Juno News - August 07, 2021


Episode 4： Guns as a Way of Life ｜ Assaulted

Topics
gun ownership in Canada
Mentioned
Ryan Stacey John Banovich Eddie Maurice Leonardo DiCaprio Justin Trudeau Rod Giltaka Okotoks
When the “experts” turn out to be partisan activists Reclaiming our culture

Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

155.46

Word count

3,420

Sentence count

235

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we discuss self-defence in the rural setting and the role of a firearm in self-defense. Since the arrival of Europeans in North America, firearms have been a crucial and celebrated part of Canadian life. From becoming essential to hunt and eventually adopted by Indigenous people, firearms are part of a tradition that has lasted in Canada and still exists to this very day. Although that doesn t mean that those who are involved in tragic situations where they need to do such a thing, do not have to defend themselves and prove that point time and time again.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Since the arrival of Europeans in North America, firearms have been a crucial and celebrated part of Canadian life.
00:00:12.000 From becoming essential to hunt and eventually adopted by Indigenous people, 0.99
00:00:17.000 firearms are part of a tradition that has lasted in Canada and still exists to this very day.
00:00:22.000 A lot of people in cities cannot conceptualize why a firearm would be necessary,
00:00:28.000 not realizing there are swaths of Canadians across the country from west to east and north to south
00:00:34.000 who use firearms to feed themselves and their families, who use them as a hobby, who use them also for protection.
00:00:41.000 Rural crime continues to be on the rise.
00:00:44.000 Police response times are sometimes in the hours.
00:00:48.000 Using a firearm in self-defense is legal in Canada and this has been demonstrated in court decision after court decision after court decision.
00:00:57.000 Although that doesn't mean that those who are involved in tragic situations where they need to do such a thing,
00:01:03.000 do not have to defend themselves and prove that point time and time again.
00:01:07.000 One such person is Eddie Maurice in Alberta.
00:01:10.000 In 2018, he was at his home outside Okotoks when he heard someone on his property,
00:01:16.000 quite a rare phenomenon for that part of the province, and went to check it out.
00:01:20.000 Basically, I just opened that door and then I seen the criminals that were inside my vehicle and I just started yelling at them to leave.
00:01:30.000 And they weren't. They were still going about just stealing my stuff.
00:01:35.000 So, you know, at that point, that's when you're just like, OK, what do you do?
00:01:42.000 How do you handle it?
00:01:44.000 You know, my first inclination is I was home by myself with my youngest daughter.
00:01:50.000 You know, grab a firearm because I don't know who's here, what's happening and get them off my property.
00:01:58.000 You know, one of those things, split second decisions.
00:02:01.000 And what did you do?
00:02:03.000 So that's when I fired a horn shot off, you know, into the ground where it's safe operation of it.
00:02:11.000 And then they finally did take off after they realized, like, you know, I'm there and they need to leave.
00:02:21.000 The bullet ricocheted and hit the criminal.
00:02:24.000 Eddie Maurice was charged with aggravated assault and careless use of a firearm.
00:02:29.000 Charges it took tens of thousands of dollars, six months and six court appearances to defeat.
00:02:35.000 He was successful, although that didn't stop him from having to shell out the legal bills.
00:02:39.000 It also didn't stop police from for a time suspending his firearms license and seizing his firearms.
00:02:45.000 You know, when you're in the middle of nowhere and it's pitch black outside, you know, people don't understand that you can't see anything.
00:02:55.000 You can't see anything. You can't hear anything.
00:02:57.000 And you don't know there are two, six, ten people around your place.
00:03:03.000 So, no, it's one of those you have it.
00:03:07.000 I don't want to use it, but you've got to scare someone.
00:03:10.000 Like, because nowadays criminals, you know, you hear the stories.
00:03:14.000 They're always armed. They have weapons. They're hurting other people.
00:03:18.000 Why not just call the police?
00:03:21.000 Well, I did.
00:03:23.000 And, you know, the response time, you know, they didn't show up on the property for two hours.
00:03:28.000 So what do you want to do for two hours is kind of sit on the couch, wait.
00:03:33.000 Hopefully no one comes to the house.
00:03:36.000 They just touch your vehicles and walk away.
00:03:39.000 You know, it's all those unknowns of what's going to happen.
00:03:44.000 And when you're in a rural setting, I guess a lot of people in the city or towns, they don't understand.
00:03:50.000 It's not only the police response, but you're the first responder for any emergency on your place.
00:03:58.000 You know, if you have a fire, well, the response time for the fire department is going to be the exact same as the police.
00:04:04.000 So what are you going to do for an hour is let your house burn or are you going to try to help put it out and then, you know, wait for them to show up to help you.
00:04:14.000 When the situation happens, you're talking seconds to minutes.
00:04:18.000 You're not talking enough time to call the cops to get them to come out to your place.
00:04:23.000 As Eddie mentioned, it took the RCMP two hours from the 911 call to arrive.
00:04:28.000 And when they did, they weren't exactly there to help.
00:04:31.000 It was three cop cars driving in.
00:04:36.000 I was just I just assumed that they were coming here to tell me, hey, we caught them so forth.
00:04:41.000 You know, is everything OK?
00:04:44.000 They actually pulled up. They got out.
00:04:46.000 They had their guns drawn.
00:04:48.000 And it was pretty much I opened the front door and they're like, you're under arrest and you need to come with us.
00:04:54.000 This rural urban divide is one of the biggest issues in the firearms discourse.
00:04:59.000 People in cities are making these decisions to win the votes of other people in cities who have never touched a firearm in their life and may not have ever met a firearms owner in their life.
00:05:09.000 Nonetheless, these problems that exist for rural Canadians and the cultural attitudes towards firearms exist.
00:05:15.000 It isn't just farmers and ranchers who have firearms as a part of their existence and identity, however.
00:05:21.000 John Banovich is a longtime member of the film industry.
00:05:24.000 He's a documentary producer and videographer who specializes in shooting bears.
00:05:29.000 No, not shooting them with firearms, shooting them with this much more beautiful weapon, his camera.
00:05:34.000 He goes deep into the wilderness to film Canada's nature and splendor and beauty.
00:05:39.000 But doing so, as he admits, sometimes brings some unpredictability.
00:05:43.000 When we get to these remote locations, there isn't any cell service.
00:05:47.000 There is an internet. It's very remote.
00:05:50.000 I mean, yes, you can usually have a GPS transponder of some kind for emergencies and press a button and hopefully somebody comes in, you know, a day or two.
00:06:01.000 But it's not quick response at all.
00:06:04.000 So there's very little support at all for us once we're in these remote locations.
00:06:10.000 We bring along measures like, you know, bells and we can set up a parameter on camp.
00:06:14.000 So when we're sleeping at night, you know, there's some simple methods that we can use to at least warn us.
00:06:21.000 We bring bear spray, although bear spray is, for the most part, relatively ineffective.
00:06:26.000 In perfect conditions, sure. But this is Canada.
00:06:31.000 There's always a wind. There's always rain. There's always snow.
00:06:34.000 There's always weather conditions, which really hamper the effectiveness of bear spray.
00:06:40.000 Firearms are our most efficient and effective tool.
00:06:43.000 For the longest time, John had what's known as an authorization to carry or an ATC, a rare but legal permit allowing him to carry a handgun on his person for limited purposes, such as going out into the bush where you are your best and only line of defense.
00:07:00.000 Shortly after the Liberals came to power, however, the government made it more and more difficult for people to get ATCs, including renewals for people like John who had had them for years.
00:07:11.000 It is virtually impossible to get an ATC anymore.
00:07:14.000 So now we've had to default to something much bigger, much heavier, much slower, less effective, carrying a shotgun on my back.
00:07:22.000 And if you can imagine having this camera on my shoulder and carrying this tripod on the other side of my body under my arm and wearing a shotgun on my back.
00:07:30.000 Now, wildlife encounters, especially bears and cougars, they don't happen at great distances.
00:07:36.000 For example, I'm not going to see the cougar coming from 100 meters away.
00:07:40.000 It's going to know about me long before I know about it.
00:07:43.000 Usually there's surprise encounters and they're in a very short range, a very short distance, which does not give me much time to respond.
00:07:49.000 You may think, well, what's the big deal?
00:07:51.000 He's still allowed to carry a gun, just not his handgun.
00:07:54.000 What's wrong with having a shotgun?
00:07:56.000 Well, John demonstrated without the firearms, mind you, the difference between how he would respond to an impending animal attack with a shotgun versus with the handgun he had been allowed to carry for years without issue.
00:08:09.000 Now, I've got a shotgun back here, it's getting tangled up in my tripod and in my long lens, it's getting tangled up.
00:08:16.000 Even if I wear it across my back, right diagonally, it's still, when I drop this, it's going to get tangled up.
00:08:21.000 So, oh, there's a bear. Drop the tripod.
00:08:23.000 Now I've got to get both hands out here and, you know, chamber around and get ready.
00:08:27.000 Versus, versus the other method, the old method, the more efficient method, which is bear.
00:08:36.000 Can you see the difference? Holy cow, right?
00:08:40.000 I mean, I go home. I get to go home to my family.
00:08:43.000 Versus, okay, now that bear's had several more seconds to get on me.
00:08:49.000 In the bush, that difference of a couple of seconds can be the difference between life and death.
00:08:55.000 John doesn't want to herd animals, but he wants to be able to protect himself when he's at work capturing the beauty of the Canadian wilderness.
00:09:03.000 The government doesn't seem to care.
00:09:05.000 They're punishing me, a law-abiding firearm owner.
00:09:10.000 They're punishing me for trying to do my job.
00:09:13.000 I would think that they'd want to support me because I pay taxes.
00:09:16.000 And wouldn't they want to collect my taxes?
00:09:18.000 Just saying. I mean, that's one way to, you know, fund our national debt is to have people working and supporting themselves,
00:09:26.000 and not being a burden to the system, but actually providing to the system.
00:09:30.000 After all, I mean, I'm a Canadian. I pay taxes. That makes me part of the government, you know, from a logical standpoint.
00:09:38.000 So I would hope that they would see the benefit in this, allowing me to do my job and allowing me to do my job safely.
00:09:45.000 And I want to go home at the end of my work day, just like a police officer and just like anyone else.
00:09:52.000 I'm sure all those politicians in Ottawa, they want to go home, too, at the end of their day.
00:09:57.000 And they want to go home and be safe and spend time with their family. I'm no different.
00:10:01.000 An aspect of gun culture that's often overlooked is civilian ownership of non-civilians, people in the armed forces, veterans, active or retired police officers.
00:10:12.000 One of those is Ryan Stacey, a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who now consults on firearms for film.
00:10:19.000 He was the armorer on the film The Revenant, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio.
00:10:23.000 Ryan Stacey, while a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, fought on the shooting team around the world, including winning the coveted Bisley tournament in the United Kingdom.
00:10:33.000 He continued competing after he left the armed forces.
00:10:37.000 The military guys are shooting C7, but the reality of the civilian side is the AR-15 is probably the most accurate platform out there.
00:10:46.000 And it's really the only one that can put you at the top for those elite level scores.
00:10:52.000 And accuracy, because it is an accuracy game.
00:10:56.000 Ryan Stacey's competition firearm is, or was, the AR-15.
00:11:01.000 A popular, albeit misunderstood, semi-automatic firearm made for the civilian market specifically.
00:11:08.000 It's lightweight and customizable, and now prohibited in Canada.
00:11:13.000 Justin Trudeau's May 2020 Order and Council made it illegal to transport, fire, or sell AR-15s.
00:11:20.000 Meaning Ryan can no longer compete using the firearm that has won him medals and trophies around the world.
00:11:26.000 Now I can take it out of my safe, oogle it and drool on it, and then put it back in the safe.
00:11:32.000 This is the first light that it's seen since May, because I can't even take it in practice with it anymore.
00:11:38.000 Despite the federal government's promise of a buyback program, nothing has yet materialized.
00:11:44.000 Even though in May 2022, less than a year from now, the two-year amnesty period is set to expire.
00:11:51.000 Nevertheless, the promise to give gun owners some compensation for seizing their property is cold comfort to Ryan.
00:11:58.000 I would ask the government how much this AR-15 is worth.
00:12:02.000 It's won 16 or 17 provincial championships.
00:12:06.000 It's won six national championships in a row.
00:12:09.000 It's set almost every record on the books in the DCRA.
00:12:13.000 And how much are they going to give me for it?
00:12:16.000 It's a piece of Canadian history.
00:12:18.000 Is it going to be 800 bucks?
00:12:19.000 1300 bucks?
00:12:20.000 What's fair for a piece of Canadian history?
00:12:22.000 And it's going to sound kind of hokey, but it probably should be in a museum somewhere at some point in the future,
00:12:28.000 because it's done something that no other AR-15 has ever done in Canadian history and service rifle history.
00:12:38.000 It's won six national championships in a row.
00:12:41.000 And it's set the highest score ever shot.
00:12:44.000 I don't know.
00:12:46.000 What are they going to give me for it?
00:12:48.000 What's fair?
00:12:49.000 It's a valid question and one the government isn't answering.
00:12:53.000 Ryan's time on the Canadian Armed Forces competitive shooting team made him a better soldier, he says.
00:12:59.000 But he needed to supplement his military training with private practice as a licensed gun owner.
00:13:05.000 Obviously shoot, move and communicate. Shoot is the first one.
00:13:08.000 So you're not a viable soldier. You're not effective unless you can shoot. 0.99
00:13:13.000 Now there's shooting and there's actual shooting.
00:13:17.000 I wanted to achieve the actual shooting, which was far beyond just your basic personal weapons test qualifications
00:13:27.000 and your 80 rounds a year or whatever is to make you qualified, which is a joke.
00:13:33.000 Even being on a military shooting team, there was just not enough practice to make you that elite level shooter that I wanted to be at.
00:13:40.000 So for me, having my own AR-15 was 100% massive factor of getting to that level.
00:13:48.000 So I had to put down a lot of time and money and my own all my own stuff to get to that elite level.
00:13:56.000 So when I got out of the military, I thought, well, I can't give this up because I'm sort of at that level and I want to keep it going.
00:14:02.000 Even after speaking with numerous gun owners about the effect of the Order and Council on their lives,
00:14:08.000 Ryan shared a concern I hadn't heard before, one that quite frankly shocked me. 0.97
00:14:13.000 I do worry about the military folks as well because it will come back to bite us in the ass at some point overseas. 0.85
00:14:20.000 Yeah, I know for a fact that there were guys that shot on military shooting teams that may or may not have survived some of the contacts that they had overseas in Afghanistan. 0.73
00:14:34.000 If they weren't able to deploy the tactics and skills that they had learned shooting in service rifle competitions in particular.
00:14:43.000 When we started getting ready for the OIC, I collected a lot of thoughts from guys that had shot on shooting teams, but it also served overseas.
00:14:54.000 And my basic question was, did what you learn on the shooting teams help you overseas, a shooting service rifle, help you overseas during the conflict?
00:15:06.000 And I have a pile of letters from guys that say exactly that same thing.
00:15:11.000 That, yeah, 100% absolutely.
00:15:13.000 When the government and the media take aim at the AR-15 and try to link that model of firearm with gun violence,
00:15:20.000 they're maligning law-abiding sports shooters, many of whom are active or former members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
00:15:27.000 Yeah, they do say get another hobby, but I will tell you that this is not a hobby for a lot of us.
00:15:34.000 For the people that are in the military, it's part of their life.
00:15:37.000 And that portion of their life could go on to help them save their own lives or somebody else's life overseas in combat.
00:15:48.000 For the civilian shooters, this isn't a hobby.
00:15:53.000 We were born to shoot service rifle and to do these things.
00:15:57.000 Me in particular, I think really that's my calling is to shoot at an elite level and to teach people to shoot at an elite level.
00:16:06.000 And it's more than just a hobby.
00:16:11.000 Like when I go back to Ottawa to shoot at Nationals, I go to see my other family, basically.
00:16:18.000 The guys and girls that I don't get to see for a year.
00:16:22.000 You know, we're all camped in the same houses and in the same area and, you know, there's a mess there.
00:16:30.000 So there's always that community that, you know, you come together once a year and you trade your stories and you see everybody and you compete.
00:16:39.000 And it's pretty awesome to be amongst people that are of the same mindset as you are.
00:16:46.000 It's really, it's so much more than the shooting that's been taken away.
00:16:51.000 Yeah, it's, it's just hard to, to fathom that the government has done this supposedly.
00:17:00.000 It's not affecting sports shooters.
00:17:01.000 Well, I can tell you that it is.
00:17:03.000 It's affecting a lot of people a lot more than what they say.
00:17:06.000 So it's, it's pretty tough.
00:17:09.000 Like we're just regular people that go out and, and have this as part of our being.
00:17:15.000 So, um, yeah, it's, it sucks that it's been taken away from everybody just for no reason.
00:17:22.000 To get votes really is really what it comes down to.
00:17:25.000 When I set out on this project earlier this year, I expected what I'd find would be a group of Canadians who are dejected, discouraged and demoralized.
00:17:34.000 After all, they have good reason to be something they've invested tens of thousands of dollars, years of their life into as being vilified and maligned by the government.
00:17:43.000 Well, certainly I encountered a lot of frustration and in some cases anger.
00:17:48.000 I also saw a great deal of resilience.
00:17:51.000 Whether it was the competition shooter, the mom and pop gun store owner, or anyone else who fits into this rich tapestry of firearms ownership in Canada.
00:17:59.000 What I saw from these folks was a sense of community and a sense of resilience.
00:18:04.000 They're not going to take an order in council or a ham fisted bill like C21 lying down.
00:18:10.000 They're going to stand up and they're going to say, no, we are a part of this country and we have every right to be heard and every right to exist.
00:18:17.000 As Rod Giltaka said, they're not seeking anything more than being left alone.
00:18:22.000 Well, it's not a hobby. It's a culture. It's a lifestyle. It's our identity.
00:18:30.000 There are a lot of cultures and a lot of identities that I don't identify with, that I don't see value in.
00:18:36.000 But never do I think, you know what, if those people just evaporated, that would be fine with me.
00:18:42.000 I couldn't care less. Or I'd really like to see the government really crush them.
00:18:46.000 This is a problem. And this is why, despite our political adversary saying, this isn't dividing Canadians, you're dividing Canadians for making a big deal about it.
00:18:56.000 It's like, no, the government is dividing Canadians in a time where division is out of control.
00:19:03.000 You have Canadians sitting back right now, maybe even watching this, that would think, yeah, I have no problem with the police using force,
00:19:13.000 breaking the doors of the homes of gun owners down with a ram and taking their things because I don't own any guns and I don't know why anyone would own guns.
00:19:23.000 We've owned guns for hundreds of years in Canada for good and sufficient reasons.
00:19:28.000 And, you know, people need to start thinking about those things before they cheerlead the government using force against an identifiable group of Canadians.
00:19:37.000 More importantly, gun owners in this country are enjoying and embracing the fact that they're partaking in a hobby and a sport that is immensely normal.
00:19:46.000 And it's brought them together with people from all walks of life, from all corners of the country.
00:19:50.000 And that is what gun ownership is in Canada.
00:19:53.000 It's not about criminality, it's not about extremism, it's about community and passion.
00:19:58.000 Thank you so much for watching.
00:20:00.000 Thanks for watching, and we'll probably finish in spot.
00:20:04.000 People watching!
00:20:06.000 Your good luck!
00:20:08.000 It was fun.
00:20:09.000 You know?
00:20:10.000 The
00:20:11.920 y deployed
00:20:12.000 and my
00:20:14.080 tv
00:20:30.000 We'll be right back.
00:21:00.000 We'll be right back.
00:21:30.000 We'll be right back.