Over the weekend five Members of Parliament from the Lower Mainland went to an airsoft range in Surrey to hear concerns about gun legislation from within the community.
Still making its way through the House of Commons, Bill C-21 is an amendment to current gun legislation that would widen the definition of replica firearms and prohibit them. This broadening would include airsoft and paintball guns and shut down an industry worth $10 million generated by 260 Canadian businesses.
Representatives from the airsoft and paintball communities told Vancouver Is Awesome last week that the bill was written without previous consultation with the community, but they are getting their say now. On Sunday at Panther Airsoft in Surrey, five MPs were walked through what an airsoft gun is, how to shoot them, and who the people are that stand to lose a hobby if the bill is passed.
Elliott Hart, manager of Panther Airsoft, says the MPs might have even enjoyed the sport once they received some safety training and set their sights on some timed target practice.
"It became a bit of a game for them, they immediately found the fun of airsoft by comparing each other's times for being able to hit the targets," Hart said.
Hart was the one to invite the politicians to his range in the hopes of starting a dialogue between the people working on Bill C-21 and those affected by it.
"Hopefully it would bring more politicians from all sides to start looking into it more, showing that one party has begun and its time for the other party to start looking into airsoft before they start making decisions on airsoft," Hart said. "A lot of people did feel very happy to hear that politicians were listening to them."
The politicians in attendance were all Conservative and included:
- Marc Dalton - Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge
- Ed Fast - Abbotsford
- Tako van Popta - Langley/Aldergrove
- Brad Vis - Mission/Matsqui/Fraser Canyon
- Kerry-Lynne Findlay - South Surrey/White Rock
Although Hart did reach out to his local Liberal MP, Hart said the politician did give him the resources to keep fighting for his cause.
"His hands are kind of tied, it's too early to really make decisions on anything but at the end of the day he gets it, his own son plays airsoft," Hart said.
During Bill C-21’s second reading last week, Bill Blair the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and creator of the bill itself pointed to the biggest advocates for the bill: Canadian law enforcement.
“We are taking some additional measures within this legislation,” Blair said. “We have listened to law enforcement, which for over 30 years has been urging the Government of Canada to take action to prohibit what are often referred to as replica firearms."
Blair went on to reference how in the past these toys, which can appear indistinguishable from real firearms, present an “overwhelming, impossible challenge” for law enforcement officers. Confrontations involving airsoft or paintball guns have in some cases ended with fatal results.
Hart added many members of the airsoft and paintball communities are police officers themselves.
"We have numerous members of RCMP and even VPD, they play, their kids play, like its a father-son activity for some of them," Hart said. "We have to hold ourselves to a safety standard that keeps RCMP members playing. If they see that this is some crazy operation they're not going to come back."
As for what can be done about the airsoft guns being easily mistaken for dangerous firearms, Hart says there are more options than prohibition. These methods mainly include legislating that some part of the airsoft gun is brightly coloured.
In a bizarre twist, a photo of the Prime Minister taken at a Richmond paintball facility has been circulating around the airsoft and paintball communities as news of Bill C-21 broke.
"I think unfortunately this is the left hand not talking to the right hand. Justin Trudeau didn't table the bill, Bill Blair did,” Hart said. "The irony is definitely there, I just can't blame Trudeau for Bill Blair's bill."
