Thunder Bay Police out of line

[toadhound]

This is paintball but it is also relates directly to our sport. Seems our local PD has different laws on their books as opposed to the rest of Canada.
www.merseyroad.com/vb/showthread.php?t=32546

[White_knight]

what a waste of time and money. there are so many real problems they could be spending their time on. bet it was some stupid mom taking their kiddie to a paintball birthday party, sees the "realistic terrorist fully automatic large caliber ak47 death rifle" hanging on the wall then goes to the cops to complain.

[AngelusNex]

Welcome to canada. If you have what looks like an ak on your wall your a terrorist, soon they'll be arresting people for having a scruffy beard and darker completion.

[toadhound]

I think they have to many employees with to much time on their hands. It was on the local leftist CBC radio this morning, they strongly suggested that these places only sell brightly coloured PB guns and not the scary black ones. They did not go after canadian tire or wallmart because of course they have corporate lawyers that would not tolerate the local PD telling them they can't openly sell legal items.

[toadhound]

There was no PB guns that resembled real guns, not even an AK baby killer. i wonder If I helped bring this on by holding Airsoft games there this summer to try an make the sport more mainstream in Thunder Bay. We have a private field and wanted to make the local airsoft scene more open and promote it instead of keeping it an underground activity here.

[Gunk]

Originally Posted by AngelusNex

Welcome to canada. If you have what looks like an ak on your wall your a terrorist, soon they'll be arresting people for having a scruffy beard and darker completion.

Thank god[s?] I'm white... it's the only way I can get away with my beard...

I just gotta watch out whenever I'm out of the house... don't want to say the wrong thing and get myself disappeared.

[AngelusNex]

Originally Posted by Gunk

Thank god[s?] I'm white... it's the only way I can get away with my beard...

I just gotta watch out whenever I'm out of the house... don't want to say the wrong thing and get myself disappeared.

My Father is already "randomly" selected for screening EVERY time he gets on an airplane. And we're only off white not very tan at all.

[Curo]

All I gotta say is this, Firearms have such a bad reputation in Canada that we basically are limited as an underground sport. Now as for arresting people for owning paintball guns. Those cops are damn plugs. It's a paintball ball gun, at night in the dark on the run maybe you might confuse the two, but up close, in person? Hell no.

Airsoft is different and thus should be handled better.

[Blackthorne]

These runs by the police and Crown Attorneys are a good thing guys. we get our day in court and get this shit settled once and for all. The days of "keeping it on the down low" are over.

[Gunk]

Originally Posted by AngelusNex

My Father is already "randomly" selected for screening EVERY time he gets on an airplane. And we're only off white not very tan at all.

I have a friend down in the states, her name is Farah...

Yeah, she's randomly selected every time she walks within 500 feet of an airport too...

[toadhound]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne

These runs by the police and Crown Attorneys are a good thing guys. we get our day in court and get this shit settled once and for all. The days of "keeping it on the down low" are over.

Maybe it is time to form an association to pool our resources and fight this bullsh@t. it would not be hard for my group here to form a test case considering the overzealous police dept. we have, except they have an unlimited legal fund while we do not.

[Crunchmeister]

Originally Posted by AngelusNex

And we're only off white not very tan at all.

Yeah, no shit. I mean, had you not told me, I would never have guessed that you were a filthy foreigner.

[TPM001]

This goes to show that it is absolutely ignorant for any of us to believe that our sport is immune from the law. Laws are apparently subject to interpretation. And even though you may be in the right, it will cost you tens of thousands in lawyer fees and a huge amount of hassle to prove that you are.

We all walk a fine line. All it takes is a simple change of a spring to turn our uncontrolled firearms (legal) into replica firearms (illegal). Those of us who participate in CQB games where FPS limits are below 400 fps are all guilty of a felony because we play with replica firearms (as the law defines it). The cops can bust in and seize our guns, and unless we can prove they shoot above the threshold defined for uncontrolled firearms (which we won't be able to because we adjusted our guns down to meet field requirements), we will not only never see our guns again, we will also be slapped with criminal charges and land our collective asses in jail.

We play our sport in a legal environment that is arcane and we rely on grey areas for justification and protection from the law. It truly is time for us to once and for all demand some clarity into this sport so that it is no longer grey, but black and white.

[Scouser]

Just wondering TPM001 how that applies to legal indoor fields then like xtreme tactics here in winnipeg. They were the first legal indoor airsoft facility in canada if i recall correctly, or one of the first. They wouldnt be able to get insured if they were committing a felony every day.

[Freeze]

This is a country where they ban the fake guns, but allow real ones.

After reading that and this thread, I made a note to self. Keep a clear frame for any gun I have under 400 fps. At least that way, it's "legal".

Watch, in a few years, and after more incidents like this, they'll create a law that states that even over 400 fps is illegal. Sigh....


EDIT: I just remembered an incident where a kid with a paintball gun scared the heck out of passing motorists on the highway once. I wish that people who think about doing dumb things like that would just throw out their guns and slap themselves.