Western Standard - April 16, 2022


Cory chats with CSSA Executive Director Tony Bernardo


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

188.70271

Word count

961

Sentence count

92

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, we talk with Tony Bernardo of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association and Corey Morgan of the Western Standard about their booth at the Calgary Gun Show. We also talk about the need for provinces to have their own Chief Firearms Officers in Alberta and other provinces across the country.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.080 I'm Corey Morgan with the Western Standard. We're at the Calgary Gun Show and I'm here at the Canadian Shooting Sports Association set up here with Tony Bernardo who's been running the Canadian Shooting Sports Association for some time.
00:00:14.080 It's always a tongue twister for me on the shows. It's good to see you here. How's it been going?
00:00:17.500 Oh, it's fantastic. It's wonderful to have the Calgary Gun Show back. It's an enthusiasm of people that are coming out. They're buying guns and ammo and it's just absolutely wonderful to have it back again.
00:00:28.260 Yeah, it's so nice to get out to in-person things again. I mean, there's only so much you can do online, so much you can do through Zoom meetings and particularly that trade show where people want to get out and handle and look at firearms and communicate with each other. It's really important.
00:00:39.080 Oh, absolutely. And we're so glad to be back to normal, at least for the most part, you know.
00:00:43.820 We're almost there.
00:00:44.700 Yeah, we're almost there and people are just loving this. They're having the greatest time. And nice to have the Western Standard year too.
00:00:51.900 Oh, we couldn't stay away from this. There's no way. It's just I got to watch for making any impulse buys that I didn't plan on.
00:00:58.260 So with you guys, maybe we can explain your organization a little bit. You've had a very busy booth and table here. What are you guys all about?
00:01:04.440 Well, we've been around 62 years of this year. We are right across the country, coast to coast, every territory.
00:01:12.300 And we've been doing the Lord's work in Ottawa now for almost 30 years.
00:01:17.820 Yeah, well, you've certainly got your work cut out for you out there. I mean, there's just an ongoing push to try and take away people's rights and ability to enjoy firearms.
00:01:26.080 And you guys have been kind of standing up for that for a long time now.
00:01:28.720 Oh, we sure have been. And, you know, we're planning for the future with the Liberals in Ottawa.
00:01:33.720 They're very intransigent. It's hard to get anything out of the Liberals sensible.
00:01:37.220 So we've been working with provinces. And Alberta is a great example of that.
00:01:42.340 And you have a new chief firearms officer in Alberta, Terry Jane Bryant.
00:01:47.020 And Terry is wonderful. She's been doing such great work.
00:01:51.140 And I got to put a plug in for her here because this is a new thing for Alberta. 1.00
00:01:55.260 And Alberta is really blessed to have somebody who's not just someone who understands,
00:01:59.800 but someone who advocates for firearms use, safe and responsible use, of course.
00:02:03.960 Yeah, well, it's good to report on something positive every now and then. It's nice.
00:02:07.620 So there's progress being made in areas. And if we can do it here, then other provinces can do it as well.
00:02:11.660 Well, that's correct. And Saskatchewan already has as well.
00:02:14.940 And we know that there are other provinces in Canada that are looking at this
00:02:18.900 and figuring out ways to best adapt their own particular situations to having their own provincial firearms officers.
00:02:26.700 It's just a great situation.
00:02:28.300 And the feds have let the provinces down so miserably on the way they've been doing things.
00:02:34.860 And, of course, there's been issues with our CMP running this program for a long time.
00:02:40.300 And that's starting to come home to roost.
00:02:42.980 Well, it's good that we can bring those home.
00:02:44.400 So, I mean, you're an association.
00:02:45.920 You offer a lot of resources for firearms owners, even people considering getting into firearm ownership.
00:02:51.320 Another thing you have been doing, though, is you guys have legal challenges out on behalf of firearm owners right now?
00:02:55.640 Yeah, we don't have anything against the current federal government at this moment.
00:02:59.440 We've done many of them in the past.
00:03:00.980 Okay.
00:03:01.580 Okay.
00:03:02.500 And we do training courses and we educate clubs on how to best manage ranges
00:03:07.200 and how to get people to come out and have a safe and wonderful time at the shooting range.
00:03:12.300 Well, that's it. It's just so important to promote it.
00:03:14.240 I mean, it just gets the wrong, you know, some people are putting the wrong impression.
00:03:17.720 It's a fun, safe hobby sport, whatever a person may want to do with firearms.
00:03:22.280 But it's important to have resources to know that you're doing it correctly and safely for everybody.
00:03:26.320 Well, absolutely.
00:03:27.180 As a matter of fact, shooting and hunting is one of the safest sports in Canada.
00:03:32.240 Many, many times safer than sports like hockey and golf, believe it or not.
00:03:38.000 And people don't know how many ranges there are.
00:03:40.600 But there are about the same number of ranges in Canada as McDonald's restaurants.
00:03:45.620 That is a lot, absolutely.
00:03:49.540 That's right.
00:03:49.980 So you guys have been set up here.
00:03:51.520 Are you going to be doing more shows in the near future here?
00:03:54.140 Oh, yeah.
00:03:54.540 We're in Alberta for many, many of the shows.
00:03:56.820 We do probably 50% of them anyway in Alberta.
00:04:00.720 Okay.
00:04:01.080 So I know your website is cssa-cila.org.
00:04:05.440 Correct.
00:04:05.580 And if people Google Canadian Shooting Sports Association, they can find you.
00:04:09.640 And you guys are always seeking new members, I imagine, right?
00:04:11.920 Absolutely.
00:04:12.620 We have a huge count of members now.
00:04:14.940 One of the largest groups in the country.
00:04:16.940 And we'll be more than happy to take some more.
00:04:19.480 I really appreciate that talking to you today.
00:04:21.220 Tony, is there anything else you'd like to add before I let you get back to manning the table here?
00:04:24.720 Oh, thank you for doing the work of freedom with the Western Standard.
00:04:27.820 That's fantastic.
00:04:28.760 Thank you.
00:04:29.280 All right.
00:04:29.600 Thanks, Tony.
00:04:30.100 Good to talk to you.
00:04:30.700 Thank you.
00:04:35.580 Good to talk to you.