Shootin' off, smokin' up

By: Kathleen Harris, Ottawa Sun, 07/30/03

Try as they might, these gun-loving lawbreakers just can't get busted.

After a month-long coast-to-coast quest to get arrested, six firearms owners who are defying the federal registry law arrived to protest on Parliament Hill yesterday.

"We want our day in court, and so far the government has been reluctant to give us our day in court," said Bruce Montague of Dryden, Ont.

"We want, sincerely, to get in front of a judge and have the judge kill this law."

The gunsmith/repair shop owner vowed he would endure a jail term before he'd comply with the "asinine" registry program.

'ROTTING CORPSE'

Al Muir of Saskatoon accused the government of misleading the public about compliance numbers and predicted police will never enforce it. "This law is a rotting corpse the federal government refuses to bury."

The group, members of the 400-head Canadian Unregistered Firearms Owners Association, travelled to each provincial capital from Victoria to St. John's in a bid to challenge the gun registry's constitutionality.

Also protesting on the Hill yesterday was a group of patients who smoked joints and burned their Health Canada exemptions to demonstrate dismay over the feds' handling of medical marijuana.

Don Appleby of Ottawa, an AIDS patient who lives on a disability pension, said he won't be able to afford the proposed federal fees for pot.

"Where are people supposed to be coming up with this money? Five dollars a gram for second-grade medicine is not worth it," he said, estimating his required supply would cost him up to $1,500 a month.

Rick Reimer, a retired lawyer who suffers from multiple sclerosis, slammed the feds for erecting barriers to those who need weed.

"It's an insult to every taxpayer, and it's an even bigger insult to sick people who need marijuana and they're forced to go through hoops," he said. "It's shameful."