PC debate attracts 200

Gun club recalls bygone days
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby NOW assistant editor
Published Jan. 22, 2003

The federal gun registration program has triggered a furious national debate. Assistant editor Dan Hilborn interviewed Burnaby gun collectors and politicians to find out where they stand on long guns and handguns.
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Ron and Jan Tyson always sit at the first booth inside the main doors of the monthly gun club shows in Burnaby.
Their table is stacked tall with an impressive collection of empty shotgun shell boxes from around the world, old photographs of the couple's favourite guns, cap guns and other collectibles which Jan refers to as "Pioneeria" - North American memorabilia such as a powder horn that was originally carved in the early 1800s.
Collecting guns and all things associated with firearms has been a lifelong obsession for the couple, who are founding members of the Historical Arms Collectors Society of B.C.
"My cousin started me out when I was three or four years old," says Ron, a tall and lanky senior citizen with crew cut hair and a straight back. "My cousin was a hunter guide, and he'd give me all his old shotgun shells and boxes.
"I collected cartridges because I was too young to own a gun."
But when he turned six years old, that restriction on owning a gun was lifted in a family ritual that was common across Canada during the first half of the last century. Ron remembers it like it was yesterday. His first gun was a Model 27 Hamilton, .22-calibre rifle.
"My dad used to take me hunting when I was so small, he had to carry me home," he says. "But I also knew what a gun was capable of doing. There was no doubt in my mind you had to be careful with one."
When Ron met Jan, his lifelong love of guns turned into a family affair. By 1970, the couple were founding members of the historical arms society, which was primarily founded as a social club for hundreds of local gun enthusiasts.
"Today, the club is more of a social thing, but when we started it was all about collecting, meeting people and trading. Trading is a big part of collecting," Ron said.
Some club members travel across the continent, or even around the world, visiting similar gun collector shows.
"The people you meet are the salt of the earth," Ron said. "I remember being in Saskatoon one time, and our van was robbed. We lost pretty heavily. Somebody at the show came up and said 'I've got $1,000 in my pocket, and it's yours if you want it.'"
In Burnaby, the shows run from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the third Sunday of each month, except in April, August and December, at the Operating Engineers Hall on Ledger Avenue.
One collector who occasionally attends the Burnaby shows is an Okanagan resident with a collection of Canadian military arms used during the Riel rebellion. Another has a collection of French weaponry that was used in the Franco-American wars.
Jan has her own specialty - something she calls 'trench art,' which is any memorabilia or items that would have been found on a battlefield around the era of the First World War.
The Tysons have travelled as far afield as Toronto, Ontario and Russellville, Ark. for gun shows.
Some of the things they see would shock the weak of heart. One of those surprises is Tony Cowling, a Richmond resident who wrote the book My Life with the Samurai, chronicling the torture he underwent as a prisoner of war. Other booths offer collections of knives and bayonets, military history books, empty mortar shells, American Civil War memorabilia and even swastika-bearing items from Nazi Germany.
Ron notes that some of the most famous people in the world such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Walt Disney and Col. Saunders, were all gun collectors.
"You're not going to meet a better class of people," adds his wife Jan.
But Ron admits the world has changed dramatically in the past 50 years, and he also believes that guns and gun owners have unfairly been given a bad reputation.
Like most people in the gun fraternity, Ron believes in the need for strong guns laws, but he's not happy with the proposals contained in Bill C-68, the federal Firearms Act.
"I think the misuse of a firearm in any way - especially in the commission of a crime - should carry a heavy sentence," he said. "One thing I agree with in the present law is that all gun owners should be licensed, they must pass a test and they should have their background checked.
"I think that's a good thing, and I don't think anybody in the gun fraternity has an argument against that.
"But the whole thing is wrong. The gun registry act is 450 pages long."
Tyson says gun collectors are law abiding citizens who do not want to run afoul of the government.
But he and other gun enthusiasts are adamantly against the need to register every long gun or rifle in the country. Ron believes that as long as the rifle owner has a firearms license, and the firearm is not a high-powered tactical weapon, nor easily concealed, there is little need to have it registered.
He does, however, agree with the need to register handguns, which are more easily concealed, and are the weapon of choice for armed robbers.
But the high costs off the registry - federal auditor general Sheila Fraser recently revealed the registry is about $1 billion over budget - and the seemingly endless amounts of red tape needed to register weapons, is driving many lawful gun owners to simply give up their collections and destroy their old guns.
Ron said he gave up his old collection of 300 guns several years ago, partly out of lack of storage space, and partly because of the onerous registration process.
Ron also knows of Lower Mainland families who have destroyed valuable heirlooms - 200 year-old guns - rather than go through the registration process.
And he believes the gun fraternity has been abandoned by its own friends, such as federal environment minister David Anderson, a one-time gun collector who once attended gun shows.
Ron believes the registry is a violation of his right to private ownership.
"A lot of these weapons are works of art, and art is in the eye of the beholder," he said. "Not everyone sees beauty in a Van Gogh painting, but lots of people see beauty and art in guns."