Canadian Court to decide if Pellet Guns are Firearms

I can’t make this up…

OTTAWA — Is a pellet gun a firearm?

That is the question that Canada’s Supreme Court will answer after an Ottawa man’s lawyer argued that a recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision has exposed owners of pellet guns purchased at sporting good stores to criminal prosecution and potentially lengthy mandatory minimum prison sentences.

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According to the Criminal Code, a firearm is any barrelled weapon from which any shot, bullet or projectile can be discharged and is capable of causing serious bodily harm or death. But the definition of weapon is defined as anything used or intended for use in causing death or bodily injury or for the purpose of threatening or intimidating someone.

The court of appeal unanimously found that any pellet gun capable of firing a shot with a velocity capable of causing serious bodily harm met the definition of a firearm, regardless of how it was used or if it was used. It was a significant about face for the court of appeal — previously they had twice ruled an air gun was only considered a weapon if it was used to cause bodily harm or to intimidate someone.
Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/court+decide+pellet+guns+firearms/9535981/story.html

OK, so if Billy causes serious bodily harm with a baseball bat, will that be considered a firearm? Different crimes deserve different punishments, yet calling a pellet gun a firearm defies reason. That’s like calling my brown eyes “blue.”

1 comment — post a comment

Steve D.

Liberals already count pellet guns as firearms … at least when making reports on so-called “gun violence” – like the Johns Hopkins one for instance.

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