takingaimatlaw

Taking aim at the law
Defiant gun owner is challenging the cops to come and get his guns. Meanwhile, he's planning a bonfire Greg Middleton The Province
http://www.vancouversun.com
Prince George hunter Phil Hewkin is standing by his guns.
The 38-year-old tattoo artist and stay-at-home dad is not only refusing to jump through the hoops to get firearms licences, he's challenging the authorities to take his guns.
And he's invited other gun owners who disagree with Canada's new gun law, which says you must have a licence to possess a gun, to send him their licences for a public bonfire.
"To criminalize people for owning a firearm is just wrong," said Hewkin. "This is a bad law and it needs to be challenged. Can you remember the Cold War when we were all afraid of the Russians? Now I am afraid of my own government."
The legislation, pushed into law by former solicitor-general Allan Rock, was a reaction to the Montreal massacre, the killing of 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. Anti-gun committees sprang up at colleges and universities across Canada.
The gun control lobby was spearheaded by Wendy Cukier and the Coalition for Gun Control, who argued that unlicenced gun owners and unregistered guns were a public safety issue.
"The point is that frequency of incidents involving guns is reduced by gun control," Cukier said recently at a rally in Victoria.
The new law set last Jan. 1 as the deadline for all firearms owners in Canada to have a licence, or face penalties of up to five years in jail.
The next phase of the law is a requirement that gun owners register all their firearms by Jan. 1, 2003.
The National Firearms Association estimates there are 6.5 million gun owners and 20 million firearms in Canada.
The government estimates there are three million gun owners and up to seven million firearms.
The Canadian Firearms Centre, a federal agency handling the licensing, said in December it had about 1.8 million applications. It said last month it is so backed up it doesn't know how many it has.
The National Firearms Association says the law has turned thousands of Canadians into "paper criminals."
Hewkin says he is pretty typical of a lot of rural residents who object to the licensing. He grew up hunting and fishing and has always bought hunting and fishing licences.
"I feel like I'm being persecuted, I'm a second-class citizen," said Hewkin, his voice rising. "I know I sound like I'm ranting but I haven't done anything wrong. I am a responsible firearms owner and now I'm being asked to waive my rights or I'm a criminal."
He's livid about the idea that firearms officers can come into his home to inspect his guns. The law also allows them to seize from his home guns he's legally owned for 15 years, even though he's never committed a crime.
Hewkin grew up around guns. His dad was a commercial fisherman and they had a small farm.
"I got my first gun when I was eight -- a pellet gun and my dad taught me how to handle a gun safely," Hewkin recalled.
"We shot targets at first and then I used to shoot the rats that were coming into our chicken house. They would chew the legs off the chickens and get into the grain bins and spoil the grain for the cattle."
He said the rats were "a good enemy" -- fast, sneaky and a little bit evil.
He graduated at 11 to a .22 rifle -- a single-shot bolt-action Cooey he used to hunt rabbits for the table.
The family moved to Cawston, a small town near Keremeos, where he used to shoot starlings out of the cherry trees.
"We'd get 25 cents for each set of starling feet," Hewkin said. "In those days a kid with a rifle on his shoulder was a welcome sight. They didn't call out the SWAT team. The farmers loved us."
Now he owns 13 rifles and hunts moose, deer and black bear, as well as rabbit and grouse and feeds his family on the game.
The 13 rifles include three .22s and three hunting rifles he bought for his sons, a couple of collector's items and his shotgun.
"It might seem like a lot to someone in the city, but I want to be able to pass on a rifle I've used to hunt with to my sons and eventually my grandsons," said Hewkin, who adds the best times of his life were hunting with his dad.
He dreams about eventually having a bit of land outside the city, perhaps a quarter section backing on to Crown land where he could shoot targets and hunt.
But right now he's willing to risk his rifles to stand up to the government on what he feels is an issue of principal.
"The government is going to spend more than $1 billion on licensing gun owners and then making them register their guns," Hewkin said, quoting what the National Firearms Association says is a conservative figure.
"You'd think maybe they might be better off catching real criminals."
He cites a biker gang that's taking over the drug trade in Prince George.
"They've all got guns, and they don't seem to be going after them and they are criminals.
"I'm not a criminal and I'm being forced to fight this battle all alone."
A member of the National Firearms Association, he denies he's getting any financial support from the gun lobby.
Kevin Staines of the Responsible Firearms Owners of B.C. said his organization "does not advocate breaking the law."
"We're opposed to the law and personally I'm on his side and we're cheering for him, but we can't tell people to break the law."
What is going to happen to Hewkin is undecided.
"There has been a lot of discussion about it," a government official admitted. "He has become the poster boy for the cause."
And Supt. Steve Leach of Prince George RCMP said police are "aware of him" but wouldn't say what they plan to do.
A police source said, however, that officers "are reluctant to roll in on a media star with television cameras blazing."