, training guns. It just rubber basically. And they’re, they’re bright red and being told at one point that those are replica firearms and there’s some debate over it. Eventually we got them all and everyone agreed that they probably aren’t replica firearms, but it, it seems to be something that comes up and down over the years, what’s replica and what isn’t. And that’s, uh, uh, the points you raised are interesting. 

Ian Runkle: [00:35:48] Uh, well, and I get, uh, sometimes people who are, uh, uh, so they do leather work for instance. And so they want to import like blue guns, right. Just, you know, they don’t want an actual gun, but they want to be able to make a holster for a particular gun. You know, a customer says, I have this gun, I want a holster for it.

[00:36:10] And the leather workers, like I don’t shoot, I don’t have any interest in it. Please don’t send me the gun. But they look at ordering, you know, a blue gun to match the shape just so that they can, you know, craft the leather holster around it, which often involves like soaking and pressing and, you know, forming.

Travis Bader: [00:36:27] Yep. 

Ian Runkle: [00:36:28] And, uh, you know, and you might not want w wet leathers sitting against your, you know, precious gun. So sometimes these get seized at the border, not withstanding the fact that, you know, when I say blue gun, they’re named this because they are bright blue. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:44] That’s right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:36:45] And you know, when you’re looking at them sort of front on, they don’t have like a, they’ve got sort of a barrel protrusion, but it’s solid. You know, if somebody’s pointing a gun at me and I’m looking at it and it’s bright blue and there’s no actual hole in the barrel, I’m kind of thinking I’m not super concerned. Maybe they’ll hit me with it and that would hurt. But, um, you know, I’m not thinking that they’re going to shoot me with this thing, but sometimes those get seized.

Travis Bader: [00:37:15] Well, what about, okay, I’m looking at the next two questions and I’m thinking that they might be even easier to answer just by pointing people over to your YouTube channel for the next two, which is what’s happening with the ordering council fires prohibition. And the next one after that is what are the main points of concern regarding the proposed BC firearms law?

Ian Runkle: [00:37:36] So the OIC prohibition is currently a, there’s a court battle going on on that one. It’s a civil case. And so the civil cases tend to last just about forever. Um, they asked for an injunction against the order in council being in effect, um, that was not granted, which is not terribly surprising. And injunction is a, an extraordinary remedy.

[00:37:59] Um, that’s sort of the language of the court. It’s an unusual remedy. There might be a better, there might be a reapplication on that. I can’t say for certain, um, when, and if the amnesty starts looking like it’s going to run out, because then you might start talking about, you know, about additional harms, but that one’s going to be locked in court for a while.

[00:38:22] Main points of concern regarding the BC proposed  firearms law. Oh man, there’s a whole lot of these. Um, one of the big ones is basically that they want to reimplement a lot of the criminal code provisions. And they want to do so in slightly different language. So what that means is you end up with two slightly different wordings that you have to comply with both.

[00:38:45] And that becomes a big problem. Um, in some cases it may be very difficult to travel legally with, uh, with your airsoft guns, um, is, may end up shutting down a number of fields and so forth. There’s a whole lot of issues, but I think I did several videos on this so. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:04] Yeah, you did. 

Ian Runkle: [00:39:04] Kind of a, this one is going to be a bit of a longer one that I, you know, that I can say. I’m just, the problem is really that they’re trying to reimplement a lot of the firearm laws and they missed certain critical exceptions. And that means that as a result of it, the whole law doesn’t do what they need it to do. Um, there’s a big place where they use firearm and what they mean is like real steel, you know, your .223, your .308, but they don’t realize that that also includes airsoft.

[00:39:40] So it’s going to end, you know, pellet guns and so forth. So it’s going to end up causing a whole lot of problems I don’t think they meant to have or meant to include. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:51] Well, it seems to me that they’re just going to create loophole city here. If they have two competing laws or legislation or regulation. 

Ian Runkle: [00:40:00] The problem is, is that they’re not, um, they’re not sort of loopholes in the way that benefits anybody here. They’re loopholes in the sense of, uh, they can create ways where you might think you’re in compliance with the law, but you’re only in compliance with one out of two laws so. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:21] Okay. Um, brass knuckles. Okay. So brass knuckles are illegal, uh, why are carabiner’s and Eskimo Ulu, or scissors held backwards, not illegal?

Ian Runkle: [00:40:34] So, um, if we look at the criminal code, it’s got an interesting sort of provision for prohibited weapon. So primitive weapon is any sort of flick or gravity knife or anything like that, or any weapon other than a firearm that is prescribed to be a prohibited weapon. And so something, these things are not designed to be weapons and unless they’re being used as weapons, um, they’re not going to count as prohibited weapons simply because of that, not withstanding the fact that they may be very similar in design.

[00:41:06] Um, I found some things that are used as massage tools. And they’re actually basically like a metal band that fits over your hand and it’s intended for sort of rubbing. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:18] Okay. 

Ian Runkle: [00:41:19] But you could absolutely punch somebody in the face with it. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:22] Totally. 

Ian Runkle: [00:41:22] Um, similarly I found some things that were, uh, for climbing rigging, and they’re basically like a flat metal plate with a series of holes in it that would be in some sizes fit just fine in your fingers. And you know, they’re intended, you attach carabiners to them so that you can have one rope sort of splitting off to five. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:44] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:41:45] Um, but I’m looking at these things going, those are brass knuckles, but because they’re not designed as a weapon, they wouldn’t count. Um, the Ulu’s actually interesting because the Ulu isn’t sort of a, a flat metal bit, that’s like a blunt thing.

[00:42:01] It’s a, a sharp object and there’s actually a provision in the primitive weapons thing for uh, if you’ve got a blade that is perpendicular to the handle, but the Ulu is actually specifically excluded from that. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:17] Interesting. 

Ian Runkle: [00:42:17] So an Ulu is not covered by that, which I think is probably because they said, Hey, wait, Canada’s got Inuit and the Ulu is a traditional, you know, all purpose tool for the Inuits and I own one. They’re a fantastic, you never really realize how useful they can be until you have one. So I’m glad they were accepted. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:41] Well, it’s kind of weird because from my understanding, it’s only if they are made out of metal and they’re the brass knuckles. If you make them out of wood or carbon fiber or hard plastic. 

Ian Runkle: [00:42:53] Yeah. They phrase the law very weirdly. Um, so stone is fine, plastic is fine. You know, there’s all sorts of people with acrylic knuckles. Now, of course, the wrinkle to that is that Canada very much limits what you can do in terms of carrying weapons in the first place.

Travis Bader: [00:43:09] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:43:10] So possession of a weapon for purposes of dangerous for the public peace, which typically the most carrying of weapons, they will say falls into that category or carrying a concealed weapons. So there’s lots of people who are like, Hey, um, you know, the police arrested me and these are plastic knuckles. So they’re illegal. I’m like, yes. 

[00:43:29] And the officer, you know, laid the charge of possession of prohibited weapon on you that one’s not going anywhere, but the carrying a concealed weapon and possession of weapon for purposes of dangerous in the public peace. And maybe in some cases, the assault with a weapon, all of those have legs. So you can own plastic knuckles if you just want to keep them on a shelf, because they’re an interesting curiosity. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:54] Stick ’em in your pocket. 

Ian Runkle: [00:43:55] If I ever. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:56] Nope. 

Ian Runkle: [00:43:57] If I ever sort of redesigning in terms of my recording space set up, I have an idea for setting up sort of shelves with, uh, with neat items. I might get some acrylic knuckles just to put them there on display as like, here’s the thing, but you wouldn’t want to carry them around. It’s a good way to get to yourself. Uh, it’s sort of the play stupid games side of things. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:24] Well, the next one’s, uh, the age old one about suppressors as safety equipment, like what would it take in Canada to have suppressors recognized as safety equipment, like in many other countries?

Ian Runkle: [00:44:35] Um, real long shot would be, um, so real long shot would be, uh, say if the court were to find that it was a, a charter violation on the basis of life, liberty, security the person. I don’t put good odds on that. I think that the court would likely say, ah, no. Um, more likely what this will take is a government that actually cares enough to do it. And it would be a little bit politically difficult because of course, uh, you know, once the, uh, once the government says, hey, uh, you know, we’re going to reverse this.

[00:45:18] The opposition parties are going to say, hey listen, um, you know, look at what they want to do. They want to, uh, you know, we’re going to have, you know, these ninja assassins on our streets. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:30] Same old game. 

Ian Runkle: [00:45:31] No we’re not.  

Travis Bader: [00:45:32] Same old game. 

Ian Runkle: [00:45:33] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:33] All right. Uh, what about, this was an interesting one, why are 32, .32 and .25 calibre handguns illegal when the law leaves out that decimal place and list 32 and 25 calibre without the decibel?

Ian Runkle: [00:45:51] Well, that one is largely because, um, it’s ultimately going to be, uh, the court is going to say, hey, this is what they meant in terms of that law. Um, there, to my knowledge, there aren’t any, you know, 32 calibre rifles out there.

Travis Bader: [00:46:09] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:46:09] Um, I, somebody could build one. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:12] Yep. 

Ian Runkle: [00:46:13] But it also talks about, you know, handguns in and nobody I think would want to shoot a 32 calibre handgun so yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:24] Yeah. That’d be a big honking handgun for sure. 

Ian Runkle: [00:46:27] Yeah. The .32 makes a lot more sense. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:32] Okay. Um, gun racks from the firearms act, it looks like gun racks are legal, provided a license PAL holder is in the vehicle and the non-restricted firearm is unloaded. Would there be charges for disturbing the public peace if he drove around with guns in a gun rack like that. And uh, it says, yeah, and if so, how could that act be disturbing? 

Ian Runkle: [00:46:58] Yeah. Well, um, so the criminal code provisions for a public peace, um, and I’m just sort of look, there’s two sort of things to worry about there. One is possession of weapon for, you know, purposes dangerous to the public peace. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:15] Okay. 

Ian Runkle: [00:47:15] Um, it really depends on why you were doing that. And, uh, so I don’t know that, uh, you know, that that would necessarily count, um, that to me, it’s, it really depends on why you’re doing it. Like if you loaded up a rifle in your gun rack and then drove to your ex’s house and, you know, with whom you were having an acrimonious relationship and hung out.

[00:47:44] Outside, you know, your ex’s house, just making sure she sees your rifles in the gun rack. I could absolutely see them charging you for that, but let’s say it’s hunting season and you’re driving around the back roads and you got a gun in the gun rack. I think that they’d have a very hard time making that case.

[00:48:01] So, um, we get into some edge cases though, where let’s say that you’re loading up your stuff to go to the back roads, but you live in downtown Toronto. And so you’re driving your truck out of downtown Toronto with a rifle and the gun rack and the cop pulls you over because you’re in downtown Toronto. I think that they would try to find anything they could to charge you with. Even if it didn’t stick. 

[00:48:27] Now, people sort of say, well, causing a disturbance, uh, that’s the appropriate sort of criminal code section here, uh, cause there’s possession of weapon for purposes of dangerous, the public piece that might. 

[00:48:40] Um, causing a disturbance wouldn’t and that’s because they have everyone who is not in a dwelling house, causes a disturbance by fighting screaming, shouting, swearing, singing, or using insulting or obscene language, by being drunk or impeding or molesting other persons. You’re not going to count under that or b. Openly exposes or exhibits an indecent exhibition in a public place.

[00:49:02] So if you’re playing porn out in public, that’s not going to cover it. Uh, loiters in a public place and in any way, obstructs persons who are in that place again, not going to cover it and d. Disturbs the peace and quiet of the occupants of the dwelling house by discharging firearms or other orderly conduct in a public place or various other things, not going to be covered by that.

[00:49:25] So it doesn’t cover all disturbances, it covers certain, very specific disturbances. Um, so there’s nothing inherently wrong with a gun rack. It’s also often not the best way to go about things. Um, for one thing. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:43] Situation dependant. 

Ian Runkle: [00:49:44] To note, you’re advertising a little more than you have to, then you need to, and, you know, criminals have been known to check out people’s cars to decide if they want to hit their house.

Travis Bader: [00:49:57] Sure. 

Ian Runkle: [00:49:57] And so, you know, if you’ve got a gun rack in the back of your car that tells them, hey, I got firearms here and lots of gun owners think, hey, you know, if the criminals know I have guns, they’re not going to break into my house. Not really because criminals always want to avoid you. They’re going to wait until you’re not at home.

Travis Bader: [00:50:14] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:50:14] And if you’ve got guns, you probably also have a day job. And so, you know, you’re not at home all the time, while you’re at work. Um, we always have this notion that criminals are breaking in at night, you know, in the cover of darkness, Very rarely.

Travis Bader: [00:50:32] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:50:33] When they like to work is during working hours, same time you’re at work because then you’re not at home.

Travis Bader: [00:50:41] Quite often, I’ve seen, uh, people looking a little sketchier than you think they would for what they’re trying to do, but they’re got a collared shirt on and a pair of jeans and carrying around and awake in a Watchtower and knocking door to door to see who opens up. And they got the cover of spreading the word. But if nobody opens and there’s a knock on the back door.

Ian Runkle: [00:51:02] I think most of those guys are, you know, Jehovah’s witnesses, but it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody had tried pretending to be one and wasn’t. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:10] I’ve seen a couple of those. 

Ian Runkle: [00:51:12] But I’ve seen people come up to my door and they’re just like, oh, does you know, does Joe live here? And it’s like, well, no, obviously you’re not going to random doors asking for Joe. Um, this very much seems to me to be a, you know, and then they’re going down to the next door. Like nobody goes door to door, looking for their friend, you know, I was like, this was somebody sketchy seeing if I was home. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:35] Yep. So, uh, is it true that there are some firearms that do not require a firearms license if they are antique?

Ian Runkle: [00:51:46] Yes. Um, so antique firearms, the general category of them, uh, don’t need a firearms license. You can buy them without one, but now people get confused on this. They confuse antique with old. And in fact, I’ve heard of at least one instance of an antique store owner who did not understand the distinction and sold an old gun that was not an antique gun. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:14] Oops. 

Ian Runkle: [00:52:15] And. Yeah. So, you know, I wasn’t involved in that file. It’s not a file that I was, you know, directly connected to, but I heard about it through sort of the grapevine and you know, that is a bad scenario. So you want to go and check your regulations very carefully. 

[00:52:34] Um, some antique firearms will come with a, like a certification from the chief firearms officer saying, hey, we’ve considered this one, it is a certified antique. That’s not actually necessary. Um, that’s just sort of them giving their opinion. And if they’re wrong on that, that’s actually on you, you know. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:54] Interesting. 

Ian Runkle: [00:52:56] And if, uh, if they’re right on that one, then, you know, great. But if you have a firearm where you don’t have that letter, but it actually meets the antique standards, you’re you’re good.

Travis Bader: [00:53:08] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:53:08] So there was actually a case, um, not long ago, I covered it on, in a video, but a guy who was sort of a bad dude, he’s involved in, you know, I think it was a drug trafficking stuff that they also found, but they wanted to convict him on possession of a handgun without a license. And they couldn’t because it was an antique firearm.

Travis Bader: [00:53:32] Interesting. 

Ian Runkle: [00:53:32] This guy either was the luckiest criminal on the planet or else the best researched criminal on the planet. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:38] He did some homework. 

Ian Runkle: [00:53:40] I mean, it may be, but I suspect he just lucked into this. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:44] Wow. That’s some, that’s some dumb luck for sure. 

Ian Runkle: [00:53:48] Well, maybe, you know, somebody’s stolen antique or, you know, the guy acquired it from somewhere else or whatever. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:56] So next one is going to interesting. It’s the, uh, Butler Creek 10/22 magazines. Person says it can’t be purchased in Canada anymore apparently due to a police  bulletin. Is this legal and what should be done if someone owns those magazines and these are the 25 round, uh, Butler Creek, mags. 

Ian Runkle: [00:54:16] So basically the police have taken the, uh, the view that because, uh, somebody possesses the, uh, or because these things also fit into the charger pistol that they’re designed for the charger pistol, even ones that were actually manufactured before the charger pistol was an idea.

[00:54:38] So they say, you know, because of that, they’re saying, oh, well that limits them to, to 10. Um, I have some issues with this interpretation. However, I wouldn’t own one of these. And the reason why is because as much as I have some issues with this interpretation, until a court sorts it out these are very legally perilous things to have, because let’s say you’re found with one and they decided to charge you.

[00:55:07] It could cost you a whole pile of money. Now, typically what’s happened is, um, they don’t really want Joe average, who has one of these magazines to, to be the poster child for running this. So I’ve seen a number of cases where they’ve arrested people who’ve had these and the case ends up getting resolved for, we’re not giving you your magazines back, but we’re also dropping the charges.

[00:55:32] Don’t expect that to be the case though, because there’s no reason why they couldn’t say we’re going to trial on this. You know, it’s going to cost you a whole and defending this properly, like mounting a proper argument on this one is going to be expensive. You’re going to need expert witnesses. You’re going to need, um, historical evidence.

[00:55:52] You’re going to need all of these things. Like, you know, uh, bringing in patents, for instance, would be highly relevant here. You know, the patent for this magazine predates the charger pistols existence. Um, are we talking about time machines? 

[00:56:10] I don’t like the argument they’re making, but getting into a legal fight with the RCMP is much expensive. And we’ll also, you know, they’re playing like their stakes in terms of this is if they lose, nobody is out anything. 

Travis Bader: [00:56:29] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:56:30] If you lose and you’re running this, um, your stakes are you get a firearm ban, you lose all your guns. You might see jail time. This is playing a game at the world’s worst casino. 

Travis Bader: [00:56:43] Hmm. Good point. Uh, okay, this next one is kind of interesting. Why can I legally load more than 10 9mm rounds in a Glock 22 magazine and shoot it in my 9mm Glock, but I’d be breaking the law if I loaded more than 10 in a Glock 17 magazine. 

Ian Runkle: [00:57:04] So this is sort of the interesting wrinkle of the cartridges of the type for which it is designed.

Travis Bader: [00:57:10] Okay. 

Ian Runkle: [00:57:10] So, um, I own a SIG P226, and if you get the 40 calibre magazine for that, uh, it will hold slightly more than 10 cartridges of 9mm. And in fact it feeds 9mm, just fine, but because that magazine is designed for the 40 calibre cartridge, it’s allowed to hold 10 40 calibre rounds. So it’s all of this is that the law was designed fairly terribly. 

[00:57:42] Um, there’s all sorts of ways that they could have designed it much more sensibly, but they didn’t. And I mean, that’s just the long and short of it. 

Travis Bader: [00:57:54] Is what it is. 

Ian Runkle: [00:57:56] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:57:56] Perfect. So here’s one about an ATC or an authorization to carry person says why won’t the RCMP issue an authorization to carry for protection of life, the legal framework exists, but it seems illusory. 

Ian Runkle: [00:58:12] And I mean, it really kind of is because we say that this is available, but they grant it to just about nobody. There’s like a handful in existence at any given time. Um, you could count them on the fingers of a very clumsy carpenter. So yes, give, they won’t usually give straight answers about how many there are, where they are. 

[00:58:36] They will never give straight answers about who they are. Um, so we have theories that, you know, there are various connected people. But one of the elements of this is basically uh, that they have to certify the police protection is not sufficient. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:50] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [00:58:50] Well, when they put in the test, basically, can you get the police to sign off that they are not able to do their jobs? You know, how often. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:59] It’s not going to happen. 

Ian Runkle: [00:58:59] Does that happen? Right. You know, it’s like asking a carpenter, hey, listen, I need you to put it in writing that you do not know how to build a house.

Travis Bader: [00:59:08] Right. It’s not going to happen. 

Ian Runkle: [00:59:10] Yeah. So absent very unusual circumstances. They’re just, they’re going to say no. We’re good enough. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:18] I remember  many moons back. We had an individual who was applying for the ATC and went through training with us. He made it pretty far up into a point where the firearms program turned around and delayed it for quite some time. Then he came back, says, okay, tell you what, we’ll give it to you, here’s your last hurdle you have to go through. 

[00:59:38] We want the chief of police in your area to sign this letter saying that police protection is not adequate. And he says, well, what if I just get it from a police officer? Nope. It’s gotta be from the chief in, in your area saying, police protection’s not adequate. And of course, no, chief’s gonna sign off on that. 

[00:59:56] And what do they say, when seconds count, the police are minutes away, but apparently afterwards, one of the firearms officers told this fellow, he’s like, you know, you had us go in there for a bit. And I think you’re one of the closest that you’ve been able to get to get an, an ATC, which is a little telling if that actually was what was relayed over to the mindset of, of the issue.

Ian Runkle: [01:00:17] Yeah. I mean, it’s basically just impossible. 

Travis Bader: [01:00:20] It’s a game. 

Ian Runkle: [01:00:21] Yeah. So, I mean, they say it’s available, but the standards they apply to it are just so far out there that, uh, nobody succeeds. 

Travis Bader: [01:00:32] Fair enough. Uh, why are some knives illegal to import, but not illegal to own in Canada? 

Ian Runkle: [01:00:40] So there’s a lot of knives that, uh, basically the CBSA imposes a fairly restrictive view of what’s coming, you know, but the problem is that they don’t seem to apply these same standards to, you know, nice stores or big corporations, because there are some knives that are actually pretty much, you know, I can’t see a way that they would be legal to own in Canada, but you can get them at Home Depot.

[01:01:06] And I have seen people charged over these where, you know, they say, hey, I got this knife at, you know, Home Depot, why is this prohibited? And it’s like, well, because it is. Like, you know, and so you end up arguing, you know, on sentencing or something. Hey, listen, he got this at Home Depot, you know, we’ve got his credit card statement.

[01:01:28] Here’s where it shows that he bought it there. You know, this guy shouldn’t be punished or at least not punished very strongly, but it’s weird. And I mean, I think the solution to that is really to stop worrying so much about what style of knife it is. 

Travis Bader: [01:01:46] Hmm. 

Ian Runkle: [01:01:46] It’s weird that I can own a, you know, a big machete. Cause of course you can right there, there, excellent yard work tools. I’ve got a couple of, uh, kukri’s rather than machetes, but when I go to do yard work and I need to trim back a tree 100%, like. 

Travis Bader: [01:02:04] Yeah. 

Ian Runkle: [01:02:04] It is the thing to use, but you can’t own a little tiny knife that flicks open. And, you know, when you think about it, there’s all sorts of circumstances where these things make sense to have um, if you’re doing anything that is fiddly, it’s really nice. If you can have a knife that opens one handed. 

Travis Bader: [01:02:25] Totally. 

Ian Runkle: [01:02:26] Uh, you know, or if you’re up on a ladder, for instance, you know, you want your, your gripping on, you need a knife, you can open the knife and then, you know, use the knife. You know, having to use two hands when you’re up on a ladder is not necessarily the greatest thing.

[01:02:42] Um, you know, if you’re off doing all sorts of things, there’s just times when you don’t want to have to, you know, to fiddle with it. They’re always, you know, they’re thinking of like, you know, fifties era, you know, movies of like, you know, sharks versus jets and people pulling out their switchblades. Well, I’m sorry, you know, the, the switchblades, aren’t the main concern at this point?

Travis Bader: [01:03:08] No. 

Ian Runkle: [01:03:09] So but our laws are really based with a whole lot of, uh, you can see that they had fear of like fifties era gangsters and that they had fear of, you know. 

Travis Bader: [01:03:21] Those greasers. 

Ian Runkle: [01:03:22] Yep. Well, and the, uh, you know, and ninjas, there’s a big worry. 

Travis Bader: [01:03:28] Ninja’s yes. 

Ian Runkle: [01:03:28] About ninja’s in our law. 

Travis Bader: [01:03:30] Stealth assassins. Yeah. 

Ian Runkle: [01:03:31] Yup. So, I mean, a lot of these rules just, they don’t make any sense. That’s uh, I wish I could say that I had a good reason for it.

Travis Bader: [01:03:41] I got to wait. I’m just trying to remember back to like grade 12 physics here, but a flick knife is something that’s supposed to open with centrifugal force, right? 

Ian Runkle: [01:03:51] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:03:52] Well, isn’t centrifugal force an implied force and I’d have to look this up, but I think centripetal force would be the force that would actually open that knife. I wonder if. 

Ian Runkle: [01:04:01] Yeah, the uh, I mean, without getting into the physics arguments about one versus the other, the court is going to understand what this means. Right. 

Travis Bader: [01:04:08] Totally. 

Ian Runkle: [01:04:09] Understand what is intended. The really weird thing about that is that it’s determined by how hard you can flick something. And so the courts had to grapple with just how hard is that because like I could build a machine that could probably flick the blade off of a fixed blade knife, you know, that could just spin it and then stop fast enough that the fixed blade knife blade would be sheered off by the forces.

[01:04:37] Um, you know, if we’re talking about machine assistance, that there is no knife that opens that can’t be opened by that means because, you know, you could put tremendous force on things with that.

Travis Bader: [01:04:48] It’s limitless. Yeah. 

Ian Runkle: [01:04:50] You know, you fire it into a centrifuge. Did you put a hard brake on it, you’re going to. 

Travis Bader: [01:04:54] It’ll open. 

Ian Runkle: [01:04:55] Yup. It’ll open or it might shatter into pieces, but if it survives, it’ll open.

Travis Bader: [01:05:00] Yeah. 

Ian Runkle: [01:05:01] Um, so they’ve said it as the standards of a person has to do it. So basically you got to find a human being who will open it. Well, they’ve said it doesn’t matter which person, you know, you can go and shop around for a really strong person. 

[01:05:16] Well, I’m sitting here, you know, I’ve, I’ve got skinny arms. I am not, you know, a bodybuilder. I’m not what, so I buy a knife and I’m trying to see, hey, is this knife legal? There’s only so much force I can, you know, impart on this knife to test it. 

Travis Bader: [01:05:33] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:05:34] And there’s methods that of flicking it. That’ll open it more reliably than others. And you know, I might not know these methods, so I might buy a knife and think it’s perfectly legal, but it turns out that the police force has a guy who is the strongest guy who they’ve specially trained to be their knife opening guy. It’s like, why is the standard for when a knife is legal, based on the arm of some dude I’ve never met. 

Travis Bader: [01:06:03] So arbitrary. 

Ian Runkle: [01:06:04] It’s like, you know, we’ve moved away from measurement systems based on some dead King’s thumb. But now, you know, in order to measure a knife’s legality, I need to find the strongest man on the planet and ask them to open my knife for me. I’m pretty sure he’d be tired of, you know, tired of fielding those requests that people were actually doing that. So it’s such a weird test. It makes no sense. 

Travis Bader: [01:06:32] Okay. Well, what would happen if someone used dog spray on a human in self-defence. 

Ian Runkle: [01:06:39] Now this one, you know, sometimes people say, hey, dog spray becomes a primitive weapon if you spray somebody with it, and that’s not the case. Um, if you spray a dog spray because it’s not designed for people and you gotta be careful because there are some dogs sprays that say works on dogs and also people, in which case it would be a prohibited weapon.

[01:07:00] Uh, but you know, let’s say, we assume that it’s just a strict dog spray or strict bear spray. Well, it doesn’t, it can’t transform into being a prohibited weapon in that sense. However, um, they will probably charge you for, you know, assault with a weapon, uh, possibly depending on the scenario, carrying a weapon, possession of weapon for purposes of dangerous of public peace, public carrying concealed weapon.

[01:07:26] Um, it really depends on the self-defence scenario, too. Like, let’s say you’re walking along and you know, some guy jumps out of the bushes and you spray him and you’re walking in a place where there’s lots of dogs and the police roll up. 

[01:07:40] They find this guy and he’s clawing at his eyes and, you know, which he probably isn’t cause the dog sprays aren’t that effective, but let’s say he’s really having a bad day. He has an asthma attack, he’s in the bushes and they find he’s got a kit with, you know, duct tape and bleach and you know, whatever else. 

Travis Bader: [01:07:57] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:07:58] Um, the police would probably say, you know what, we’re good. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:03] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:08:04] You know, we don’t need to proceed here, but I say only probably because I don’t know. Um, but it’s basically the same as if you use any weapon, you know, or any object, you know, if somebody broke in right now and I don’t know what to sort of grab, you know, maybe I ended up grabbing a glass or a bottle or something and heck I’ve got a.

Travis Bader: [01:08:28] How about that microphone right there? 

Ian Runkle: [01:08:31] Microphone might not work all that well, but hey, I got a jar of pickled onions. Well, if I threw that jar, it might do some damage. They could charge me with all sorts of things on that, you know, in terms of assault with a weapon. And so, I got a plastic skull back there maybe that will work. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:48] That’ll do some damage. Well, here’s the last one and it’s kind of an interesting one, is a zap strap or zip tie considered a legal, secure, locking device for a firearm?

Ian Runkle: [01:09:02] And this one is one secure locking device says that a device that can only be open to released by the use of an electronic, magnetic or mechanical key, or by setting the device in accordance with an alphabetical or numerical combination or that when applied to a firearm or sorry and that would apply to a firearm, prevents the firearm from being discharged. 

[01:09:23] So secure locking device, it doesn’t seem to qualify because it doesn’t have an electronic magnetic or mechanical key or a code. You know, you’d have to cut it off. And you might say, well, isn’t that better? Let’s say, you know, we’re envisioning not a plastic zip tie, but let’s say we envision like a strip of hardened steel and something where you actually, you know, you pull it tight and at the end of it, you drop a weld on it. So it’s, you know, even more tough. And let’s say this. 

Travis Bader: [01:09:56] Totally. 

Ian Runkle: [01:09:56] This steel is, you know, let’s say it’s a good quarter inch thick. You had to bend it physically with tools to block. The courts have said, basically, even if your storage is better, then the regulations, you still have to meet the regulations. 

Travis Bader: [01:10:13] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:10:14] So I do a video sort of talking about that a little bit, where I talked about John Wick’s firearm storage, where he’s got his guns buried under a concrete floor, and the case law suggests that’s probably not good enough. Now, if he takes that, wooden, you know, there’s a cheap sort of wooden box in there. Once he digs out the concrete, if he puts a padlock on that, he’s probably good even without the concrete. 

[01:10:39] But you know, this means that our laws are often very dumb. I, they’re designed badly, but, uh, the other thing that is always super ironic about this is that if you go to a courthouse and you see them dealing with firearms in court, um, one of the things the court doesn’t want to deal with is, you know, the actual, that one. So, you know, they don’t want to deal with a combination lock. 

Travis Bader: [01:11:12] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:11:12] Sorry my, uh, thing is hunting for, for focus here, because then they got to remember all these combinations or if they’re keys, they got to remember, where did we put our keys? 

Travis Bader: [01:11:22] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:11:23] And, you know, they want something that just comes in a bag of a hundred or 500 that they can just reuse. And you know, it doesn’t cost them a whole lot because think of how many, how much these would end up costing. You know, I’ve seen files with, you know, somebody brings in 75 rifles, these ain’t cheap, you know, and it adds up with a court. So let’s, so they don’t want that. So what do they use? Zip ties.

Travis Bader: [01:11:51] Interesting. 

Ian Runkle: [01:11:52] But the court has different exceptions that apply. Uh, nobody’s going to go and charge a clerk of the court for securing a firearm with a zip tie. 

Travis Bader: [01:12:03] That sounds like an interesting case law.

Ian Runkle: [01:12:06] Um, nobody would, no , like you would be, the police officer that wanted to, uh, to bring that would be mad. Like they’d just be completely insane. 

Travis Bader: [01:12:16] Just bonkers. 

Ian Runkle: [01:12:18] So, and I don’t think that they could make out that case in law, but, uh, ultimately the rules for the court, because lots of people say, of course it’s valid. I see them doing this in court all the time, of course that means it’s valid. Well, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to do what your house or on the way to the range, you’ve got different rules you’ve got to follow up. 

Travis Bader: [01:12:40] That’s a good point. 

Ian Runkle: [01:12:41] So. 

Travis Bader: [01:12:42] So unless they were able to get a zip tie that had some sort of a key that would open it up then. 

Ian Runkle: [01:12:47] Well, I mean, that’s basically what a cable lock is right? 

Travis Bader: [01:12:50] Right. Totally. 

Ian Runkle: [01:12:51] Sort of metal zip tie with a key. 

Travis Bader: [01:12:53] Totally. Interesting. So out of all of those questions that we’re asking, thank you very much, Ian. I mean, that’s a. 

Ian Runkle: [01:13:00] Oh happy to, these are always sort of fun questions they’re, it’s a, it’s a weird and fun area of the law. 

Travis Bader: [01:13:10] And I’m sure some of them you’ve been asked over and over again.

Ian Runkle: [01:13:14] Yep. And the other sort of thing I’ll do at this point is given my usual warning, don’t take any of this as legal advice because any of this stuff could expire as of when I’m done saying it. 

Travis Bader: [01:13:24] Right now.

Ian Runkle: [01:13:25] Um, and I mean, bill C-21 will change some of the things that are going on here. Um, all sorts of things can change really rapidly and your situation may be different sometimes. So it’s always best, if you’re looking at contemplating, you want to do something, talk to a lawyer that you can tell about your specific scenario, as opposed to general information about the law that I can give here.

[01:13:49] Um, I just don’t want somebody to be like, well, Runkle said this is fine. And it’s like, Hmm, no Runkle was asking some questions or answering some questions. I’m not your lawyer. 

Travis Bader: [01:13:58] We’re just discussing. 

Ian Runkle: [01:13:59] I’m a lawyer, not your lawyer. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:02] Well Ian, thank you very much for being on this Silvercore Podcast again. 

Ian Runkle: [01:14:07] Thank you for having me, as I said, it’s always a blast, so. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:10] I love it. All right. Well, let’s see. Um, that was pretty good. You had, well, you had some pretty interesting takes on a lot of these things and got me to look at things differently than I have before. And I like that. 

Ian Runkle: [01:14:26] Well, a lot of these are questions that I’ve sort of had to think about before. I mean, just about every, not all of these, but just about every one of these has in some fashion, uh, showed up in a criminal case somewhere.

Travis Bader: [01:14:39] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:14:39] Um, some of them are very niche cases that I don’t think, I don’t think are going to come up. I haven’t seen the side saddle one come up where somebody has been charged with that, for instance, but I’ve seen some really bad charges. Um, I saw somebody charged with possession of a firearm for something that was welded shut and like no portion of it moved. It had welds all through it. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:04] Wow.

Ian Runkle: [01:15:05] And it was just like, this is obviously not a gun. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:08] That didn’t stick did it? 

Ian Runkle: [01:15:10] No. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:10] No. 

Ian Runkle: [01:15:10] It did not. But, uh, yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:13] You know, I was wondering about the, so federal, provincial, municipal. Federal can make laws, provincial can make laws, municipal can make laws, but not one of those can make laws that can, uh, be less than the one above it. If I understand it correctly, correctly right? 

Ian Runkle: [01:15:29] Yeah, it’s, so this is getting into the issue of sort of federal paramountcy. And so what that means is basically where there’s two laws that are in conflict. Uh, and it’s a federal law and a provincial law and municipal laws are a subcategory of provincial law. Um, they’re sort of their own weird thing, constitutionally speaking, but, uh, the federal law trumps, however, most people sort of have a different idea of what conflict mean.

[01:15:59] So let’s say for instance, that the federal law says, um, you cannot transport a firearm by a vehicle period. And the provincial law says you can transport a firearm by vehicle only if you have, you know, a particular permit issued by the province. You know, this is pure hypothetical’s, these are not real laws.

[01:16:21] This is just, and people say, well, this is in conflict. Well, what the court would say is no, it’s not. It’s entirely possible for you to follow both laws. You just don’t drive your car, you know, with the, uh, with the firearm in it. And people say, well, what if it’s the opposite where the province is saying that you can’t drive the car at all?

[01:16:41] You know, can’t transport by vehicle at all. Still the same result. They’d say, listen, you know, not withstanding the fact that the federal government says, this is a requirement that you have a license. They don’t guarantee that you can, they just say it’s an offence to do so without a license. So now the province says it’s an offence to do so regardless, but you can certainly follow both laws just by not having a gun in the car.

[01:17:06] So that’s kind of its own. Uh, but let’s say you’ve got two things where you say, for instance, um, the federal government says you must do a particular thing. And the provincial government says, you must not do a provision or a particular thing. You know, there, you cannot follow both. 

Travis Bader: [01:17:28] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:17:29] And so they’d say, well, the federal government rule trumps.

Travis Bader: [01:17:33] Well in British Columbia, we’ve got provisions for disabled individuals to be able to hunt from a vehicle. 

Ian Runkle: [01:17:40] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:17:41] Which seems to me, if you’re hunting from a vehicle, wouldn’t that be less, loosening, a federal requirement saying you can’t have a loaded firearm in a vehicle. I don’t know. 

Ian Runkle: [01:17:54] The thing is is that they don’t really let the province, I mean, I had problems with this when I was in constitutional law because you know, when you’re sitting there and you’re envisioning, like, let’s say the federal government says you need a license to transport a vehicle or a firearm in a vehicle. And the provincial government says you can’t transport a firearm in a vehicle.

[01:18:14] Um, typically the way they’ve had, they will interpret that as just don’t transport a firearm in a vehicle. But to my mind, it seems like the federal government very much wants to make that possible. That’s their notion of how the law should work. But they don’t that isn’t typically how the courts have gone with it.

[01:18:31] Now these are not typically in firearm related scenarios. These are typically in things like business regulations, and there’s a couple of reasons for that. One big businesses tend to be better able to bring court cases because they’ve got the dollars for the lawyers. 

Travis Bader: [01:18:47] Totally. 

Ian Runkle: [01:18:47] You know, you or me, if somebody says, Hey, do you want to spend $80,000 taking something to court? We’re like. 

Travis Bader: [01:18:54] See ya. 

Ian Runkle: [01:18:55] Where am I going to find 80 grand? 

Travis Bader: [01:18:57] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:18:58] That’s not pocket change, but if you’re Microsoft and it’s, hey, this is going to cost 80 grand. It’s like, well, okay, that’s less than we spend on toilet paper in a year or so. And it might literally be less, you know, for some of these big major companies, you know, Walmart might actually spend that kind of big money on toilet paper across all of their stores across all of these countries. So, you know, you might literally be talking about butt wipe money for some of these guys. 

Travis Bader: [01:19:28] Totally. Can you tell me about your, uh, your Patreon account? How does that work? 

Ian Runkle: [01:19:34] So basically people can sign up. It’s a way for sort of recurring donations. Um, YouTube is kind of erratic in terms of how much, you know, ad revenues bring in and so forth. So it provides some stability. Uh, it provides that I know that, um, you know, as part of trying to get the channel going properly, uh, I’ve needed to talk to a lawyer because I am a lawyer, but I don’t do all areas of law.

[01:20:01] And one way that lawyers can get themselves into real trouble is by assuming, hey, I can just do stuff outside of my area, no problem. But when you start saying things like, hey, is that something I can do? You got to know you’ve got sort of a consistent, uh, you know, income too. 

[01:20:21] So you can say like, Hey, if I, if I’m um, I also signed up for a better, uh, legal research tools so that I can get, because there’s a lot of firearm cases that are just not available on CanLII. And I wouldn’t be able to talk about them if I didn’t have access to some of those tools. 

Travis Bader: [01:20:39] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:20:39] But at the point where you’re signing something saying for the next year, I’m going to be spending X much per month. You want to be able to say, I have some expectations of what sort of income I might have. 

Travis Bader: [01:20:51] Totally. Yeah, I guess those weapon offences.  

Ian Runkle: [01:20:52] You don’t want to be sitting there with, you know, no revenue and a whole lot of expenses 

Travis Bader: [01:20:57] Yeah, those manuals and the resources, they’re not cheap. I get those weapons, offences annual books that are put out by the law society or whoever I get those . Sent over, it costs a little bit. 

Ian Runkle: [01:21:09] Little expensive. 

Travis Bader: [01:21:09] Yeah! Costs a bit to keep these things going. 

Ian Runkle: [01:21:12] Yup. Well, and you know, other things like, you know, um, I’m planning to apply in the near future for a firearm business license and talking about this for awhile. 

Travis Bader: [01:21:21] Yeah. 

Ian Runkle: [01:21:22] Just sending in that form is thousands of, you know, is more than a grand. 

Travis Bader: [01:21:27] That’s right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:21:28] Um, so lets me do stuff like that. It lets me, uh, I’ve got some stuff I’ve picked up that I plan to test. I’m getting, uh, molds for ballistic gelatin. Uh. 

Travis Bader: [01:21:39] So cool. 

Ian Runkle: [01:21:40] So, uh, I was trying to develop my own mold, but I think I’m probably just going to go and buy one, but, um, you know, uh, one of the things I want to test is that often the test for if something is a firearm, is can it cause serious bodily injury or death, which is, does it, uh, you know, the sort of eyeball test, but the eyeball test, uh, you gotta have an eyeball that’s in an appropriate medium.

[01:22:07] So I’m, the game plan is I want to sort of take this, put it in a mold and sort of surround it with ballistic gelatin for here is flesh around skull, around eyeball sticking, you know, and then scoop out the eye sockets and plunk in a pig’s eye. And then I can do proper testing of here’s what happens when we shoot this projectile at this face. You know.

Travis Bader: [01:22:33] You’re going to have to name that skull Ralphie or Randy, or if you haven’t already. 

Ian Runkle: [01:22:38] Uh, I, I was asking for suggestions. I got a whole lot of good ones. I haven’t sort of settled on one at this point, but, uh, there’s a whole lot of good suggestions out there. I will have to sort of, uh, go through all of that. Um, but I mean, also things like, uh, just getting a torso shape for ballistic gelatin because often we’re sort of shooting ballistic gelatin at a block. 

Travis Bader: [01:23:02] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:23:03] And I think that there’s useful things to that, but a torso shape has, um, some interesting elements to it because sometimes I see people shooting at a block. All of the expansion happens outside of the body. 

Travis Bader: [01:23:16] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:23:17] You know, you’ve got things that expand late and it might have a really impressive expansion pattern, but you go, well, that happens after the bullet has left the, you know, the body, um. 

Travis Bader: [01:23:32] That’s pretty exciting. 

Ian Runkle: [01:23:34] Stuff like that. I’d also like to try to do things like get a pig carcass and try to embed ribs in it and so forth. Just to see if I could do a, I want to sort of do a test side by side. 

Travis Bader: [01:23:47] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:23:48] Of like, here’s what it looks like when there are bones in there versus here’s what it looks like otherwise, you know, what difference does that make? Um, especially with small calibres, because if you look at .22 going into ballistic gelatin, it, you know, it makes a nice, neat pattern.

[01:24:08] And from seeing files where people have been shot with .22’s um, often the pattern is not so neat. You get people who are shot, like, you know, entry wound here, exit wound here. 

Travis Bader: [01:24:19] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:24:20] And you’re going well, that doesn’t happen if you’re just making an arm entirely at a ballistic gelatin, because what ends up happening, you know, it goes in, it bounces off the bone, it deflects weirdly it hits it again and comes out and makes a weird sort of staple shape. Um, I’ve seen even weirder, exit entry wounds, uh, one with a entry wound, you know, under the chin exit wound out near the wrist. 

Travis Bader: [01:24:52] Really? They must have had their hand up or doing something funny. 

Ian Runkle: [01:24:57] You’d think, but it’s just, um, sometimes, and it’s very weird scenarios, but you get sort of bullet tunnelling where they start to tumble through the body. And they go in weird ways and being able to sort of play around with that would be at least interesting to see. You know, talk about some of these things and just heck just for my own, you know, own interest, being able to say, hey, listen, you know, people say, Hey 20, the, uh, the whole is a 22, a sufficient defensive, you know, cartridge, which I think most people would say no, but there are still people who say, yes, it’s just fine.

[01:25:39] Um, how does it do against something of sort of skull density? You know, they say, well, so long as your shot placement is good. It’ll be fine. Well, is it. 

Travis Bader: [01:25:51] Yeah. You know, and that’s the age old question, what calibre is the best. And you’re going to have a whole bunch of opinions on it because there you’ve got the scientific side and the theory, all of the physics and it makes perfect sense, but then everyone’s a little different people are moving and then you start to look at the statistical analysis of, uh, where it lands.

[01:26:14] So, yeah, 22, absolutely perfect. Is it your, would that be my first choice? Well, no, but I it’s going to kill you just as bad as a bigger round if placed in the right place. 

Ian Runkle: [01:26:25] Most of the time, if you’re talking about defensive handgun, use people don’t have time to go shopping. 

Travis Bader: [01:26:31] Right. 

[01:26:31] Ian Runkle: [01:26:31] Even if you’ve got somebody kicking down your front door, like let’s say you make it to your gun safe. You’re probably grabbing the first thing where you can get a gun and ammunition together for it at the same time. Um, you know. 

Travis Bader: [01:26:46] .22 will do the job just fine. 

Ian Runkle: [01:26:49] Well, and most defensive firearm use, involves not pulling the trigger at all. Uh, when you actually look into the, you know, the research on that often, it’s just, I have a gun it’s enough, you know?

[01:27:02] Cause you think about, you know, I was talking earlier about the burglar wants your TV while he might want your TV real bad, but probably not that bad. And he wants to do harm to you. You know, even if he’s somebody like you get into a fight online, you know, you, somebody says, hey, you know, this is what the law is. And I say it actually isn’t necess, I’m going to come to your house and I’m going to kill you. And he shows up out of the, you know, outside and he’s kicking down my door.

[01:27:35] People don’t typically have that much commitment, you know, a lot of the time if they see a weapon they’re like you know, I’ve kind of had a change of plans. I really like the fight of getting into, the idea of getting into a fight with a 120 pound guy. I don’t like that idea so much now that you got a gun. 

Travis Bader: [01:27:54] Right.

Ian Runkle: [01:27:55] Um, I mean, this is why cops carry firearms, in large part. The whole, even if the cop never draws the firearm, simply having it on their hip is a tremendous disincentive to doing violence to the cop. 

Travis Bader: [01:28:08] That’s their  very, very first stage on their use of force continuum is their officer presence. 

Ian Runkle: [01:28:13] Yep, officer presence. 

Travis Bader: [01:28:14] Just being there. 

Ian Runkle: [01:28:14] And officer presence, you know, the uniform does some stuff cause there’s, some people are gonna say, hey, you know what? It’s a big deal. If I take a swing at this guy. But I mean, the officer isn’t just present as like random dude in a uniform. It’s also that, you know, they’ve got the baton, they got the pepper spray, they might have a taser, they got a handgun, you know, that takes some commitment to say, I want to go get into a fight with the guy, with all these weapons and some training.

Travis Bader: [01:28:41] And the radio to call in all the backup in the world. 

Ian Runkle: [01:28:44] Yeah. So all of this stuff is, uh, you know, you just, it’s hard to say, but, uh, but yeah, in terms of the Patreon there’s all sorts of things I would love to be able to play with. Um, high-speed cameras would be fantastic for looking at some of this stuff.

Travis Bader: [01:29:02] I want a Phantom camera so bad. 

Ian Runkle: [01:29:05] The thing is, I just can’t justify it at. 

Travis Bader: [01:29:08] Only a hundred grand. Come on. 

Ian Runkle: [01:29:10] I mean, you can get used ones for like low five figures. 

Travis Bader: [01:29:14] See, you’ve been shopping. 

Ian Runkle: [01:29:16] I have, but at the same time, like low five figures is still a lot of dollars right.

Travis Bader: [01:29:22] It’s still low five figures, yes. 

Ian Runkle: [01:29:24] And you know, so if you’re, if you’re considered and you know, I don’t just want one because it’d be fun to play with I mean, absolutely. It would, but things like, um, ranges get asked, you know, well, what about ground strikes? It’d be really great to be able to take one of those cameras, build a protective enclosure for it. And then, you know, take it somewhere where I know that it’s a safe area, you know, a, uh, a box canyon or something like that.

[01:29:56] And see what happens on ground strikes. You know, what is this actually doing in terms of the ballistics? Because you know, maybe they’re right. Maybe these things are a major danger to, you know, the public. But maybe they’re just full of crap. So I would love to be able to go and do videos on stuff like that.

[01:30:20] Like here is what is, you know, going on with this. Um, if I get the business license and can look at some of these things, one, because one of the things people always ask me is, um, there’s this knife I’m looking at online, is it prohibited? 

Travis Bader: [01:30:36] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:30:37] Well, the knife itself, you know, it’s really hard to evaluate that without actually having the knife in your hand. And the knife itself might be 80 bucks. 

Travis Bader: [01:30:46] Yep. 

Ian Runkle: [01:30:47] But the risk of ordering that knife might be way bigger than that. So if I’ve got the business license and it allows for prohibited weapon import, I can say, hey, listen, I’m importing this knife for the purposes of, you know, the firearm business. And then I could do some things like that, you know? Um. 

Travis Bader: [01:31:07] Well, there’s the other side as well, that once you’ve made that investment, it’s done, you can’t do anything with it. And especially like with firearms, if a prohibited firearm gets imported and a prohibited firearm is put into a business inventory, become dead. They can be traded or sold to other businesses or museums, but they can’t go to individuals.

[01:31:27] And I’m saying like, let’s say a grandfathered prohibited firearm that an individual could otherwise have. So there’s that cost as well. It’s not like it’s something you can sell again afterwards, at least not easily. 

Ian Runkle: [01:31:38] I mean, it’s, it’s a sunk cost. Like if I go and somebody says, Hey, is this knife prohibited? And I get it and go, yeah, it totally is. Um, at the end of the day, the result of that is I’ve got, you know, I’ve spent money on something that will never go anywhere. And in fact, you know, I might, after I’m done with it, I’d have to basically say, you know what, it’s not worth keeping this thing around. Let’s just take it to the, uh, the grinding wheel out back, and just sort of feed it in until it’s a stub.

Travis Bader: [01:32:08] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:32:09] So, you know, but that sort of expense is something that I can only do if I have some sort of, uh, some sort of accounting where I can say, hey. 

Travis Bader: [01:32:20] You need that. 

Ian Runkle: [01:32:21] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:32:21] And I, and I think people want to see that and I’m, oh, like. 

Ian Runkle: [01:32:27] Yeah. I’m not like John Q bad-ass, I’m not going to be going and reviewing, like, this is the best tactical sling, because quite frankly, I would not be the guy I can tell you, you know, 10 or 15 people who are absolutely the guy for that on YouTube. Um, but I can look at something and go, is this legally interesting and talk about, you know, what are the laws around this? And I don’t think there’s a whole lot of, of that out there. So that’s something I’d love to be able to do. 

Travis Bader: [01:32:57] I think you should raise a price for your Patreon membership, it’s really low. And I mean, for what people are getting in the content that you’re producing.

Ian Runkle: [01:33:05] I mean, the thing is, is I’ve got different tiers. People can sort of sign up on, you know, what they can afford and what they, what they think it’s worth to them. 

Travis Bader: [01:33:12] Sure. 

Ian Runkle: [01:33:13] I don’t really want to be, uh, the other thing is I’ve had people who, you know, I had somebody sign up and say, Hey, I signed up, but you know, this low tier and you know, but money is tight and I’m like, okay, don’t.

Travis Bader: [01:33:28] Right.

Ian Runkle: [01:33:29] What do you mean? I’m like, if you’re telling me money is tight, like, you know, feed your family first. This is entirely a luxury thing. It’s, you know, I’m going to be okay. I’m not going to starve to death or whatever. Um, as much as I have big dreams for what might, you know, might happen. Um, even just like in terms of being able to afford things like a high-speed camera, that’s a big dream. Right. 

[01:33:55] You know, even just like, if I take an entire year’s income, could I afford something like that even used, you know, that’s a big dream. 

Travis Bader: [01:34:04] Right. Totally. 

Ian Runkle: [01:34:05] Um, but it’s, these are dreams, right? Feed your family first is, uh.

Travis Bader: [01:34:12] And then feed these dreams. Well, Ian let me, I think we should wrap it up there. We’ll just keep this a real short after chat. And I just wanted to make sure people had an idea of what the Patreon account was about and, uh, what they can expect to see in the future, because man, you must be like the energizer bunny. You’re pumping out so much content and good quality content. It’s uh, it’s impressive.

Ian Runkle: [01:34:36] Well, I, uh, I set a goal of trying to get one out per day or other day. I don’t always meet it, but that’s the goal. And I’ll tell you, um, sometimes it’s, it’s tough because, you know, you want to put out an hour of content because you’re looking at a long video. It probably takes three or four hours to get that, you know, get that down to a place where I’m happy with it.

Travis Bader: [01:35:00] Easily. 

Ian Runkle: [01:35:01] And, you know, and that’s, I don’t have a whole lot of fancy graphics. I don’t have a whole lot of fancy editing. I’ll cut out parts where I’m like, no, I was rambling here. That’s stupid. You know, cut that out and rerecord it. 

Travis Bader: [01:35:14] Yeah. 

Ian Runkle: [01:35:15] Um, but you know, I don’t have a whole lot of, if I wanted to step up my production values, I’d probably have to step down my, uh, my rate. And maybe at some point, I’ll go back. If I get better at editing, I might go back and revisit some of my videos that are particularly important or ones that are lasting legal principles and do like, here’s a shiny version of this. 

Travis Bader: [01:35:40] Yeah. That’s a good idea. I’d love to see something like this used and create case law off of Runkle of the Bailey YouTube.

Ian Runkle: [01:35:49] I know of there’s at least a few times where people have, other lawyers have sent my videos to prosecutors to say, hey, look, you’ve got the law wrong, here’s a guy. And you know, it’s not just me saying it just because I think this because he recorded this three months ago. So clearly this is his interpretation, he walks through it. Watch the video. I haven’t heard back yet in terms of results on those, but I am following up on some of them. I mean, often results are sort of slow. 

Travis Bader: [01:36:22] Sure, sure. 

Ian Runkle: [01:36:23] But, uh, yeah, no. That’s kind of the dream and I’ve already, there’s already places where I’ve made it an impression on the legal system as it were, you know, sort of carved my, uh, my name in the Runkle V Alberta case is, is still cited. It was cited. Uh, not that long ago in the decision off, out of the east coast. 

Travis Bader: [01:36:46] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:36:47] That’s always nice when you’re like, Hey, I was able to pick this fight and it, you know, it had an impact. Um, but. 

Travis Bader: [01:36:55] It feels good. 

Ian Runkle: [01:36:56] Yeah. I mean, I say pick this fight. It was really, they changed the rules and I was like, I’m not having this.

Travis Bader: [01:37:02] Right. 

Ian Runkle: [01:37:02] So. 

Travis Bader: [01:37:03] Decided not to back down. 

Ian Runkle: [01:37:05] Yeah. So yeah, that’s, that’s where I like to be. That’s a, it’s always nice to know that you’re making a difference in some fashion. 

Travis Bader: [01:37:16] Totally. Well, Ian, thank you. 

Ian Runkle: [01:37:21] Thank you for having me, as I said, it’s wonderful being here.

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