It is not allowed in Canada to have a gun to defend yourself. By what regulation are security guards like Brinks allowed to carry a handgun?
Last edited:
Handguns in Canada
- Thread starter iARTthere4iam
- Start date
If you can get Colpy's attention on this matter, he's the guy that would know that, but I suspect that the license to carry a firearms comes with the job. Trappers and others who spend a good deal of time in the wild can also carry guns but I'm not sure that handguns are allowed.
I'm a recreational shootist and can't carry my guns anywhere except from my residence to an approved gun range. I require special transportation permits to take my handguns to the gunsmith or if I'm interested in selling one...to the gun shop.
I'm a recreational shootist and can't carry my guns anywhere except from my residence to an approved gun range. I require special transportation permits to take my handguns to the gunsmith or if I'm interested in selling one...to the gun shop.
I just did my restricted and forgot to ask the instructor that question. Thanks for the help.
I am banned from ever owning a firearm. Court imposed lifetime ban. I guess they're afraid that I will shoot the next corrupt cop that attempts to arrest me for a crime I didn't commit. They're probably correct in their fear.
For the record, I have never owned a firearm in my life. I have never been charged with a violent crime. They say that the pen is mightier than the sword. They cannot ban me from possessing a pen, so they did the next best thing: They banned me from owning a gun. I expect the next time I use my pen, I will be shot!
For the record, I have never owned a firearm in my life. I have never been charged with a violent crime. They say that the pen is mightier than the sword. They cannot ban me from possessing a pen, so they did the next best thing: They banned me from owning a gun. I expect the next time I use my pen, I will be shot!
Ya, that seems to be one of the things that they do automatically when you are covicted of a serious offence. It is likely not always a very appropriate punishment, but our government likes people disarmed.
Pens are so yesterday. Your computer is better than any pen.
This has always been a mystery to me. I've never really had a major problem beyond personality quirks with police. Though I have never argued with them over something. They have a job to do and a method in which they are to carry out that job. Arguing the validity of a response to what I'm doing just doesn't make sense to me.
I've always thought that argument is with the Crown and is done between my attorney and the Crown before a judge.
In your particular case, saying that you would probably shoot a cop for trying to arrest you speaks volumes toward the validity of the decision never to allow you to access a firearm.
No offence intended. ;-)
Your basic assumption is simply not true. In Canada you are allowed to carry a handgun for self-protection, but only if you get the proper license. These are only issued to armoured car guards, in some cases for protection against animals for some persons working in wilderness areas, and (in very rare instances) civilians. I believe there are only about 20 civilians in the country that are licensed to carry concealed anywhere at anytime.
I am an armoured car guard, and the conditions specified on my license are extensive.......I must only carry while on the job, I must be wearing a uniform, I must wear clear ID (a badge in my case), and the weapon must be visible, carried in a holster, and must belong to the company. I have to qualify every year (we do every 6 months) and must be able to demonstrate a knowledge of self-defense law.
Hope this answers your question.
I'm not allowed to have one for five more years, I think they;re afraid I'll smoke it.:lol:
I think Colpy will agree with me that, if you must have a weapon to defend yourself, a twelve gauge shotgun is about as good as they come and it has no special licence requirement. If I felt I had to have a firearm to defend myself it wouldn't be a little handgun. It would be my old Winchester pump action shotgun.
Hey Colpy best of the season to you! 
Once again I was on the range when two police officers showed up with their Glock's in 40 S&W..... Outshot both of them with their own guns....
Spent some time encouraging these folk (female and male officer) to insist on better/more training. The difficulty it seems is that municipalities won't pay for practice ammo and have grave reservations about law enforcement officers being a part of the recreational shooting establishment. Would you say that's true in NB or is it more likely a local pheneomenon?
I think if you hand someone a large caliber handgun as part of their job, there should be at least as much training and testing and practice and education focused on real gun control which is hitting what you're aiming at....
It's kind of disappointing to find that after 20 plus years the local constabulary continues to demonstrate poor marksmanship and only passing familiarity with the skills and knowlege about their firearms that they did way back then....
Damn tough and although I agree with the idea that a person given the authority and the responsibility to serve to protect the great unwashed should be given the tools he or she may need in that circumstance, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that they should be more expert in using these tools than would the average individual.
Luckily the media has done such a terrific job of over-blowing the "invincibility" of a hoodlum holding a gun...that these folk actually believe that having a firearm gives you a cloak of invisibility or impregnability or something.... Even the merely adequate skills of police officers is superior to the snatch and grab artist with a handgun....
Once again I was on the range when two police officers showed up with their Glock's in 40 S&W..... Outshot both of them with their own guns....
Spent some time encouraging these folk (female and male officer) to insist on better/more training. The difficulty it seems is that municipalities won't pay for practice ammo and have grave reservations about law enforcement officers being a part of the recreational shooting establishment. Would you say that's true in NB or is it more likely a local pheneomenon?
I think if you hand someone a large caliber handgun as part of their job, there should be at least as much training and testing and practice and education focused on real gun control which is hitting what you're aiming at....
It's kind of disappointing to find that after 20 plus years the local constabulary continues to demonstrate poor marksmanship and only passing familiarity with the skills and knowlege about their firearms that they did way back then....
Damn tough and although I agree with the idea that a person given the authority and the responsibility to serve to protect the great unwashed should be given the tools he or she may need in that circumstance, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that they should be more expert in using these tools than would the average individual.
Luckily the media has done such a terrific job of over-blowing the "invincibility" of a hoodlum holding a gun...that these folk actually believe that having a firearm gives you a cloak of invisibility or impregnability or something.... Even the merely adequate skills of police officers is superior to the snatch and grab artist with a handgun....
Juan
Seasons Greeting my friend!
Absolutely, the weapon of choice in close combat is a short barrelled shotgun but there are drawbacks to this alternative. Someone trained with a handgun and who keeps those skills honed can make an accurate shot over distances that a shotgun (loaded with shot) wouldn't be able to acheive. There's little choice involved when using a shotgun. If you're using "double-ought" each ball is roughly the same size as a thirty-eight pistol round...excpet of course there's a bunch of them flying through the air...
I've been trained to shoot "center of mass" but after twenty plus years of shooting handguns on a regular basis, I can put ten rounds in a six inch circle at twenty-five yards so I could choose to shoot a leg or an arm and not dispatch that felon to the great beyond.
Seasons Greeting my friend!
Absolutely, the weapon of choice in close combat is a short barrelled shotgun but there are drawbacks to this alternative. Someone trained with a handgun and who keeps those skills honed can make an accurate shot over distances that a shotgun (loaded with shot) wouldn't be able to acheive. There's little choice involved when using a shotgun. If you're using "double-ought" each ball is roughly the same size as a thirty-eight pistol round...excpet of course there's a bunch of them flying through the air...
I've been trained to shoot "center of mass" but after twenty plus years of shooting handguns on a regular basis, I can put ten rounds in a six inch circle at twenty-five yards so I could choose to shoot a leg or an arm and not dispatch that felon to the great beyond.
Dead on, # Juan.
I carry a .36 caliber handgun (a .38 Special, but the actual bullet diameter is .357". Don't ask). It launches a bullet at about 1000 fps. The normal OO Buckshot load for a 12 ga. contains 9 .33 caliber pellets launched at about 1600 fps. So whacking him once with the 12 ga. is about the same as whacking him 9 times with the pistol.......and, as the shotgun is a long gun with a shoulder stock to aid in steadying it, and a longer sight radius, it is much easier to hit with.....if you are not intimidated by a little recoil.
Hey Colpy best of the season to you!
Once again I was on the range when two police officers showed up with their Glock's in 40 S&W..... Outshot both of them with their own guns....
Spent some time encouraging these folk (female and male officer) to insist on better/more training. The difficulty it seems is that municipalities won't pay for practice ammo and have grave reservations about law enforcement officers being a part of the recreational shooting establishment. Would you say that's true in NB or is it more likely a local pheneomenon?
I think if you hand someone a large caliber handgun as part of their job, there should be at least as much training and testing and practice and education focused on real gun control which is hitting what you're aiming at....
It's kind of disappointing to find that after 20 plus years the local constabulary continues to demonstrate poor marksmanship and only passing familiarity with the skills and knowlege about their firearms that they did way back then....
Damn tough and although I agree with the idea that a person given the authority and the responsibility to serve to protect the great unwashed should be given the tools he or she may need in that circumstance, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that they should be more expert in using these tools than would the average individual.
Luckily the media has done such a terrific job of over-blowing the "invincibility" of a hoodlum holding a gun...that these folk actually believe that having a firearm gives you a cloak of invisibility or impregnability or something.... Even the merely adequate skills of police officers is superior to the snatch and grab artist with a handgun....
Hi Mikey!
I agree with every word of your post.........in fact, I no longer work as trainer for my company, partly for personal reasons (no extra time) and partly because our training budget simply doesn't allow for any expenditure of ammunition above and beyong the 50 round semi-annual qualification.
AND my superior, although a nice guy, is simply some management guy that had his job eliminated, so he was stuck in the training dep't, which had an opening. He knows which end of the gun the bullet comes out of, and THAT'S IT!
As an aside, Season's Greetings to you, Mikey, and to everyone else here!
Funny, in my family of very religious backwoods Baptist gun nuts, firearms, ammunition and the like were forbidden as suitable for Christmas presents............even though the rest of the family is mostly interested in firearms as hunting tools. I can't make up my mind if this is completely hypocritical, or exactly the opposite: a suitable expression of their faith in the season of peace and goodwill.
Hi Mikey
I haven't fired a handgun more than half a dozen times since I was in the airforce. (RCAF in those days) The airforce's weapon of choice in those days was the Browning High Power though the ejection seat, seat pack, that we would have if we ejected, contained among the other survival gear, a huge Colt 45 revolver. (American ejection seat)
I probably wore out at least one high power at the range. We pumped rounds through those guns until the barrels were so hot we were afraid they would start cooking off rounds. In the military the ammo was seemingly free.
I haven't fired a handgun more than half a dozen times since I was in the airforce. (RCAF in those days) The airforce's weapon of choice in those days was the Browning High Power though the ejection seat, seat pack, that we would have if we ejected, contained among the other survival gear, a huge Colt 45 revolver. (American ejection seat)
I probably wore out at least one high power at the range. We pumped rounds through those guns until the barrels were so hot we were afraid they would start cooking off rounds. In the military the ammo was seemingly free.
Hi Juan...Seasons Greetings!
The semi-auto I use for combat competition is a CZ-75B in nine millimeter, very similar to the High Power in appearance and function. The only reason why I used this type of firearm is because in competition (back in the day before magazine limitations) I had eighteen rounds ready to go while the six shooter...well that's why it's called a six shooter..
I've found revolvers in general to be more accurate, because unless the firearm is buit for concealability, the barrel length is more generous than most auto's and the physics involved means the round recieves full power from the cartridge which in the case of auto's...isn't the case.... Blow-back pressure from the round operates the slide and in combination with the magazine spring chambers another round. Revolvers are often called "six for sure" which implies (correctly for the most part) that a revolver can be relied upon to discharge its ammo one after the other without difficulty. Semi-autos, because there is more going on...more opportunity for dirt to impede the mechanics...haven't been as reliable. I own a Sig Saur a CZ and a P-9 all in nine millimeter and a 357 magnum revolver.
My experience as of late is no failures to feed or eject from the CZ...but I did have the odd failure to feed witht he Sig....both are great guns, but I'm partial to the CZ...
Merry Christmas to you and your's..
The semi-auto I use for combat competition is a CZ-75B in nine millimeter, very similar to the High Power in appearance and function. The only reason why I used this type of firearm is because in competition (back in the day before magazine limitations) I had eighteen rounds ready to go while the six shooter...well that's why it's called a six shooter..
I've found revolvers in general to be more accurate, because unless the firearm is buit for concealability, the barrel length is more generous than most auto's and the physics involved means the round recieves full power from the cartridge which in the case of auto's...isn't the case.... Blow-back pressure from the round operates the slide and in combination with the magazine spring chambers another round. Revolvers are often called "six for sure" which implies (correctly for the most part) that a revolver can be relied upon to discharge its ammo one after the other without difficulty. Semi-autos, because there is more going on...more opportunity for dirt to impede the mechanics...haven't been as reliable. I own a Sig Saur a CZ and a P-9 all in nine millimeter and a 357 magnum revolver.
My experience as of late is no failures to feed or eject from the CZ...but I did have the odd failure to feed witht he Sig....both are great guns, but I'm partial to the CZ...
Merry Christmas to you and your's..
Thanks for the response, Colpy. I was hoping you would join in and answer some of my many questions regarding this issue.
I have been shooting for years with friends and in Army Cadets and I am just now getting around to actually getting my PAL (restricted). I have friends that do PPC and my brother-in-law and I are interested in the IPSEC(?)shooting. All kinds of target shooting, I'm not really interested in hunting so much.
The instructor teaching the course said in the first 30 minutes of the class that if you came into his store to buy a gun for home protection he would have to refuse. He said that the only permitted reasons for owning a gun in Canada were sport shooting, hunting and collecting. Obviously police and military have guns but I assumed that that was some special governmental allowance. That is why the idea of Brinks and other security guards carrying loaded, restricted handguns in a vehicle (all very discouraged actions) intrigued me. What is this licence you speak of posessing, as the only licences I know of would be PAL and the transport permit?
I am sorry if I am asking basic questions, the subject is interesting to me.
One other question. Would the old Canadian Forces FN rifles be legal to own? Could I buy one with a non-restricted or restricted licence? I remember shooting those in Cadets and the memories are very pleasant ones. I saw one at a gun show decomissioned, It was a sad sight.
It's best to contact the CFO to determine which particular license you'd need for such and such a firearm. There is a prohibited class that covers basically "easily concealed" handguns and is specific regarding calibers and barrel length. There is no limit to the magazine capacity on rimfire rifles but there is a limit of five rounds on any caliber larger than .22.
I've shot IPSC for nearly twenty years...had to take a few years off to have a few strokes and things but I'm back at it again. The action involved in IPSC shooting is the big draw in my opinion since one is required to solve "scenarios" that would be encountered by law enforcement during the typical patrol shift in a large city or at least urban civil disobedience of the gun kind....
Another option to bullseye and IPSC is Cowboy Action Shooting which is a class of competition that involves handguns (only revolvers of .44 cal and larger) in combination with rifle (same caliber restrictions) and shotgun. Many folk use black-powder firearms to shoot some of the Action events but where speed is critical, cartridge ammunition is the only way to go....
I've shot IPSC for nearly twenty years...had to take a few years off to have a few strokes and things but I'm back at it again. The action involved in IPSC shooting is the big draw in my opinion since one is required to solve "scenarios" that would be encountered by law enforcement during the typical patrol shift in a large city or at least urban civil disobedience of the gun kind....
Another option to bullseye and IPSC is Cowboy Action Shooting which is a class of competition that involves handguns (only revolvers of .44 cal and larger) in combination with rifle (same caliber restrictions) and shotgun. Many folk use black-powder firearms to shoot some of the Action events but where speed is critical, cartridge ammunition is the only way to go....