Drizzt
Member
Rifling through history
By Don Descoteau
Victoria News
[email protected]
Jul 21 2006
Two nearly identical Navy Colt .36-calibre pistols rest quietly on the kitchen counter of Gary Kangas’ rural Metchosin home.
It’s hard to tell the difference between them, but Kangas pulls out a sepia-toned photo of a man he says is David Hall, the postmaster in Orangeville, Ont. from 1864 to 1879. The slightly more weathered-looking pistol – and, amazingly, the leather holster as well – was worn as a sidearm daily on the job by Hall, Kangas said.
“Canadians packed guns until the 1950s, when I was a kid,” he said. “People viewed it as a bit of self-reliance, whereas now there’s a feeling that the state will take care of us.”
Getting guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals is one thing. Taking firearms out of circulation that have significant historical value is quite another, say Kangas and other gun enthusiasts.
During the recent provincial gun amnesty, B.C. police agencies collected 3,213 guns and 725 other weapons, mainly from elderly residents who no longer wanted them. Most of the weapons were destined for the metal shredder.
Kangas, a longtime collector of firearms who travels around North America doing old west street theatre and displaying his collections at exhibitions and shows, makes no bones about the fact he finds the federal gun registry a big waste of taxpayers’ money. While he also disagrees with the idea that law-abiding people must jump through hoops to legally own firearms, he worries the cultural connection to our past may be lost through the destruction of rare and historical firearms.
“With gun amnesty, it’s well known that only the honest people turn them in,” Kangas said. “We’ve lost a lot of historic pieces because of it. Firearms are a part of our history whether some folks like it or not.”
Solicitor General John Les called the gun amnesty campaign held in June “the most successful we’ve ever had in B.C.” He went on to say that the “usefulness of this amnesty is borne out by the wide variety of weapons collected, including more than 500 handguns.”
The range of weapons turned in to Capital Region police agencies ran the gamut from run-of-the-mill Winchester hunting rifles to handguns and rifles dating back to the Second World War and before.
While most of the surrendered firearms, ammunition and other weapons will be or have been destroyed, in some instances museum curators were offered a chance to look into acquiring certain unique pieces.
In Victoria, city police exhibit control officer Rebecca Wellman said “five or six” of the 62 firearms turned in were being set aside for further inspection by historical experts. The key aspect in any change of ownership from the department’s perspective is that a clear record exists of where the firearms wind up.
Among the unique pieces picked up by Victoria police were a Second World War Mauser machine pistol, complete with an attachable stock that doubled as a carrying case when the gun was not in use; a Ross .303 rifle from the First World War; and numerous Lee Enfield rifles from the Second World War.
There was also a couple of unique pistols. One was a hammerless Ivor Johnson model “safety revolver” said to be favoured by card players and mobsters due to the fact it wouldn’t catch on one’s clothing when pulling it from a pocket. Another was a tiny, Belgian-made replica of a seven-millimetre British Webley pistol known as the “Guardian” that was manufactured in the late 19th century.
The numbers were down in Oak Bay this time around, according to Sgt. Stu Wood. He surmised that a big reason was that many of the municipality’s veterans and widows of veterans and collectors turned in any unwanted firearms in previous amnesty campaigns.
“Fifteen years ago we had some amazing stuff turned in,” he said.
Wood noted that one elderly former military officer who had a large collection decided to turn it over to the police, who oversaw its transfer to the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.
West Shore RCMP had about 100 items turned in overall, said Const. Beth Chipperfield. They included a First World War bayonet and “a lot of Second World War guns” such as a Sten carbine sub-machine gun and several Lee Enfield rifles.
“A lot of them that were turned in were from widows,” she said, noting that some were already dismantled. “They’ve been carting this stuff around forever.”
Members of the Vancouver Island Arms Collectors Association, who will stage the 45th annual Arms and Militaria Show Sept. 23-24 at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney, are devoted to preserving antique firearms, said association past-president Ian Haynes.
Haynes said he feels rather uneasy about the idea of police who may not be experts in the field “making the judgment call as to what they feel is a collectible.”
Working with museum curators and other collectors “makes common sense” rather than just destroying the firearms, he added.
While police and government agencies insist that having fewer guns in people’s homes reduces the number of guns potentially in the hands of criminals, Haynes argues that the number of guns winding up in the wrong hands in Canada is small compared with the number of stolen guns smuggled across the border.
“There are black market guns everywhere,” he said. “If a person doesn’t want the gun in the house, they should by all means get rid of it. We’re saying why not phone up a collector and get a dollar value for it rather than having it destroyed?”
Aware that there may still be individuals who didn’t take advantage of the gun amnesty, Kangas wanted to encourage the owners of aging guns to consider their historical aspects.
“It’s history. It’s everything that ever happened. (The guns are) significant because they belonged to people who were doing things. It doesn’t matter if they were adventuring on the frontier or gone to war.”
http://www.vicnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=36&cat=43&id=694009&more=
By Don Descoteau
Victoria News
[email protected]
Jul 21 2006
Two nearly identical Navy Colt .36-calibre pistols rest quietly on the kitchen counter of Gary Kangas’ rural Metchosin home.
It’s hard to tell the difference between them, but Kangas pulls out a sepia-toned photo of a man he says is David Hall, the postmaster in Orangeville, Ont. from 1864 to 1879. The slightly more weathered-looking pistol – and, amazingly, the leather holster as well – was worn as a sidearm daily on the job by Hall, Kangas said.
“Canadians packed guns until the 1950s, when I was a kid,” he said. “People viewed it as a bit of self-reliance, whereas now there’s a feeling that the state will take care of us.”
Getting guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals is one thing. Taking firearms out of circulation that have significant historical value is quite another, say Kangas and other gun enthusiasts.
During the recent provincial gun amnesty, B.C. police agencies collected 3,213 guns and 725 other weapons, mainly from elderly residents who no longer wanted them. Most of the weapons were destined for the metal shredder.
Kangas, a longtime collector of firearms who travels around North America doing old west street theatre and displaying his collections at exhibitions and shows, makes no bones about the fact he finds the federal gun registry a big waste of taxpayers’ money. While he also disagrees with the idea that law-abiding people must jump through hoops to legally own firearms, he worries the cultural connection to our past may be lost through the destruction of rare and historical firearms.
“With gun amnesty, it’s well known that only the honest people turn them in,” Kangas said. “We’ve lost a lot of historic pieces because of it. Firearms are a part of our history whether some folks like it or not.”
Solicitor General John Les called the gun amnesty campaign held in June “the most successful we’ve ever had in B.C.” He went on to say that the “usefulness of this amnesty is borne out by the wide variety of weapons collected, including more than 500 handguns.”
The range of weapons turned in to Capital Region police agencies ran the gamut from run-of-the-mill Winchester hunting rifles to handguns and rifles dating back to the Second World War and before.
While most of the surrendered firearms, ammunition and other weapons will be or have been destroyed, in some instances museum curators were offered a chance to look into acquiring certain unique pieces.
In Victoria, city police exhibit control officer Rebecca Wellman said “five or six” of the 62 firearms turned in were being set aside for further inspection by historical experts. The key aspect in any change of ownership from the department’s perspective is that a clear record exists of where the firearms wind up.
Among the unique pieces picked up by Victoria police were a Second World War Mauser machine pistol, complete with an attachable stock that doubled as a carrying case when the gun was not in use; a Ross .303 rifle from the First World War; and numerous Lee Enfield rifles from the Second World War.
There was also a couple of unique pistols. One was a hammerless Ivor Johnson model “safety revolver” said to be favoured by card players and mobsters due to the fact it wouldn’t catch on one’s clothing when pulling it from a pocket. Another was a tiny, Belgian-made replica of a seven-millimetre British Webley pistol known as the “Guardian” that was manufactured in the late 19th century.
The numbers were down in Oak Bay this time around, according to Sgt. Stu Wood. He surmised that a big reason was that many of the municipality’s veterans and widows of veterans and collectors turned in any unwanted firearms in previous amnesty campaigns.
“Fifteen years ago we had some amazing stuff turned in,” he said.
Wood noted that one elderly former military officer who had a large collection decided to turn it over to the police, who oversaw its transfer to the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.
West Shore RCMP had about 100 items turned in overall, said Const. Beth Chipperfield. They included a First World War bayonet and “a lot of Second World War guns” such as a Sten carbine sub-machine gun and several Lee Enfield rifles.
“A lot of them that were turned in were from widows,” she said, noting that some were already dismantled. “They’ve been carting this stuff around forever.”
Members of the Vancouver Island Arms Collectors Association, who will stage the 45th annual Arms and Militaria Show Sept. 23-24 at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney, are devoted to preserving antique firearms, said association past-president Ian Haynes.
Haynes said he feels rather uneasy about the idea of police who may not be experts in the field “making the judgment call as to what they feel is a collectible.”
Working with museum curators and other collectors “makes common sense” rather than just destroying the firearms, he added.
While police and government agencies insist that having fewer guns in people’s homes reduces the number of guns potentially in the hands of criminals, Haynes argues that the number of guns winding up in the wrong hands in Canada is small compared with the number of stolen guns smuggled across the border.
“There are black market guns everywhere,” he said. “If a person doesn’t want the gun in the house, they should by all means get rid of it. We’re saying why not phone up a collector and get a dollar value for it rather than having it destroyed?”
Aware that there may still be individuals who didn’t take advantage of the gun amnesty, Kangas wanted to encourage the owners of aging guns to consider their historical aspects.
“It’s history. It’s everything that ever happened. (The guns are) significant because they belonged to people who were doing things. It doesn’t matter if they were adventuring on the frontier or gone to war.”
http://www.vicnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=36&cat=43&id=694009&more=
