BERNARDO: BC’s FVPA targets gang violence in the headline, lawful owners in the fine print

Tony Bernardo is the Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.British Columbia’s government says the Firearm Violence Prevention Act (FVPA) targets gang violence with illegal guns.That’s good.But when the government says lawful firearms owners, hunters, sport shooters, trainers, and airsoft participants won’t be affected, the obvious first question we must ask is, “Then why do they need exemptions?”That’s the contradiction at the heart of BC’s FVPA.Public Safety Minister Nina Krieger says the legislation, which comes into full force on October 1, creates new offences, gives police clearer authority to intervene, and responds to organized crime and extortion-related violence.The Act creates offences around discharging firearms from vehicles and operating vehicles that are illegally transporting firearms.It will restrict the sale of low-velocity and imitation firearms to anyone under 18, and prohibit firearms, low-velocity firearms, and imitation firearms in designated places such as schools, hospitals, courts, childcare facilities, post-secondary institutions, and places of worship.Some of that is exactly where public safety policy should focus.No serious person argues that gang violence should be ignored, or that imitation firearms used to threaten, intimidate, or create public panic are harmless.No serious person argues that criminals should be able to use rental vehicles as mobile armouries and then plead ignorance when police arrest them..The issue is not whether violence should be addressed; it’s how the government writes the law.And here, the province’s own language reveals the problem.On its FVPA page, BC says, “The FVPA is not intended to limit the lawful activities of hunters in BC.”It also says regulatory exemptions are intended to mitigate impacts on lawful firearm owners and lawful activities that do not represent a risk to public safety.Read that carefully.If lawful hunters, trainers, sport shooters, and airsoft participants truly were outside the reach of this law, they would not need regulatory exemptions to protect their activities.They need exemptions because the law affects them first.Here’s how new schemes are typically rolled out.The government announces a public safety objective. The press conference focuses on gangs, extortion, violence, and organized crime.Then the legal text spreads across ordinary lawful activity, but the law-abiding are told “not to worry” because exemptions are being considered, consulted on, drafted, or explained..That is not certainty. That’s political spin.Exemptions are “being considered” for activities such as firearms safety courses, hunting, sport shooting, firearms education and training, and airsoft activities.The CBC reports the government is speaking to relevant groups to “determine the full effect of these changes.”That sentence should trouble every lawful firearms owner in BC.If the full effect still needs to be determined five years after the Act received Royal Assent in 2021, then licenced firearms owners deserve more than vague reassurances.They deserve clarity.The BC Association of Chiefs of Police supports the regulations and says a coordinated rollout will be critical, including training, operational clarity for police agencies, and public education.That’s reasonable, from a policing perspective, but it also confirms the point that this is not a simple law with obvious boundaries.Police need operational clarity.Lawful firearms owners need exemptions.All stakeholders need time to understand the impact of this law..Those are compliance burdens, and compliance burdens rarely fall on gang members first.They fall on the people who answer government notices, read regulations, attend safety courses, transport firearms legally, train youth properly, run clubs, hunt lawfully, and try to stay inside every line the government keeps moving.Lawful citizens navigate paperwork.Criminals exploit gaps.The province deserves credit where the FVPA aims at real criminal conduct: illegal transportation, fleeing from police, dangerous vehicle use, and misuse connected to organized crime.But public safety legislation must be judged by its real-world design, not its stated intention.If the government wants to target gangs, write a law that targets gangs.If the government wants to stop illegal transportation, focus enforcement on illegal transportation.If the government wants to prevent youth intimidation with imitation firearms, write narrow rules that address that misuse.But don’t tell hunters they won’t be affected while creating a system where hunting-related activity depends on regulatory exemptions..And don’t confuse “education-first enforcement” with protection for civil liberties.Public safety does not require governments to treat lawful firearms activity as suspicious until exempted.BC’s real gun violence problem is not the hunter, the farmer, the firearms instructor, the sport shooter, or the licenced firearms owner who follows the law.It is gangs, organized crime, extortion, illegal gun possession, criminal violence, repeat offenders, and vulnerable youth being pulled into dangerous criminal ecosystems.That’s where the pressure belongs.The test for the FVPA is not whether the province can reassure lawful people at a press conference podium.The real test of the FVPA is simple.Does it punish criminals, or does it make lawful Canadians depend on exemptions to exercise freedoms they never abused?A law that needs exemptions for the law-abiding was never focused as narrowly as the government claimed.Tony Bernardo is the Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

BERNARDO: BC’s FVPA targets gang violence in the headline, lawful owners in the fine print

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