A similar issue arises with the Stag 10. A pre-ban version of the FRT has an even clearer statement in its Canadian Law Comments regarding the Stag 10: “The Stag Arms, Model STAG-10 firearm does not incorporate mechanical, aesthetic or other design features that can be traced directly to any particular firearm; it is therefore not considered a variant of any firearm found in the “Prohibited Firearms Regulations” or the “Restricted Firearms Regulations” appended to the Criminal Code.”
This pre-ban FRT entry for the Stag, made publicly available and current just days before the May 1 OIC, clearly states that the Stag 10 is explicitly not an AR variant.
A post-ban version of the same FRT entry, now reflecting the Stag’s current prohibited status, has no Canadian Law Comments.
This later version of the publicly available FRT, current as of last week, indicates that the Stag 10 is now prohibited as an AR variant.
In other words, evidence of the Stag’s justification for being non-restricted; that quite clear statement, “it is therefore not considered a variant of any firearm found in the “Prohibited Firearms Regulations” or the “Restricted Firearms Regulations,” has been removed, and the firearm reclassified… a move that, according to the previous FRT data and much like what we’re seeing with today’s prohibitions, seems to be beyond the scope of the OIC’s prohibition of explicitly AR variants.
We strongly recommend anyone with one of these rifles wait for further instruction. With such strong evidence of inappropriate tampering (with regards to the legal comments and other descriptors of formerly non-restricted firearms being summarily deleted from records) and prohibitions beyond the scope of the OIC’s regulatory amendments, it is highly likely that Judicial Reviews will be employed to address this overstepping.
Further to that point. The government authorizes those competitions by legislation that has not been repealed. It subsidizes those competitions by permitting them on Federal property and still does.
It sanctions the use of shooting ranges for those purposes, ranges whose range approvals still permit those competitions, knowing full well what equipment those competitions require.
If the government was genuinely of the belief that these firearms and those like them are not suitable for competition and such competitions are a danger to the public, then there are at least 20 other things that should have been banned along with the firearms themselves. The glaring inconsistencies definitely beg scrutiny.