Thread: Act submission points

Had an interesting discussion today talking about the items they put in the submission form, and I mentioned that the wording about it being a privilege to hold a firearms licence etc etc was in there. The person I was talking to has a legal background, and made a really interesting comment in that they might have made an error with describing it as a privilege.

He said that if it was in fact a privilege, the regulator could grant and then remove a firearms licence at will with no right of appeal. In actual fact, there are only certain reasons in the Arms Act by which they can currently revoke a licence and those sections of the Act also contain 'rights of appeal' which allow you lawful process to challenge the revocation. In the legal definitions he mentioned (big word in one ear, straight through out the other for me) that describe what is a privilege and what is a right, that fits more correctly with the right than the privilege. He also mentioned it drops into the discussion about the constitutional rights - which touches on a lot of other stuff that is going on at the moment including the treaty bill (he's just come back from speaking to the subcommittee regarding the submission he made on that bill and also another one).

It's an academic discussion, but I thought that it was really interesting from the standpoint of what was done to the firearms community with the last amendment and if it fact it was actually lawful.