New Handguns CBSA

[Marc Montgomery]

I never saw the need for CBSA to be armed. Its merely a status ploy by the agency. Let me see, the number of times a border guard has had a gun pointed at them has been....um zero?

I believe this "desire" was accentuated by a border incident a few years ago where a US bad guy and US agents shot at each other as he tried to run the Cdn border.

There is however a real possibility of agents committing suicide (or worse) with their service pistol..something that happens occasionally with police and other armed agencies.

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Marc Montgomery

I never saw the need for CBSA to be armed. Its merely a status ploy by the agency. Let me see, the number of times a border guard has had a gun pointed at them has been....um zero?

There was a female guard shot at a BC border crossing back in Oct of 2012. The officer was shot in the neck with no warning by a guy who committed suicide right after.

With odds like that, I would wager the threat to border guards is actually lower than many other professions who will likely never be armed in Canadian society.

[chris vickery]

Hmm. And here the Canadian Government is afraid of joe average owning firearms, yet all in all, us average people don't own or use firearms to assert or abuse power over others. Nor do we shoot our partners, ourselves, innocent civilians etc etc. Methinks it a jealousy thing, as our guys look across the bridge and see Homeland Security armed to the teeth.(we need toys to look tough too!)
Those so employeed in jobs such as Civil servants in uniform need not be armed to rip me off for tax money.
Maybe Canada Post needs to arm up too?

[Marc Montgomery]

well rob, lesson learned..beware of absolutes... Ok one guard shot at, serious injury, but recovered....motive absolutely unclear..if any.. but I dont see how if the guard was armed it would have made any difference--in that particular instance..

I suspect Chris has a point about jealousy and looking tough.. I just dont see the need for customs folks to be armed...just more chances of injuries and worse through accidents..far more than actual need.

Meanwhile...it seems a horrific shame that if the military is going to get new sidearms, that the highly collectible IHP will be melted rather than sold to legit authorized collectors and give the govt a pretty darn good boost in the public coffers.

That I suspect is perhaps due to political correctness in that a certain segment of the population would scream if the govt was to sell off handguns to the public, regardless of the complete legality of potential purchasers, ownership, handling etc.

However, has the govt in the past sold off handguns to the public at any time? They can't sell the rifles due to the full auto functionality of course, but has military and police always melted their exchanged pistols?

[chris vickery]

Marc, yes the Police have sold their surplus handguns off to the public. In the past they have gone to large volume dealers.
My father had an ex Metro Toronto Police S&W snub nose detective special in .38 cal and I had an ex RCMP Sig Sauer P226 9mm. That was 20 years ago, maybe times have changed.

[rob love]

Under the Liberal written laws, all publicly owned guns, once no longer required by the crown, must be destroyed. This prevents police forces from trading in their old firearms to partially finance the purchase of new. In the case of the Cdn Forces BHP, the current government did suggest that the better ones could be made available for collectors in Canada. It would require some changes in laws and regulations, but who better than the Cdn Government to do so.


As to the post office etc getting guns, I can think of no government department which would be more of a problem than arming posties.

Other government departments have been getting very high on their security levels in the past few years. I bought some generators from the dept of agriculture in downtown Winnipeg a year ago, and it was like getting into Fort Knox...2 levels of electrically locked doors just to get into their foyer.

[Lynn Eades]

The anti gun fraternity have been pushing at the U.N for years.
The U.N. is our problem as our various governments past, have signed up to various protocols aimed at dis-arming us, the public.
What our fathers were able to do with regards firearms has little to compare with what we can do today.
How many pistols came home from WWII? (legally or illegally) (Did any of our fathers/ Grandfathers/ Uncles etc. get into any trouble as a result of this?)
Our various governments did use to sell off firearms to Joe Public. I would suggest that this is a thing of the past.
I recall Sterling SMGs, Recoilless rifles, and M113s going to be melted down, at home.
(the M113s, by order of the U.S.A. of course)
Beware the U.N.