PUBLICATION:  The Edmonton Sun 

DATE:  2002.09.20

EDITION:  Final 

SECTION:  News 

PAGE:  5 

ILLUSTRATION: photo by Preston Brownschlaigle, Edmonton Sun Randy Schultz shows the errant paperwork. 

SOURCE:  BY DAN PALMER, EDMONTON SUN 

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GUN REGISTRY GETS BOTH BARRELS

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Ottawa will have to start looking at tombstones if it wants a dead Edmonton man to register his guns, says the grandson of the deceased.  "It's a joke, a mockery, this whole registration system," Randy Schultz said yesterday. "If they find (my dead grandfather), they're more than welcome to arrest him."

Schultz, who purchased his grandfather's home after the man died, received a letter from the federal government dated Aug. 9, 2002. The letter asked his grandfather, Hulbert Henry Orser, to take his <firearms> registered in the previous Restricted Weapons Registration System, and re-register them in the new Canadian Firearms Registration System.

"For each restricted firearm not re-registered by Dec. 31, 2002, you will be in possession of an unregistered restricted firearm, which is contrary to the Criminal Code," it states.

Orser died Oct. 23, 1981. Although the letter doesn't specify which guns Orser needs to register, Schultz said he's assuming Ottawa is talking about a German-made pistol his grandfather owned. Handguns had to be registered under previous legislation while the three rifles he owned didn't.

Schultz said the handgun was given to a relative out of province, who later gave it to a collector. The rifles were passed to Orser's son, who died more than 10 years ago.

Canadian Firearms Centre spokesman David Austin said letters are being sent out to verify data being moved from the old paper-based restricted firearms registry to the new computerized one. He said the letter was sent to Orser because his family probably never told authorities about a change.

Not so, Schultz said. After his grandfather died, Schultz said he took the handgun to Edmonton RCMP, who sent the handgun to a Yukon relative. The relative later gave the handgun to an Edmonton-area collector who deactivated the firearm. Again, the RCMP moved the handgun.

Austin said it wasn't incumbent on the police under the old registration system to notify Ottawa about such a change.